Godric's Hollow Cemetery
December 30th, 2001

Teddy was three, almost four, when he first figured out that his mummy and daddy weren't like other people's. Victorie and the muggles on telly and the child-heroes of the Wizard Wireless Saturday Adventure dramas all had mummies and daddies. Some had only one or the other, and a few even had multiples of each. But all of them were people, like Uncle Bill and  Tante Fleur.

Teddy's mummy and daddy weren't people. They were a pair of stones set aside in the village of Godric's Hollow with a lot of other stones, down the road from the house where Harry lived as a little baby. Teddy had be coming to this place on special days, like Mum's birthday, for as long as he could remember, and he got the feeling that awfully strange as well -- most other mummies and daddies seemed to live with their families, not by themselves with a lot of other rocks.

On this visit, like every other, he stood with Gran in front of the stones, clutching a special fresh bouquet of wolfsbane and hyacinth from the local florist. Gran spoke with 'her Dora' first, holding Teddy's hand so he wouldn't wander off and leaving him with little else to do but let his eyes wander and his mind consider the oddness of the situation. There wasn't much to look at. Nothing much changed in Godric's Hollow over the years. There were the same stones, the same dark earth, the same snow, and the same black puppy that sat in the shadows of several old trees near the church on the edge of the stones.

So he stared at the stones, his mummy and daddy, and thought about how different they were. Still, different or not, Teddy never considered himself too strange. Harry's mummy and daddy were stones too, and they came in two parts: the big statue in the middle of Godric's Hollow, and the smaller stone with familiar names in the same place as Teddy's. So it couldn't be a bad thing. Nothing Harry was involved with could be bad.

His thoughts were finally broken by his Gran who, like every other visit before, nudged him towards the stones and said, "Go on dearie. Tell Mummy and Daddy all about what's happened." So Teddy sat in the snow and talked to Mummy and Daddy while Gran moved a few stones down to be alone with Grandpa.

It was habit, now. It would be habit for a very long time.

---

May 2nd, 2001 -- Remembering Day

When he was four, Teddy asked Harry why their mummies and daddies were stones, not people like everyone else's. Harry, in response, squeezed Teddy's hand and knelt down to pick him up in spite of Godric Hollow's very soggy spring ground getting mud all over his jeans. Teddy's trainers left similar blobs on Harry's jumper, but his godfather didn't seem to care.

With a weary sort of patience, Harry told Teddy that their mummies and daddies were people and had always been people. They were only sleeping under the ground in a very permanent way called 'dead', and the stones were a way to remember where they were so people could come visit. He said that they -- their mummies and daddies -- became dead to make the world a happier place for Teddy and Victorie and everyone, and that they never really went away because they'd be close, watching over Ted because they love him.

Teddy thought that he loved his mummy and daddy too, but he wasn't sure for sure because he still doesn't understand why they don't wake up. When he told Harry this, Harry laughed sadly and told him that he'd understand better when he was older.

They went to visit Teddy's mummy and daddy, then Harry's, and on their way out of the stone-place Teddy waves to the familiar black puppy, who always watches but never draws near. Then Harry took Teddy back to his house and showed him lots of pictures of a tired-looking man and a pretty lady who changed the way that Teddy does, and Teddy recognized both of them from the picture on the walls at home. This, said Harry, is what his mummy and daddy look like, sleeping under the stones.

That night, Teddy took one of Gran's pictures and a mirror into bed with him and tried to make his eyes turn gold like his tired-looking daddy. He didn't get it the first night, or the second, but on the third they turned out jut right, and he slept that night better than he ever had in his entire life.

August, 2002

When he was five years old, Teddy tried to go to muggle nursery school. He lasted three days.

On the first day, teacher asked them to draw a picture of their families, and Teddy drew so many ginger-haired people that he wore the red-orange crayon down to a little nub and still ran out of room before he could add the new baby growing in Ginny's tummy.

On the second, they were asked to draw their parents and only their parents. Teddy drew the gray stones with his mummy and daddy sleeping underneath.

