The Many Lovers of Teddy Lupin
( a character study in three acts )
“Teddy is perfect.” Dominique Weasley sighs, to her best friend (and potential cousin-in-law) Cedar Chang. Ced looks back at her and Dominique already knows what she’s going to say, cutting her off quickly before she starts. “Other than the fact he’s dating my sister.”
Ced shrugged crawling to sit behind Dominique, as she leaned her head back, allowing her friend to begin braiding her hair. Cedar wasn’t one for comforting words. - neither was dominque, if she had to be honest - but the pair had quickly learned to share emotions and feelings through more physical activities. Normally one - if not both of them - had some elaborate hairdo that had been styled by the other.
“He’s just so-!” Dominique exclaimed, not even having the words to describe the man that was Teddy Lupin. Teddy with his lean figure and ever-changing hair, who always gave her the perfect gifts every christmas and it honestly seemed like he could read her mind. He always smelt like wood and always made sure to help her grandmother in the kitchen. Dominique had been in love with the man as long as she could remember. She had been so excited when he had started coming over more, always shaking her dad’s hand and kissing her mom on the cheek, she had even started to wonder if the luck charms she had been attempting on herself were finally working.
That was all until she Teddy came downstairs from Victoire’s bedroom to eat dinner, the pair of them with their hand’s intertwined and their perfect beautiful features and their perfect fucking lives.
All throughout her life Dominique had ben compared to her siblings. She and Victoire had the same genes, the same Veela blood, but even that didn’t help Dominique stand a chance against her older sister. Victoire was the picture perfect clone of their mother, her only Weasley trait being the light freckles that dotted her nose. Dominique knew she was pretty, but she just wasn’t as ethereal as Victoire. Dominique had red hair, that stood out like a sore thum against her blonde as shit siblings. She had a scar on her forehead from falling off a broom when she was little, Victoire and Louise, their little brother, didn’t have a single mark gracing their perfect faces, and she sure as hell had never fallen off a broom. The Weasley trait of bein fantastic at Quidditch had seemingly passed over Dominique, and every family gathering she was forced to sit on the side, babysitting Luna’s kids, while the rest of her family played aggressively. Even Cedar played, and as much as Dominique wished she would sit its her, she couldn’t stop Ced from wanting to play with her boyfriend, her and Fred finding new ways of hitting each other with bludgers.
So in essence, Victoire was perfect. And now she had the love of Dominique’s life laying on her stupid fucking lap.
“Teddy is troubled.” James said, trying to defend his (friend/lover/whatever he was) to Albus who just stared at him unbreakingly. James knew he ddn’t have an excuse for what he’d been caught doing, and Teddy had apparated away before he could say anything to help.
“James he’s dating our cousin.” Albus sighed, his look hadn’t changed since he had found James and Teddy in James’s bedroom, half naked and moving fast. James knew in his brain Albus was right, but when Teddy looked at him with those brown eyes and started talking about what a mess his life had become, James just wanted to do what he could to make him happy.
James knew the pair was a mess, and that technically Teddy was a cheating bastard, but was James any better? James had no idea what he was doing in his life, he had no idea what he wanted to do, but living off his parents funds wasn’t the plan he had had in mind when graduating school. All he knew was that Teddy made him feel better than any drink he could take or any potion he could drink.
“Al he’s just having a hard time right now.” James tried, anything to convince his brother not to tell Victoire. It really would be a scandal, and would probably even show up in some sort of gossip magazine. With so many relatives, information easily fell through cracks, and family drama became Wizarding World drama, and James really didn’t want to deal with that right now. Teddy was worse off than him and he was just barely keeping himself alive, working every hour he could, and taking potions that let him keep going, on barely any sleep. James couldn’t remember the last time he had heard Teddy laugh, and he knew Albus was thinking the same thing.
“That shouldn’t let him off the hook.” Albus said, but James already knew his brother had changed his mind, he wouldn’t tell anyone. Albus furrowed his brows, and James wished they were kids again and he could run a finger down the worry lines in Albus’s face and practically erase them. But they weren’t kids anymore and Teddy wasn’t some boy James followed around like a little duckling. Everything was complicated now and James felt so out of control that he didn’t even know how to set it right again.
“Be careful with him.” Albus sighed, after James hadn’t responded, “And yourself too.”
“Always am Al.” James replied, trying to grin back, but he knew he wasn’t fooling anyone. No matter what the outcome was, James knew he couldn’t come out on top. Despite everything, he knew Teddy loved Victoire, and he knew Teddy loved their family and he wouldn’t do anything to mess up that.
“Teddy is trying.” Victoire sighed, looking back at her mother’s disapproving face in the mirror. Victoire looked beautiful, silvery makeup ghosting her features, jewelry shining out from under her hair. She was getting married, but why was everything so hard,
Her mother touched Victoire’s hair, slipping a tiara into the carefully braided locks. Victoire had been with her for hours, allowing Fleur to carefully braid each piece of hair and put it into place. Throughout the whole ordeal Victoire had been talking, all her doubts and feelings and worries slipping out of her like rays of light after a storm broke. And her mother had simply listened, allowing Victoire to speak.
“Are you loved?” Her mother asked, looking down at Victoire, with features that resembled her own far too close sly for Victoire’s liking.
“Oui.” Victoire responded back, in a whisper as if she was telling some sort of secret. It shouldn’t be a secret though, Teddy’s love for her should be something she could scream from the rooftops, something that she was reminded of every day, not something her own mother wasn’t even sure of.
Victoire wanted so much but she knew that Teddy was trying. She knew he wasn’t happy, and that though it wasn’t her fault, it felt like it was. She felt like she wasn’t enough if the man she had loved since she was fifteen couldn’t feel that in his heart. Victoire knew him to his bones, and she had always known how his mind wandered. She knew deep down that he looked at others when he was with her, but she also knew that he would give his life time and time again in order to keep her safe. She knew that if she asked, if she told him how sad it made her, that he would stop sleeping with the man he was seeing at night.
But she couldn’t do that.
Teddy was trying to love her, and he did, he truly did. Victoire knew she could never find someone who loved her as wholly as Teddy did, who held Victoire in every moment she needed him, and even moments she didn’t. She knew Teddy would kill someone for her, and wouldn’t be upset if she did the same. She knew that if she was in Azkaban he would trade places with her in a heartbeat and would never ever let her die. Teddy tried so so hard to be perfect for her, and Victoire was going to do the same.
She would marry Teddy and have his children and they would be as happy as they could be because at least they were trying.