It's a girl!

Teddy had felt good after Hermione's birthday party. He knew there was certainly cause to be somber, but he had felt a bit of the old Teddy return, the Teddy could rouse people to smile at old memories, who could charm happiness out of a sullen smile. For the first time in a long time, he had felt as though he had recaptured a bit of the magic of his childhood, before everything went wrong and everyone got so sad.

Emboldened by the feeling, he had even joined Sawyer in some good-spirited drinking.

So as he fumbled with his door, squinting one eye and then the other in the hopes of being able to focus, the last thing he was prepared for was a brisk voice calling him by his surname, with that horrible "Mr." title in front of it. He flinched and turned around, just as much startled by the sudden company as he was the formality.

It was a social worker from the Ministry come to inform him that his duty as foster parent began the next day. He openly stared as the woman pressed on, either oblivious to or ignoring the fact that he was slightly intoxicated. She began to press file after file into his hands, outlining the details of their appointment and the expectations for his ward regarding living arrangements and schooling.

Her speech done the woman tugged on her coat, prepared to leave, but paused to offer him a judgmental arch of her eyebrow. "And I'd suggest pulling yourself together and sobering up. Immediately." And with that she was gone.

If it weren't for the files, Teddy would have assumed it was some strange dream brought on by repressed-stress. But as he dumbly thumbed through the paperwork in his hands, still on his front step, he remembered vaguely signing up as an emergency foster parent a few years back, and the conversation with another social worker just a few months back claiming that he might be needed in the near future.

According to this, though, this was no temporary placement. This was the real deal. And if the social worker's forgiveness (if one could call it that) of his current state was any indicator, they must have been wanting horribly for a volunteer.

And then, like that, Teddy snapped into sobriety and the anxious realization that his entire house needed to be cleaned. He cursed and bowled through his front door, setting down all the paperwork save for the one that handled the regulations of the living space and immediately got to work.

It was around two in the morning that the only housework needing to be done either required a visit to the local linen store or could be done with hands-off magic, and so he settled in at his kitchen table to read through everything. According to this file, which held nothing back in the ways of almost aggressive warnings of what his new ward was capable of, he needed to brace himself for the worst...

The next day Teddy strode into the Ministry, still feeling a bit ill at ease. He had purchased a new bedding set, a pale yellow seemed the most unassuming, and he had even upgraded the music player in that room. He had no idea how to prepare for a teenager. He had raised Lily, but she had been... odd, to say the least. He suspected the best way to make Florence feel at home was to ask her.

He checked in and was directed where to go and found himself in a waiting room, alone save for two other patrons and the secretary. The secretary had a reassuring smile and a pretty face and he found himself wishing he could go and talk to her, but before he could work up the nerve, he was being called upon.

September wrapped pleasantly around the capital. Leaves were beginning to tumble in amongst the cobbles in Diagon Alley. Different flavourings of coffee were beginning to creep onto menus in the numerous coffee shops that were strewn across the city. Scarves were beginning to reappear, meanwhile, and shops were beginning to make a profit on long, grey coats that by their very image seemed to assure that whatever winter that was slowly beginning to creep into being would resolutely be kept out. Florence Gibbon zipped up her hoodie, meanwhile, in some sort of warped act of defiance to the ostentation of it all that satisfied her far more than perhaps it should have done. If it hadn’t been for the fact that the gold she had been entitled to in birth was still languish in trust, leaving her with the two galleons and eighteen sickles in her purse that had been given to her by her Ministry liaison, perhaps she would have been more open to the conspicuous consumption. It all left a rather bitter taste in her mouth. It was all too nice while she continued to marinate in whatever strange level in Dante’s Inferno this portion of her existence was emulating.

She was in the Ministry, by the way. Yes, the Ministry does indeed count in the young Slytherin’s mind as some sort of fresh hell. It is understandable to a certain extent, given just how much strife the establishment had caused her in her short years. Yet again she found herself at a crossroads, sat in her liaison’s office impatiently waiting for her new family to arrive while the woman rabbited on about how hard Florence needed to try this time, how she needed to make it work because this was her last chance. It had always been a last chance with her. She could be forgiven for no longer quite heeding what Eloise had to say. She had tried as hard as she could. It hadn’t been her fault that she’d not fitted. She wasn’t the jigsaw piece that those people sought. She wouldn’t be for this family, either. No, this was more about just waiting it out – counting down the days until she was old enough to access her inheritance and choose her own course in life. She could wait.

