A Stitch in Time

Chapter 19

's homework. Was Potions this hard when I was a boy? I don't think Slughorn was ever this hard on me. Snape is like the worst. He thought.

He turned around to face James who apparently fell asleep in his chair; his potion's homework was littered around him. Teddy rolled his eyes, and shook James awake.

"HEH?!" James screamed, as he was awakened. He rolled around to see that it was Teddy, and then firmly slapped him. "Vot eez wrong vith you? Heh?! Vhy vould you vake me up like that?"

Teddy rose his hands up to show his innocence, and backed off. "Okay, you're the man, James. Just back off a little, you're kinda scaring me."

James continued to breath heavily, and clutched his heart as he slowly rose from his chair. His eyes were red, and he was panting so loud it sounded almost like he was growling. Or maybe he was growling; he certainly looked mad enough to be. Several veins began to start throbbing around on his neck.
"Don't you ever, ever vake me up like that again, understood?" He growled.

Teddy slowly backed away from James who was approaching him. "Okay man, you got it! Never again, just back off please."

James continued to glare at him. "You think that this all, ALL this eez a joke, ja? Vell eets not a joke! EETS FAR FROM EET, MY FRIEND!" He said screaming, and banging his fists and feet against the wall on the last six words.

This whole scene would have been quite comical to Teddy, if he wasn't worried about James' sanity at the moment. His rage at just being woken up was causing him to repeatedly smash his foot against the wall. Teddy sincerely hoped that James' wand wasn't anywhere near him at the moment.

James stopped and stared at the ground, breathing heavily. He narrowed his gleaming red eyes and then clenched his fists and began making a series of loud, throat-damaging noises. "How dare you! I vas getting my directions! Vhy vould you-"

He stopped suddenly; even his veins seemed to suddenly stop pulsating.

"Directions?" Teddy interrogated suspiciously. "What do you mean, directions?"

James didn't say anything, nor did he look at Teddy. He suddenly turned tail and ran out of the common room, alarmingly fast for someone of his body weight at the moment.

"Jam- Tell me what's wrong!" He called after the retreating figure. James' only response was muttering a bunch of garbled nonsense beneath his breath.
Teddy shook his head. Something gravely wrong was going on.

"Teddy!" A voice said.

Teddy turned around in the hall, grabbing his wand. James' sudden outburst had made Teddy on edge, and he was suspicious of everything.

Lupin frowned, then looked at him. "Well, is taking out your wand any civil way to greet your father?" He said with a grin.

Teddy took a huge breath of relief; it was only his father. "Hi, er, Dad." He said awkwardly. It was very odd to refer to someone as his father; true, Harry was like a father figure to him, but he couldn't take the place of his actual dad. Teddy felt disgusted with himself; he kept acting like a lunatic whenever he was in front of his dad. He didn't want to disappoint his father, he wanted to be a son Lupin would actually want.

Lupin smiled. "Are you ready?"

Teddy raised his eyebrows in confusion. "For what, exactly?"

Lupin grabbed him in an embrace. "We need to spend time with each other! I don't get to see you until about, what, four years or something? I want to spend as as much time as possible with you!"

Teddy hugged his father back. "Okay. So... what do you want to do then?" He said, still feeling rather awkward.

"Well, lets go to my office for starters."