My Metamorphmagus (A Teddy Lupin Love Story) By: K.C.M

Chapter 5

"Hey, Carly!" Teddy said as I was just getting up to leave. "Haven't seen you around." He said. "Well, ya know different grades, different houses, it happens." The triplets suddenly ran up to us and the boys sat down on the ground and got comfy. "Hi Carly!" Edgar said. "Hi Edgar. What's up?"

"Sis has something to tell you! Go on!" He said, giving her a playful kick. Emma was red-faced and hanging her head low, not really looking into my eyes. "I, uh, wanted to say I'm sorry. About what I said about Hufflepuff on the train. They're not losers." She said barely above a whisper.

"Ya know, I actually don't care. I don't think of myself as a Hufflepuff anyway." All four of them stared at me in shock. "But- but-" Edward began. "The sorting hat placed you there!" Edgar finished his brother's sentence. "I know, but I just don't fit in with any of them."

"You've been here for two days! You haven't had time to see if you fit in!" Teddy complained. "Hufflepuffs are great! They have wayyy more respect now since so many of them stayed during the Battle of Hogwarts!" Emma added. "No one should be ashamed of their house."

"I'm not ashamed Teddy! I just think the hat might have been wrong."

"It wasn't wrong. Truth is, I thought you would get in Hufflepuff."

"What? And you didn't tell me!"

"Well what did you want me to do. Say 'Oh no Carly, I don't think you'll be with the four of us! I think your going to be in the house that Emma said all the losers go to'!"

"Oh, I guess."

"Yeah, so here's an idea, you actually try to make friends, accept the fact that you're in Hufflepuff, and tell us in a month if you still think you don't belong there. Deal?" Teddy stuck his hand out. I thought about it for a second then decided, "What could go wrong?"

I shook his hand and said, "Deal."

Almost a month had passed since then. Things were going good. My classes were easy, and I had made a couple of friends. There was the triplets and Teddy of course, then there was Austin, Amelia, Harper, and, surprisingly, Austin's sister, Alice. She was in Ravenclaw and helped me with some magic a couple of times. Alice had grown to be my closest friend besides Teddy. My last friend was Gracie. We have a strange friendship, speaking as she's dead. When we met, I was fairly freaked out. I had seen the ghosts at Hogwarts before, but none of them like Gracie, she was my age. "What the crap?!?" I had said when she said hello. "Oh, sorry to scare you."

"It's okay, you didn't mean to. Unless you did, then it's not okay." She gave a light, airy chuckle. "I didn't mean to."

"Well, okay then. What's your name?"

"Gracie. And yours?"

"Carlysle." We were friends from then on. I later learned how she died. Gracie died in the Battle of Hogwarts. They didn't want any first years to stay and fight, so she hid. Gracie was later killed by a Death Eater, who laughed as her body fell. That's when Gracie became a ghost.

I was walking through the hall when I heard Alice yelling behind me. "Carlysle! Wait up!" I stopped while she ran up beside me. "Where you going?" She asked. "Out to the lake."

"I'll escort you because I'm bored."

"Hey, Alice, wait up." Before I knew it, Austin was beside me as well. When those two stood close to each other, it was painfully clear that they were siblings. "Me and Carlysle were just going out to the Black Lake."

"I'll go too. If you'll let me of course."

"Why not." I said, already walking out the door.

We got to the lake moments later. There was a big, winding oak tree not far from the edge that had a few low hanging branches. It's a great climbing tree. I was up it before Austin and Alice were comfortably sitting down. My leg hung down and swung inches from Austin's head. "Watch it cowgirl." He said playfully. "That's such a stereotype!" I said laughing. We stayed there and talked until the sun started to come down. "We better go back inside." Alice insisted. They were just starting to get up when I stopped them. "Wait! This is the best part!" Sunsets are great. My dad tells me that sunrises and sunsets happen when the sky and the ground meet, so the world bursts into colour. Sure enough, there were pinks, oranges, and purples in the sky. "Wow." They said together. I took a deep breath and jumped down from the tree. "Let's go." As we were walking back to the castle, we heard a lot of shouting. I could hear Emma and someone else who I couldn't make out. There was cussing and then a duel. "Come on, let's go!" I yelled. I ran ahead of them to the origin of screaming and saw Emma sprawled on the ground. Her nose was bloody and she wasn't moving. "Emma!" Edgar yelled as he too came around the corner. A figure shoved by me and I didn't see a face, but guessed it had to be who did this to Emma. "Hey, stop!" Of course they didn't stop and I pulled out my wand. We still hadn't learned many spells so I screamed out the only one that I could actually think of. "Windgardium Leviosa!" Absolutely nothing nothing happened. "It's swish and flick! Not flail your wand around hopelessly trying to make something happen!" Alice shouted from behind me. "Oh shut it!" I screamed and then moved my wand as she told me. "Windgardium Leviosa!" The person running froze and quickly lifted up off the ground. They must have been at least ten feet. "I did it. I actually did it. Alice look I-" then the person fell with a scream. Alice walked up beside me and put her hand on my shoulder. "You're also supposed to stay focused."