“Florrie are you even listening to me?!”

She had no choice.

Zoning back into the office, Florence blinked and looked into the irritated hazel gaze of the woman sat behind the desk. The blonde sighed a little and shook her head, reaching forward to take hold of the teacup that had been fetched for her by one of the secretaries who had hardly looked pleased to be undertaking such a task. Florence couldn’t say she really blamed the woman. The tea was cold and over-brewed. After a sip she quickly set it back down.

“This is important, Florrie,” Eloise despaired, her hands dropping heavily down onto the desk top. She looked down, the little switchboard on her desk flickering brightly all of a sudden. “He’s here. Now, come on. Find a smile.”

“I lost it during the summer,” Florence deadpanned, rising to her feet and tucking her hands into the pockets of the hoodie.

“Oh for heaven’s sake and take that off. It hardly looks …”

“I’ll be leaving it on, Eloise, thanks,” Florence sniped back at her, weaving out from around the furniture that was packed so tightly into the office, making a temperate beeline towards the door.

Despite the rush that ensued as Eloise realised she was rapidly losing control of the situation, Florence got out first. She strode into the foyer, calm and composed. Her liaison followed, now slightly flustered. Florence stopped and turned to look expectantly at Eloise, waiting for her to point out which unlucky customer was inheriting her. The woman had found a smile of her own and it was just slightly scary. She wanted it to go well, though. Her hopes were always sincere but those hopes always amounted to very little in the end, however hard Florence tried.

“Ah, Mr Lupin. Thank you for being so prompt,” Eloise called across the foyer, inviting the bespeckled man over with some rather excessive flapping at her hand – well, at least in Florence’s mind it was excessive. Like a bird trying to fly after a drunken night out. “This is Florence Gibbon. Florrie, this is Mr Lupin.”

Florence lifted her gaze from her shoes which had suddenly become far more interesting than normal.

“Hi.”

Back to the laces…

He found himself desperately wishing for a time turner. He needed to sleep. He needed more time. Did he actually put away the washing? Had he left the window open? There would be a horrid draft if he had left the window open. Merlin, he had left the window open hadn't he? He blinked heavily, dragging a hand over his face as he felt his legs creak and strain beneath his weight, having not being given the proper eight hours of rest that they needed. He'd be lucky if he got home and didn't fall apart.

Though, according to that harsh file, it was more likely his new ward was going to tear him apart.

If God wanted to take him...

But he did not have to go anywhere, not really. They came to him. A woman was suddenly waving him over enthusiastically, and he felt an apologetic look take his face as he scanned the other occupants of the room, none of whom seemed to care whatsoever for what was happening, all in their own little worlds.

He tripped forward, a flustered smile screwing onto his face as he reached the woman, putting out a hand to greet her. His eyes darted towards the slim blonde before him, who was refusing to make eye contact.

He cleared his throat. "Um, actually, I'm Teddy. Never did meet Mr. Lupin. Hi, Florence. Sorry that..." You're in this situation. The Ministry has failed you so far. That I'm not someone more remarkable. "I, um, considered a card. Or something. But Hallmark never really planned on such... specific... situations." A hopeless smile flickered onto his smile.

Well, he had the dad jokes down.

After Teddy’s voice had elapsed into silence, the hole in the conversation lulled on for a few moments. In those seconds, Florence took the time to observe the man before her with unflinching openness. The mussed hair, she deduced, was probably a constant. In an odd way, she enjoyed the way he dressed, even down to the shoes that perhaps could have done with a bit of a shine – although she was no one to pass judgement in that regard, wearing trainers that were well past the stage of falling apart. She was drawn to his gaze, partially obscured by heavy-framed glasses. Behind the glass, though, that bore a few smudges here and there that she found oddly charming, were a pair of warm, kind eyes. A pair of eyes that had focused on her and were accompanied by an equally coaxing, encouraging voice that had formed the syllables of the word ‘sorry’ in a way she had never heard another adult do so. It was an apology he didn’t owe, but one he had meant.

