Why Me? A Teddy Lupin FanFic ON HOLD

The Insults And Sarcastic Sympathy*

"Hey! Lupin!" Came a call from behind Teddy as he walked to Herbology with Jacob, Tyler and Justin.

"Yeah?!" He calls back, unaware of who it is.
"Why're you such a freak?!"
This made Teddy turn around and see who it was, standing behind him with a group of friends was Lucius Malfoy II, Draco Malfoy's oldest son. Hurling insults left, right and centre.
"Oi, Malfoy!"
"What do you want, Lupin?" He sneers Teddy's last name, spits it, he laces the word with ignorance and malice.

"Just to ask you why you're such an ignorant poofter!"
"Now, now, Teddy Bear, play nicely" he says in a baby voice, also laced with mischief and evil.
This is what gets Teddy going, no-one calls him 'Teddy Bear' but his Auntie Ginny and Uncle Harry, (and his cousins).
The young Lupin lunges at the tall platinum blond and knocks him to the ground punching and punching until he is unrecognisable, still then he keeps on going. All the while Lucius is still hurtling insults towards the Lupin family along with a few towards the direction of Teddy's little cousin James. This carries on for about twenty minutes before Neville (the new Herbology professor and head of Gryffindor house) comes out of greenhouse two to see what is going on. Upon arrival at the two young fighters he breaks them apart with a flick of his wand and sends Pansy Parkinson's daughter, Athena, up to the hospital wing to get Madam Pomfrey, while he sends a struggling Teddy and a restraining Tyler up to the castle to wait in his office until the end of the period.

An hour later a furious but sympathetic looking Neville bursts into the room and demands that they tell him what happened at once.

After fifteen minutes of explaining, Neville tells the boys that Headmistress McGonagall has been informed and that they should go and see her immediately. The duo leave the room then realise that they don't know the password. They tumble back inside, only to see their professor with a smile on his face.

"I was just wondering how long it would take you, before you almost burst my door down, that is" a laugh in his voice.

"What is it?"
"Lupin" he says, a sympathetic look in his eye, clearly because of the colour of his hair, he can tell because when he pulls a bit down over his eyes he can see that it is brown with streaks of grey and bubblegum pink. His parents' colours.

"Okay. Well....... Thanks Ne- Professor Longbottom" as we turn to leave he says:

"Please, call me Neville. No-one has to know."

I smirk as we leave the room and head to the stone gargoyle that marks the place of the Headmistress' office.

"Lupin"

Tyler let's me say the password all on my own. I shoot him a grateful look as the stairs begin to move upward like a magical escalator.

"What do you think you were doing?!" Comes a shrill cry the second we step foot in the room.

"Punching a boy like that?!"

"In Teddy's defense Professor, Malfoy was insulting him and his family"

"I know, I have bugs all over the school listening for conflict! I knew what was happening before Professor Longbottom did!"

"Well Uh.........."

"You, Mr. Lupin will receive detention." She feels a pang of sadness as she says these words as it was the first time she had ever said them because, although being part of The Marauders, Remus had been a model student. Although there was the slip up every month but that could be expected and tolerated.

"You may go now"  is all she says, not trusting her voice to say any more.

Tyler and Teddy meet up with Jacob and Justin at dinner. Piling their plates high with roast chicken, roast potatoes and yorkshire puddings, the boys talked about what happened with Malfoy and McGonagall and what they could do to persuade McGonagall to let Teddy out of detention.

"Listen to us! Scheming away like a bunch of Slytherins!" Teddy finally says, exausted after twenty minutes of planning and talking.

Seconds after Jacob says:
"Think about it, Old McGonagall has her flaws right? Just mention how well behaved your dad was and how much you want to live up to the Lupin name. Boom! Instant! You may even earn some house points while you're at it!"

"I suppose he's right Teddy" says Justin.
"Hey guys look! Pudding!" Teddy says in an effort to get Jacob to stop talking about his dad.

"But Teddy-"
"I don't want to talk about my dad okay!" Teddy bangs his fist on the table exasperated now.

"Okay! In the name of Salazar, you need to calm down!"
"How would you feel if your parents died and people kept talking about them? Huh?!" Teddy shouts across the table. He sits there seething until he feels a hand on his shoulder. He turns around to see Professor Lovegood, (Justin's mum and the Care of Magical Creatures teacher) standing behind him.

"Teddy, come with me please."
"Okay." Teddy clenches his jaw and follows Luna out of the Hall.

"Are you going to tell me what's going on?"

"Jacob Weathers keeps going on about my parents and he knows I hate it but keeps going on about it and now he has the nerve to tell me to calm down! As if!"

"Okay... Well I'll talk to him. Come tell me if this happens again and I'll talk to the Headmistress. Okay?"

"I suppose so." Teddy replies in a monotone voice.

"Come along and we'll get you some Peace Draught from Professor Terry."

"Okay." Teddy says through gritted teeth. He hadn't realised that his jaw had been clenched this whole time, he relaxes it and follows Luna up to the third floor to see the potions professor, James Terry.

Two hours later Teddy and his friends are sitting in the Gryffindor Common Room laughing and drinking butterbeer, well three of them were, Jacob was sulking in a chair next to a study group of prefects (they always use the Gryffindor Common Room, you'd think they'd use Ravenclaw seeing as their Common Room was practically a library). Tyler announces that he's going up to bed, stumbling slightly, he makes his way up the stairs. 'He only had one' thought Teddy to himself 'probably just how fast he drank it, mixed with tiredness, the stumbling kinda makes sense'

"I'm going to bed too, you coming?" Justin asks.

"I'll be up in a minute, I'm gonna clean up first." Teddy says absentmindedly.

"Okay."

And with that Teddy cleaned the whole Common Room from top to bottom. All scrap bits of parchment in the dying fire, butterbeer bottles vanished, homework stacked in neat piles, broken quills also in the fire, ink bottles closed and put on the coffee table in front of the fire, and finally all sweet wrappers and boxes also in the fire which was now positively raging, Teddy calmed it with his wand. Maplewood, eleven inches with a unicorn hair core, bought from Ollivander's in Diagon Alley. With all of that done, Teddy heads up to bed pulling on his red and gold striped pyjamas, he thinks about his special Chocolate Frog card safe in his trunk, and falls into a peaceful, dream filled sleep.