MISSED CALLS ➡︎ TEDDY LUPIN [2] ✓

lviii. THE WEASLEY HOME

As much as Avalon loved her parents, if she had to meet another one of their friends from Hogwarts and have another person say 'oh my god, I haven't seen you since you were a baby!' she would snap and murder someone.

But she knew she couldn't do that without winding up in Azkaban, so she simply smiled and hit them with the 'it's so nice to see you again!' and suffered on the inside.

Teddy grinned and gave her a wink from across the room, where he made polite conversation with her mother's friends.

She hated that he could so easily brighten her horrid mood, but she ran with the sudden boost of happiness and began to put a bit more sincerity into her chat with Angelina Johnson.

Luckily for her, Oliver came up to steal her away. "D'you mind if I borrow my sister for a moment?"

When Angelina shook her head cordially, Oliver grabbed Avalon by the elbow and steered her in the opposite direction.

"Let go of my arm, you big oaf." Avalon hissed, swatting at her brother's hand.

He glared at her. "I need your help. I need you to do me a favor—the guy is about to get here and I need to find a way to prep Mum and Dad before they meet him."

"So... where do I come into all of this?" She asked.

"I need you to entertain him 'til I have a chance to get them aside."

Avalon swatted at him again. "I am not entertaining your boyfriend! I should be entertaining my boyfriend." She grumbled.

"Please. I'll owe you one!"

It was incredibly rare for Oliver Percy Weasley to beg anyone, especially his annoying little sister, for anything. But here he was, begging her to do him a favor, even though she already owed him a dozen in return. She couldn't help but smile wickedly.

"Oh, alright. I'll watch the door and wait for him to get here."

—

Lawrence Devoux was, it turned out, way out of her brother's league. She recognized him from school—he was the year above her, and a Beater for the Slytherin team. She almost wanted to ask if he was the Beater that knocked her off her broom in the match against his house, but she didn't feel like getting chewed out by Oliver.

"So, you must be Avalon." Her brother's not-boyfriend said the moment she intercepted him at the front door.

She smiled, doing a little curtsy. "My reputation precedes me, huh?"

Lawrence nodded. "Unfortunately, yes." He laughed when her face fell in disappointment. "Oh, Ollie has lots of good things to say about you, trust me! Well, maybe not lots, but he isn't always complaining about you."

Avalon thought in that moment that Lawrence might be the most polite Slytherin she'd ever met in her life. Then again, the only Slytherins she'd had any sort of contact with were her sister, who had a thick, thick layer of teenage angst with a tiny core of sweetness on the inside; and Cordelia Rosier, with whom she hadn't encountered enough to have an opinion on.

Of course, Reese Lennon was another Slytherin she knew and vastly loved, but they had also had almost seventeen years worth of getting to know each other to get over the hurdle of initial unpleasantness.

Either way, Avalon wasn't a hundred percent sure how she felt about Lawrence just yet. Sure, he seemed nice enough, and she couldn't figure out what about Oliver was so interesting in order to attract someone as objectively beautiful as Lawrence, but she decided to withhold all judgements on the tall, brown-skinned boy until she saw how he treated her brother.