Her eyes abandoned Lupin briefly to glance upwards at Eloise, whose rouged lips had split apart her customary pout to reveal pearly white teeth set in a cringing smile. The vein on the right side of her jaw was pronounced, more so than usual. It was engorged, Florence suspected, with anxiety that was likely caused by pressure from higher up on the social service ladder to make this arrangement, the latest in a long line of failures, work. There was also something else in her stance, in the way she seemed to hold herself in that moment. There was a flickering, too, in her eyes – the hazel that Florence had gotten so used to over the years. They’d never be warm, but their familiarity had always been reassuring to the Gibbon girl. This was different, though – hot with underlying intensity that she had only really seen at school in the faces of her peers who were staring at those whose affection they sought.

Florence stared back at Lupin, trying to deduce the appeal. She understood it, of course, herself but she didn’t think that what she understood about the desirability of the man was the same as what Eloise understood. It wasn’t the smile that had slowly blinked into life on his lips, that had given Florence the rogue thought that this could, quite possibly, be alright. No, it wasn’t that. It wasn’t anything about his appearance which conveyed the idea that he was, in fact, a nice man, indeed. No, it was something much more cynical, wasn’t it? She turned her head back up to Eloise. No, it was because of who he was, not what he was or what he seemed to be. It was because he was Teddy Lupin. It was because he had a name that could open doors. It was because he was the son of war heroes, the nephew of the Minister.

The son of war heroes. The daughter of war criminals.

Eloise broke the silence before the second hand on the clock mounted above a rather tasteful pot palm could even reach the six. Florence had truly begun to wonder whether the woman could bear to go without hearing the sound of her own voice. She hadn’t thought that Lupin could ever qualify as a figure of emancipation but Florence found herself desperate to get out of the Ministry in a way that was different to before. This time, she was desperate to leave because she knew that, stood before her, was a man who was key to that. A man who was sublimely unthreatening unlike every other surly figure she’d dreamed up the night before. Now, she didn’t want Eloise to drag it out. She just wanted to go.

“There are a few things for you to sign, Mr Lupin, and things that need to be made clear to the both of you,” Eloise turned to look pointedly at Florence who raised a dark eyebrow at the elder woman, a distinctly unimpressed look folding over her features.

Eloise turned on her heel and Florence watched disinterestedly as she clip-clopped in her heels across the tiles back to her office. She dropped her arms down to her sides and looked at Lupin again, wondering if she should address his quip about the card. She almost wanted to laugh, the mental image of him searching for an appropriate card threatening to make her smile. She subdued the flickering of the side of her lips and looked down again, unsure what she wanted to say.

“You’ve probably made a mistake in signing up to this,” Florence decided to say, determined to quash any sense that this would be somehow an arrangement that pleased anyone. “If I don’t make your life hell, they will.”  

“Today, please,” Eloise reappeared in the doorway. “We need to talk about dark magic exposure,” she added, disappearing back inside, no doubt thinking that they’d follow.

“I’m good at Defence Against the Dark Arts,” Florence informed him before conceding, “though I expect that they’ve got it in red ink how worrying that is. You’re not just my guardian, you’re meant to be their spy – to make sure I don’t end up like my parents. They think if they can reform me, they can reform any child of Death Eaters. You’ve got to make sure I don’t take to Crucio-ing Muggles. Then you’ll probably get an Order of Merlin for preventing a dangerous criminal from becoming something she was apparently biologically determined to be.”

“Mr Lupin, Miss Gibbon!”

“Coming!” Florence called over her shoulder before stepping forward towards her new guardian. “Does the world judge you for being the son of a werewolf, Lupin? For something you never were, for something you might never be? Is the word werewolf a stain on you as much as the phrase Death Eater is a stain on me? Do they look at you and see the fur and hear the howl just as often as they look at me and see the mask and hear the call of the Killing Curse? I like eating Bourbons and taking photographs. My camera is the most expensive thing I own. Ask Eloise, she’d tell you she had no idea because she doesn’t, because if she ever calls for someone to make me a cup of tea, I always get a three-week old digestive. She doesn’t know I’ve been looking at becoming a photographer for the Prophet, either. She knows three things about me, perhaps four at a stretch… but the important ones are these: I am the daughter of Everett Gibbon and Rhea Goyle. War criminals. Murderers. I am just as good a dueller as they were at my age. I’m a Slytherin. I am them in her eyes, in the Ministry's eyes. I am an accident waiting to happen, one that you have been charged with trying to avert. I won’t blame you if you’d like to bow out now.”