"Well it worked either way, he's out cold!" Edgar yelled as he checked him out. "Who's the little-" Alice gave Austin a look that made him not finish the sentence. "I don't know, some older bloke!"

"Where's Edward?" I asked.

"He went to get a teacher, got here before me and Emma told him to that was before- Merlin's beard, Emma!" He screamed and ran over to his still unconscious sister. No one had thought to move her while I kinda knocked out someone else. Edgar was now sitting on the ground with her head in his lap. They had an unusual bond, them three. "Come on Em. Wake up."

"What is going on here?" Professor Crew said with Edward beside him. He was the Muggle Studies teacher, but I didn't have that class yet. He was also the head of Hufflepuff. Austin explained the incident and explained thoroughly that I did not mean to drop the guy. "Oh my gosh, Emma!" Edward yelled. "It's okay Mr. Smith. I'll take them to the hospital wing. You five go to your common rooms."

"You mean, we're not in trouble?" Alice asked. "I didn't say that, we have to determine what happened here. Then we'll be able to properly deal with it."

"Yes sir." She said, hanging her head a little. Then we all headed to our own common rooms. Edgar and Edward were both visibly distraught as they headed to their tower and Amelia was freaking out about getting punished when she headed up to hers. Then it was just me and Austin as we descended down into the basement. "Is it hard?" I asked suddenly. "What?"

"Having your sister in a different house?"

"No, not really. I always knew she wouldn't be in the same house as me. No matter what house I was in, she wouldn't be in there."

"So when she was placed in Ravenclaw you-"

"Weren't sad? No, I was a little sad."

"I was going to say that you expected it."

"Oh." There was a brief moment of silence before he asked, "Why do you ask?"

"Well I have a little brother. By the time he's old enough to be here, I'll have graduated. But it still makes me curious. Truth is, I think he'll be in a different house. That's why I asked."

"Why do you think he'll be in a different house?"

"He's already showing signs of magic. He's only a few months old, and he's already showing freaking signs of magic." It was true. I had learned in a letter from my parents that he had made a few of his toys levitate since I had left. Yeah, I was a little jealous if a baby. "Wow, why the sudden anger?"

"I suck at magic. I never showed signs of magic. Not a single bit. We didn't even know if I was a witch or not until my letter came in! He's not even one and can make his little toys levitate. He's going to be sooo great probably and I'm over here at Hogwarts, barely able to make anything levitate when I'm eleven years old. Ya know, back in America, I made straight A's. I was great at school and then I just had to come here and ruin that! Everyone looks at me weird when I look confused because I've never heard of a spell. My dad's a wizard, but he never taught me anything because my mom didn't know he was a wizard but then it turned out she did know and I just suck!" We walked up to the entrance of the common room were Austin put in the code and I quickly ran in. Barely anyone was in the common room for some reason. "Hey, Carlysle, let's continue this over here." Austin said, pointing to a little corner with two comfy chairs and a small book case. "Fine." I was fighting really hard to hold the tears back. I sat in the chair and curled my feet up underneath me. I used my jacket sleeve to wipe my eyes off. "You're not bad at magic, Carlysle. You just haven't had the chance properly learn any yet, and as for not showing any magic, those are called late bloomers. You know Professor Longbottom?" I nodded my head. "He was a horribly late bloomer too. They were scared he wasn't a wizard. He turned out to be an amazing war hero. One of the truest Gryffindors at heart probably. Then their's Hermione Granger. She was a Muggle-Born. Never knew of magic or anything about it until she turned eleven and got her letter. She was the brightest witch of her age. Now don't you tell me that you're bad at magic. You lifted some kid up about ten feet in the air today! You can be great. You just have to make yourself that way."

"Thank you." I said, letting a few tears fall down my cheeks. I wiped my face off and Austin stood to leave when I asked, "How did you know all that stuff about Professor Longbottom? I get how you would know that stuff about Hermione, but what about him?"

He smiled and said, "He told me that stuff to cheer me up last year when I was upset about being a late bloomer." At that moment, I felt closer to him than anyone else in the world. I gave him a real quick hug and then ran up to my dorm, leaving Austin a little shocked.