On the third day, teacher called in Gran to talk about his 'disturbing imagery' and how it could upset the other students. It started a fight and Ted, responding to his grandmother's frustration, accidentally grew his hair eight inches and turned it a funny shade of puce.

Gran hurried him out of the school after that, cursing Aunt 'Mione all the way because she knew that this would be a dreadful idea. Teddy never went back.

When he told the story to the stone he imagined Daddy laughing the way that Uncle Charlie does, and Mummy rolling her eyes while not hiding her amusement, like Aunt Angelina. He left half a sandwich from his last box lunch for the red-eyed puppy and, despite not seeing him eat it, knew that he'd appreciate the gesture.

---

June, 2004

Two months after Teddy turned seven, Gran's old cat Demphiria went to sleep one day and didn't wake back up. After that, Teddy understood what 'dead' meant.

After Demphi was buried in a shoe box, Ted went up to his bedroom and had a good cry. It wasn't that he cared that much about the cat. It was just that, until that day, he'd always thought that sooner or later his mummy and daddy would get up from under the stones and people again, and then they'd be a family like everyone else. He knew, now, that it would never happen. His mummy and daddy were never coming back.

And just as suddenly, all those sad looks he  got from the strangers in Godric's Hollow and in the Remembering Day crowds and every time he went down to Diagon Alley with Harry made sense, and he hated them. He hated their pity, their staring. He wasn't strange. He wasn't sad. He was fine. Just. Fine.

He dreamt, all that night, of the black puppy who watched him at Godric's Hollow. It didn't jump or lick or bark or do any of the things that normal puppies did. It simply lay its soft, warm head on Ted's knee and stayed there, keeping him company.

When he woke, Ted felt better. And for the first time, he thought of how strange it was that the puppy was still the same after all this time, even though by now it must be at least as old as him.

Strange. But not bad.

October 30th, 2006

For Halloween the year he turned nine, Ted tried a new shade of pink in his hair. In a slip of the tongue, Gran called him Dora. The thought that she could confuse him for someone dead even after all this time upset him so much that Teddy ran away from home.

He made it all the way to Harry's house and hid in the playroom with James and Albus until he felt better. He heard Ginny talking to Gran via Floo but didn't come down when she called. Eventually, he got permission to stay the night.

After Harry came home, he had with the Potters, and then accompanied his godfather to visit their parents in Godric's Hollow. He hadn't been since Mum's birthday, which seemed an awfully long time. Harry agreed, and for the first time Ted was left alone at his parent's grave while Harry went to visit his own family's plot on the other side of the yard.

By this time, Ted had mostly grown out of talking to his parent's headstone, a habit he'd kept up only because it made his gran more comfortable. Left to his own devices, he sat on the leaf-strewn ground and stared at the familiar inscriptions, trying to remember how things might have been. As usual, the moist air hung heavy with the scent of muddy earth. That was why the sudden warmth and the crisp, acidic smell of burning leaves took Ted by such surprise.

Sitting there, in an empty plot to the left of his parents, was the black puppy that had watched him coming and going here his entire life. It was the first time that Ted had ever seen it -- him -- up close. His resembled a black lab, perhaps three months old. His face was soft, his paws too big for his body. His eyes were red and warm, like embers in a dying fire. The grass and leaves around him were dry and burnt, as though recently scorched by a hot flame.

Ted stared at the dog. The dog stared back.

"Hello again," said Ted finally.

The dog continued to stare. Ted had, admittedly, known few dogs in his life, but he was aware that most did not act this way. Guard dogs were meant to growl, puppies were meant to bark and jump on things and make messes. Even strays, the sorts that weren't socialized, wouldn't stay within arm's reach or sit so still. But this dog did. He sat like one of the many statues. Though odd, he did not seem a threat.

"Do you have a name?" At this, the dog moved for the first time, quirking his head. Ted chuckled. "Ah, right. I suppose you couldn't tell me if you did. Do you mind if I give you one?"

The dog returned his head to an upright position. Ted took that as consent and pondered for a moment what the best name would be. Clearly, he was no ordinary dog, nor was he a crup, though perhaps he was of another magical breed. Ted had never heard of other magically-bred dogs, though surely there must be a few somewhere. He went over all of the dogs he'd heard about in all of his life and found his mind perpetually coming back around to a certain name.

