The year after her brother James graduates, Teddy Potter returns to Hogwarts for her final year. With the Marauders gone, it should be a quiet, peaceful year despite the mounting tensions in the world outside of school.
The problem, naturally, lies...
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Teddy didn't mean to fall asleep, but the next thing she knows she's jerking awake to the sound of shouting.
For a long, dazed moment, she just blinks groggily. Harry is still slumbering in his little blanket nest next to her on the mattress, blissfully unaware of just about everything. His tiny fingers twitch once or twice, but other than that he sleeps on peacefully.
The window is still blocked by that stupid charm, so she can't tell how dark it is outside, but it feels like very early morning. Everything is still and quiet, and for a moment she wonders if she had just imagined the noise.
But then she hears a scream from downstairs.
Peter's scream.
That shocks her into action, and she leaps from the bed as quickly as possible without disturbing Harry. Her thoughts have gone blurry as panic surges up in her chest — have the Death Eaters come for them? Has Voldemort finally come for Harry?
Driven by sheer adrenaline, Teddy snatches the sleeping baby from the bed and begins to try and push him under the bed, still swaddled in all his blankets. Miraculously he doesn't wake, though Teddy is still breathing hard with poorly concealed panic as she tries to make sure that he's entirely hidden from sight. It's not going to save him, but it might slow down whoever is coming for them.
Once she's ensured that he is in fact hidden, Teddy takes a deep breath and cautiously opens the door to the bedroom. The house has gone quiet again, but this time the silence feels ominous and oppressive.
Her heart pounds in her throat as she slips out of the bedroom and closes it firmly behind her, before creeping down the stairs as silently as possible. Her stomach sinks, but she pushes through her anxiety and apprehension and continues to sneak down the stairs and into the downstairs hallway. She wonders if Death Eaters were always so quiet when they came — she had expected them to be louder, more taunting.
There's a small, unexpected shape lurking by the kitchen door, and Teddy almost startles as it moves, its head turning to look at her as she approaches.
It's the house elf from earlier; the one who had changed Harry's nappy. He looks up at her with his large, doleful eyes, apparently unsurprised to see her.
"Miss Teddy should stay upstairs," He says, dropping his deep voice into a murmur so low she can barely hear him, "The master will come for her in a moment."
The master?
Teddy's stomach sinks even further, but she ignores the house elf's warning and steps forward to peer though the door anyway.
She's not sure what she's expecting to see, but it's not Regulus Black covered in blood, standing over Peter as he sobs uncontrollably on the kitchen floor.
She freezes over the threshold of the kitchen, staring at the scene for a long moment as her brain scrambles to comprehend what the fuck is happening in front of her.
