Alone.

I know.

You feel it.

You think you shouldn’t, because most of the time you’re surrounded by people. There’s your Grandma, and Harry and Ginny, and James, Al and Lily and all the other Weasleys and your friends at school. There are always people around you.

That doesn’t mean that sometimes their deaths seem to outweigh all the people who love you. It doesn’t mean that you can’t miss them.

I know you live in two different worlds. In one world, you are the strong Teddy Lupin, godson of Harry Potter, tirelessly patient to play with dozens of young children, a proud Gryffindor who stands up for your beliefs. I know this is a part of you, but it’s not all of you. In the other world, you are a lonely and lost boy, sitting at home on your bed and staring at that beautiful photograph of them on their wedding day, wishing that you could meet them. Why them? Had they done anything to deserve this?

You know they hadn’t. You know the war wasn’t like that. Some people were killed, some survived. There was no pattern. But you wish there was a reason, because somehow that would validate their deaths, your loneliness.

I know you look to Harry. You admire him. He’s your hero. But then, he’s everyone’s hero. You think of him and his childhood and you feel like you shouldn’t complain about your own. Sometimes I think you believe that you have to be a hero like him. That you have to prove something to the world. That if you’re not worth anything to the world, your parents died in vain. And it makes you feel so terribly alone.

I’ve seen you crying
You felt like it’s hopeless
I’ll always do my best
To make you see
Baby you’re not alone.

You don’t have to carry the weight of the world on your shoulders, Teddy. You’re not Harry. Harry lived his life knowing that everyone expected something of him, that he couldn’t choose his own life, that at some point he would have to suffer for the sake of others. Sometimes you wish you could be like Harry, because at least he could get revenge on the person who ruined his life. You can’t. Your parents’ killers are both dead, the Death Eaters extinct. There is no-one you can blame.

You don’t have to be a hero, Teddy, but you are already mine. You aren’t my hero because of what you’ve done at school or because you decided to become an Auror, not because you put on a brave face and pretend that you’re always okay when you’re not. It’s because you can be strong but you’re not afraid to cry, because you always say what you believe, because you talk to the Malfoys even though you know what they did, because you are strong enough to forgive, because you have this ability to see straight through me.

Can you tell, Teddy, that I’m in love with you? You don’t have to prove anything to me, you don’t need to be anything. And you don’t have to be alone.

Baby you’re not alone
‘Cause you’re here with me
And nothing’s ever gonna bring us down
‘Cause nothing can keep me from loving you
And you know it’s true
It don’t matter what’ll come to be
Our love is all we need to make it through.

You have always been special. I’ve known it since you were five and I was three and I wanted to play with you all by myself, because you were my friend, but you insisted on playing with Dom as much as me. I knew it when you were ten and you shouted at me for being mean about Fred, and when you were eleven and you glowed with pride when you received your Hogwarts letter, and you let all my aunts and uncles fuss over you even though you didn’t always like all their attention. When you were thirteen and you helped me find my way at Hogwarts even though your friends teased you about it. When you were sixteen and you didn’t treat me any different just because I was pretty and all the other boys stared at me like I was a new racing broom. When I complained about babysitting all my cousins when my parents and aunts and uncles went out, and you told me I should be happy, at least I had a family to laugh and cry and argue with. When I found you in the Shrieking Shack, all alone.

It was on the Hogsmeade visit just before the Christmas of your sixth year and, as usual, you and I had gone separately with our friends in our own years. After my friends and I had finished our extensive Christmas shopping, we went into The Three Broomsticks for a quick Butterbeer. I saw your friends there, and I went to wave to you, but there was no sign of you. I marched up to them and demanded where you were. They said that you had wanted some time alone. I suppose I shouldn’t have slapped your best friend, but I guess it was just the mixture of Weasley and Delacour tempers getting the better of me. It made me angry, because you shouldn’t have been alone. You should never be alone.

Somehow I knew you’d be there. I didn’t even stop to explain to my friends where I was going, I ran out into the cold snow without a second glance. By the time I reached the Shack, there were tears streaming down my face from the cold.

Then I saw you. You had turned your hair a pale, mousy colour. I have since learnt that this always happens when you are upset. You sat on the floor, your head in your hands as your tears slowly wet the floor. You weren’t even wearing a jacket. You sat there, shivering, looking so small and frightened, so alone.

I sat down next to you, my blonde hair gentle spilling from under my beanie onto your shoulder.

“I wonder what it was like for him to be here, all alone, scratching, tearing, biting at himself, trapped inside a monster.”

I gently reached for your face and cupped it in my hands.

“It was probably horrible. But he wasn’t alone, Teddy. He had friends too; he just had to learn to let them love him.”

You looked up at me.

“I miss them, Victoire. I wish I’d known them.”

“I know. I wish you had, too.”

We sat in silence, you gently crying onto my shoulder.

“It’s okay to miss them sometimes. Just don’t let it be your life. They are gone, and they would want you to be happy, not to be living under the shadow of their deaths. Just look at Uncle George. Remember the stories that we’ve been told about how he was after Fred died? You don’t want to be like that, hopelessly alone, isolated from your family. We all live in the shadow of the war. Just remember what they all died for. It was for us to have a better life, and you wouldn’t want to waste the gift they have given you.”

“I know. But sometimes it still hurts.”

That was when I knew I loved you. Because you wanted to live your own life, but you didn’t want to do them the disservice of forgetting them. And you were honest, happy to be emotional sometimes and remember them, and at other times happy to live in the sunshine.

Because, Teddy, you’re not alone.