"Padfoot," he said finally. As an afterthought, he added, "The Second. Sound good?"

The dog thumped its tail twice against the ground and stopped, again going very still. Ted smiled and scratched the newly-dubbed Padfoot II behind his ear.

From then on, instead of talking to the stones, Teddy would talk to Padfoot II. It felt much more natural to speak with something living than something dead, even if that living something was a strange dog that never got any bigger and wouldn't come close when anyone else was around. It became easier to talk to Mum and Dad too, through the dog that guarded their graves. It was comforting, in its own way, to know that there would always be someone there waiting, watching over them, even when Ted himself couldn't come around.

April 18th, 2009

"Dear Mister Lupin. We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Please find enclosed a list of all necessary books and equipment. Term begins on September 1st."

Ted lowered the parchment and grinned at his parent's headstones, his favorite shade of turquoise hair blowing in the breeze. It was an unseasonably warm spring day in Godric's Hollow, brighter and sunnier than most any he'd seen in the village before, which made it all the easier to slip away bright and early and fly the two hundred or so kilometers from Ottery St. Catchpole. Gran's old Cleansweep 360 lay in the grass behind the headstone of Mr. O'Leery in the plot across from them. Technically speaking, Ted wasn't allowed to fly on his own, but adhering to technicalities never got anyone anywhere.

"We're going down to Diagon next week to get my wand. Harry's taking the whole day off work so he can come, along with James and Albus, and Torie too! It's gonna be brilliant, everyone's real excited. With all the stories and the pictures, I can't wait to see what the castle's like in real life.

"Of course..." His smile faded and the excited tone died to a more manageable hum. "This also means I won't be able to come 'round as often. Definitely not for your birthday, Mum. Or yours, Dad, though I'll probably be around for Easter. I'm sure we'll come by sometime during Christmas, through, and Gran'll keep coming to freshen the flowers, so it won't be too lonely. Besides, you'll have Padfoot..."

As the name left his mouth, Ted caught whiff of the familiar scent of burning leaves. He turned his grin to the black dog and scratched him under the chin. "Speak of the devil. How're you doing, boy? I brought you something good today." He pulled a tupperware container from his pocket and pried the top off, offering its contents to Padfoot II. "Gran's roast beef leftovers. They're a week old, but stored in their own juices, so they're nice and soaked through."

He set the plastic bowl in the grass. Padfoot II sniffed the meat, but didn't move to eat it. He never did, though Ted was sure he enjoyed the food on his own time. The boy sat cross-legged and leaned back on his hands, his precious acceptance letter folded over one knee.

"Suppose you heard me telling Mum and Dad the good news?" he asked the dog, rubbing Padfoot II behind his ear. "I'm off to Hogwarts this fall. My godfather says it's the greatest place in the world. All my family went there. Gran, Granddad, Harry, Ginny -- Mum and Dad too, at different times. It'll all be bloody brilliant, but it means I'm not going to be around much anymore. So you're gonna have to keep an eye on things for me, okay?"

Padfoot II stared up at him, the way he always did. The softness of his face made the blood-eyes look softer despite their threatening color. Despite all the years, he still appeared as much a puppy as always. Ted suspected that he would stay that way a good deal longer, if he ever grew at all.

"Wish you could come along," he said quietly, half to the dog, half to the familiar stones. "I'm going to miss you. But I'll be back, you'll see. It'll just be longer this time."

He patted Padfoot II's side, just before Harry called to Ted across the graveyard and the dog vanished as quickly as he'd come. Though he scolded Ted for running off and worrying his Gran, Harry seemed more amused than anything else. He didn't notice the little dog watching them when they left. He never did. But Teddy knew that Padfoot II was there. He would always be there, in Godric's Hollow. As long as he was, nothing bad would happen there. [1]

1.	Anyone who read this far deserves a cookie. Wherever Padfoot II's story goes, it'll be linked to the A Boy and His Dog tag. Plotting post and wiki entry to come!