How To Tame A Gryffindor

Chapter 11: In The Dead of Night

Teddy lay tossing and turning in his four poster bed in the Hufflepuff dormitory. He couldn't sleep. He kept having the same nightmare when he did eventually doze off, he could never remember it properly when he woke up but it always involved a wolf of some kind.
His tattoo glinted in the moonlight, the 7 dormant phases lay grey and dead against his skin while the waxing gibbous shone a vibrant glittery silver, much like the real moon.
Teddy decided he would go and get some hot chocolate from the kitchen, the house elves were always very helpful.
He got up and plodded out of the room as quiet as he could...until he knocked over a glass on Kent's bedside table. The glass fell to the ground with an almighty crash that perverted the sleepy silence that fell on the dorm before. Kent rose angrily.
"Teddy what in the seven hells are you doing??"
"Going to..I don't...I can't sleep..."
"Go the hell to sleep."
He pulled the covers angrily over himself and moments later he was snoring urgently once again.
"Teddy?" A soft voice whispered in the darkness; it was Jorah.
"Yeah, Jo??"
"Was it the nightmare again?" He asked, sounding genuinely concerned.
Teddy reclined on his mustard duvet and sighed deeply.
"Yup."
"Oh"
There was a comfortable silence.
"Hey Jorah?" Teddy felt braver and called.
"Yeah?"
"You know Victoire Weasley? What do you think of her?"
Jorah began to laugh, it was a heavy and rasping laugh.
"I knew it, I knew you liked someone." Jorah teased him.
"I don't know if I like her per say...but it'd be cool to meet up with her sometimes. Doesn't have to be romantic, y'know?"
"Go for it, Ted. Turn on that old werewolf charm. Unless she turns on her part-Veela charm, in which case you're screwed."
Teddy laughed, it felt a bit better knowing someone else knew this.
"Will you help me?"
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Hogwarts in the night was a scary place, it was dark and full of unexplained shadows and bumps in the night. But the darkness was almost soothing to Teddy and Jorah as they tiptoed down the corridor and up the moving staircase, glad that the night covered them and hid them from the wrath of Professor McGonagall.

When they reached the portrait of the Fat Lady, Teddy gulped. He suddenly became very aware of the fact that he was stood in the corridors at night wearing a black Muggle band t-shirt and pyjama bottoms that's stripes alternated in mustard and black. Jorah wore a huge black furry dressing gown, making him seem more colossal than ever.
"Well, what's the plan now?" Jorah asked, puzzled.
Teddy turned to the sleeping portrait.
"Um...excuse me? Hello, I'm Teddy Lupin and I'd like to speak to Victoire."
The portrait gave a giant snore in response.
"Does this woman ever do her job?" Jorah complained .
And with that, the woman in the portrait woke with a sukly expression on her face.
"I try my very best I'll have you know...it's tiring being the Gryffindor gate keeper, they don't listen to me..." Tears were welling up in her eyes.

"Oh no, please don't cry," Teddy whispered anxiously, "I have tissues here...you don't want to smudge your ink..."

The painting shrieked indignantly.
"You have offended me. How dare you point out my...predicament..."
"You mean the fact that you're a painting?" Jorah asked good naturedly but stupidly.
"If you two thought I would be fetching anyone for you tonight, you'd be wrong. " the portrait said most unhelpfully, before leaving her frame and visiting another elderly witch in a painting of witches "burning" at the stake in Salem.

"Ahhhhh crap," Teddy exclaimed.