Teddy had never done well under the gaze of other people, especially under the sort of look the social worker was giving him, something hungry and expectant. He hated expectations. His entire childhood had been the balance of expectations, and while he took them more placidly and gracefully than his siblings, he could not help that pinprick of anxiety now that he didn't have the energy of his youth to keep up with people wanting something out of him that he could not provide. Something gleamed behind the social worker's eyes, something more than the consideration that he might be more of a permanent solution to the troubled girl before him, but he could not for the life of him figure what further use she could see for him.

The social worker - he glanced towards her door and caught the name on the plaque and noted Eloise - spoke to him and he nodded, swinging his arms forward and clasping his hands together. Of course he had something to sign, and he was about to say as much when Eloise's attention turned, rather sharply, towards the girl. Towards Florence. His eyes followed, brow furrowed at the apparent animosity. What was that about?

Regardless, Eloise was walking into her office and he ducked his head, beginning to follow, when Florence's voice stopped him, making him lift his head and finally look at her, really look at her. Something in her eyes reminded him a bit of Lily, a dull look that made you feel as though nothing before her could impress her much, that she had seen and heard enough to be entirely over human company. And that voice which did not technically have an edge and yet still had a quality that could bite if the listener did not understand that it was not at all personal.

He blinked at her words. He understood that he certainly wasn't ideal, but it would be a shot to anyone's confidence to be written off so quickly. Eloise was back and he once again tried to move to follow her, but Florence's voice stopped him yet again. He wasn't one to ignore, to push past, or brush off. He, by the very nature of who he was, was always forced to listen. It often left him to be subjected to some verbal injury.

She certainly wasn't selling the arrangement positively. If he had cleared his doubts about her character, she was doing well to ensure that he had at least a pinprick of worry about her actual intentions. She took a step closer and he felt a sense of claustrophobia as his breath caught, oddly feeling as though she were about to get him in trouble with Eloise - as if he cared, or as if that was even possible.

Her monologue, a dramatic one worthy of some sort of honor, was over, and it was only then that he realized she actually expected an answer. Or did she? Perhaps she expected him to turn and leave the office without another word. He wondered if that had happened before, and how it felt to be barely sixteen and already capable of scaring adults away. The Ministry didn't realize it, but they had given her that power. The longer someone was treated as though they were dangerous, the more dangerous they became to fill those expectations.

It all came back to expectations. He figured he could probably relate to her on that front.

He cleared his throat, none to eloquently either. He reached up and scratched his cheek, before sliding his glasses further up his nose. "I was pretty lucky, I suppose. I know people did consider me a marked man, for more than being a werewolf, but I had a sympathetic family. That does a lot for a person." He quirked his lips, conscious now of Eloise's stare. "Not to underestimate you, but I think I can manage. But if you'd rather I not, that's fine. I don't imagine you usually get much choice in these matters. But if you don't want to stay at my place, you don't have to."

Florence liked to think herself uneasily spooked by people. The solitary observer of human society, she liked to think she’d learned all there was to learn – the peculiarities, the predilections, the pretentions. She was realistic enough to concede that it was not so, that she was too young to really know the full spectrum of human intricacies, but she felt as though she understood the basic principles that all human beings – especially magical ones – seemed to live by. It seemed unimaginable to her that anyone, especially a stranger – albeit one whose reputation and bloodline preceded him, could bely the assumptions she had constructed into quasi-fact over her sixteen years of life. And yet, there stood Edward R. Lupin – entirely unruffled by her, undaunted by what was expected of him, easy-going, almost blasé in his relaxed confidence. Florence could only blink.

Somehow, the Leaky Cauldron didn’t seem as freeing as it did before. There was something different at play here, with him. Florence was not sure what it was yet but it piqued her interest enough to make her want to see how it was all going to play out. It was an illusion of a choice, she knew. Neither of them had one now. The Ministry had him in a vice grip. She wasn’t sure if he realised. He’d been foolish enough to volunteer – or perhaps brave enough. She wasn’t sure which it was but nevertheless it would be down to her to make it impossible for him if he showed any signs of strain, of wanting to back out. They wouldn’t let him now. She was their crisis case. He was the last olive branch they had for her. The last bridge to burn.

But perhaps, illusion or not, it was worth seeing the end result. What else was there to this man? What were his faults – his peculiarities, predilections, and pretentions? Why did he make her think that maybe they didn’t follow the normal paths? In fact, she was almost sure they didn’t. He was a Lupin. Thus a Potter. They didn’t want for anything. It wasn’t love of gold that drove him into the Ministry’s arms, crowing about a desire to help nurture a lost generation of witches and wizards. It couldn’t have been selflessness, could it? A genuine desire to do good? That, she had all but given up as a myth.

“It’s not up to me,” she answered gradually, a sad almost-smile flickering about her mouth.

She turned then, but not wholly away from him, her left shoulder angled towards him, her head twisted around just a little – her body language inviting him to walk at her pace, for them to enter the dungeon office together.

“Thank you!” Eloise’s voice was breathless with indignation. Florence did nothing to hide her smirk as she sat down in her usual chair across from the social worker.

“Right,” her smile returned in full force as she lifted a hefty packet of paper work off of her desk and dropped it down on their side. Florence’s expression clouded with confusion for a few moments before she schooled it back to neutrality. She knew what it was, of course. It was paperwork outlining her previous homes and the problems she’d faced there, as well as the problems she’d created. It was a systematic appraisal of how difficult she would be for the Lupin man littered with propagandistic nonsense about how reforming her would be the greatest act of patriotism etcetera, etcetera… It had just never been that big before.

“Background paperwork,” Eloise laid her hand on top it before turning to some of the last pages. “To peruse in your own time and implement our advice where you wish to.” Florence raised an eyebrow. “Just sign here, Mr Lupin. Then there are a few other pages here for you to sign, as well, and we can call it quits once I’ve gone through the dark magic exposure.”

“Don’t let me near it or I’ll start cackling and talking about the Dark Lord,” Florence informed him wryly, resting her chin in her hand.

“Florence!” Eloise’s voice was razor sharp, her cheeks filling with blood as she looked around furtively, her eyes tracing to the door, as though expecting someone to turn up – Aurors probably.

“It’s the same speech every time,” Florence pointed out, dropping her hand and sitting back heavily against the chair. “The Ministry feels that exposure to certain types of magic will trigger a natural propensity for acts that contravene proper wizarding cond—”

“Show some proper wizarding conduct now, will you?” Eloise snapped. Florence brought her lips together with a pop, meeting the elder woman’s gaze steadily.

“Unfortunately,” she all but purred in Lupin’s direction, “your new charge has an excellent memory. Indeed, the Ministry does feel that exposure to dark magic, in particular, will bring out certain natural … leanings, if you will,” she eyed Florence, determined not to repeat her verbatim. “Her parents were naturally dark leaning, to put it mildly. We would like her to refrain from falling into circles that would allow her to slip into such … groups… that would lead to her …” she closed her eyes, letting out an impatient sigh, “contravening proper wizarding conduct.”

Florence’s smirk returned with full force.

“Thus, Mister Lupin … we really would rather you kept her away from Knockturn Alley, any contact with Death Eaters or their children—”

“I’m a Slytherin,” Florence cut in, her attention firmly excluding Eloise. “The last one is hard to do. Drives them mad.”

“And indeed,” Eloise reasserted herself firmly, “if possible we would really rather you socialised her within your own circles. The Potters, for instance. Or, um. Well, many of their associates. Light wizards, if you will. I am sure you’re acquainted with many. You really are her last chance for reform, Mr Lupin, and we feel you are her best chance, too.”

Florence cringed and turned her head away, imagining that, if it meant Eloise could get one foot in the door, she probably would have made pigs fly for ‘Mr Lupin’s’ attentions in that moment. It was all rubbish, all of it. Apart from the bit about him being her last chance. That … that probably wasn’t hyperbole. Merlin.

It wasn't up to her.

Teddy had not really considered the emotional factor of volunteering, had only thought of putting his money where his mouth was, follow through with doing good instead of just wanting society to do it. He had the space and the patience, so he had volunteered. He had not really considered the sorts of broken people that needed a home, hadn't considered any reaction other than gratitude. How unfair of him.

He frowned deeply but she was already turning back to Eloise, making him frown even deeper. The fact that she wasn't horribly bothered by her own statement was indicative of just how resigned she was to her fate. Teddy shuffled in, his face clouded with frustration, carefully veiled in patience. He let out a sigh and dropped into the chair across from the desk, slowly reaching out to take the first file, his breath gathering deep in chest, desperate to expel, but he had a feeling petulance was not going to make this experience any better for anyone.

He desperately wished to to silence Eloise, to deny Florence a reason to have to defend herself, or shield herself in humor. But their dynamic seemed rooted in a lack of real care or respect, and he couldn't insert himself if he had tried. He disagreed with so much of what Eloise was saying - that people were naturally dark, that a trip to Knockturn could transform someone into a Death Eater, that a Slytherin had to be dark. Why had there been a war to eradicate dark forces if they were still going to be conjured out of thin air?

Ridiculous.

He cleared his throat. "If we're looking for good influences, I'm not sure my family may be the best bet," he said. "Y'see, my sister is a mad raving werewolf, the other a recluse, and the other one disappeared mysteriously and got into who knows what. However, my brother was friends with Scorpius Malfoy, and he was actually a pretty decent bloke, and he's luckily still somewhat in our circles. If you're picking me because of my acquaintances, I'm afraid I'm not your man. But if you think Florence just needs someone to care about her health and well-being, then I'm here. I'll be a guardian, but I refuse to be a spy."

He wanted her to say it. He wanted her to let him do this his way.

Those well-worn phrases, clichés, really, about people paling to sheets and looking as they had seen a ghost … they’re clichéd for a reason. Their application is far-ranging. Eloise illustrated fully, down to the tiniest detail, the first. It all seemed to happen at once. The colour drained from her face. Her fingers cringed tightly around the rim of the desk and she seemed almost to shudder a little – as if her little world was caving in around her. The pages spread out before her on the desk had more of a complexion.

So, after all, the Potters were not the heroes that Eloise wanted. Florence eyed Teddy with sudden interest. She almost wished she could have had the liberty to choose him. The Ministry took issue with her company at school. They would have boiled at the idea that she was associating herself with people of ill-repute in the one place where they felt they had control. If Eloise so wished, though, she could take him away and put in his stead someone who properly fitted their ideal. Florence knew this all too well. But … there was something that made her doubt it this time. The way Eloise was eyeing the contract gave Florence pause. It was too late. They’d made their bed, chosen their man. Now the Ministry had to live with it – and Florence, too.

“You’re in a pickle now, aren’t you?” She waxed, ever the antagonist in her relationship with the social worker. Lifting her hands, she alternated their height, mimicking a set of scales. “Admit you don’t give a flying fuuudge” (nice save there, Florrie) “about my wellbeing …” she lowered one hand, “or find me someone with a respectable reputation to bunk with. Which is more important and which makes you look like less of a fool. I wonder…”

Eloise settled for glaring at Florence, quite unable to find her words, and she sighed, studiously attempting to ignore the smirk that was so wide it was verging on feline. The Slytherin dropped her hands into her lap and lifted her eyebrows as though to say ‘there, I win’ before glancing at Teddy and offering him an impish wink.

“The health and wellbeing of all of our wards of state is our sole concern here at the Ministry and part of that is making sure that our children go into an environment where they can flourish to become creative and conducive members of wizarding society. You are too modest, Mr Lupin.” Her cheeks took to the opposite pole, reddening to the point of tomato mimicry that made Florence raise her eyebrows again but this time in open confusion.

“You’re exactly the sort of man we want Florence to be around. A good influence. Yes. A good influence,” she nodded firmly. “And of course! Someone to care about her health and wellbeing as much as we do. Yes. So if you could just sign on the appropriate lines. Here’s a pen.”

Eloise got up, excusing herself for a glass of water, and Florence pursed her lips, her eyes widening a little as she rolled over everything in her mind.

“Well,” she turned her head to Teddy, turning in her chair to face him. “I am … she’s never been like that before. I knew that she knew how to tow the party line but … I mean … did you get the impression that you’d just been told to pretend to be a good influence even if you’re not what they’d had in mind just so that none of them get hauled up for mucking it up?”

Florence blinked rapidly, trying to get her head around it all as she muttered “mad, absolutely mad” under her breath a handful of times.

Then, his words actually, properly set in for her, too.

“Do you really care?” She found herself asking before actually becoming aware of it and then making a determined attempt to backtrack. “Not that it matters. I mean … it’s not a job requirement you’ve just got to … put up with me, really. But … um.” She took a breath. “Thank you for not … not being theirs. I’ll …” She laughed, almost. The sound wasn’t quite a laugh but it was close to one. “I’ll help you write the reports.”

So Teddy might have oversold the whole "we're all heathens" bit.

From what he knew, the Potters were actually doing quite well now. Rumor had it, Lily had some good friends watching out for her, Albus was taking care of a family, and James was assimilating back into life. But, Teddy probably knew better than anyone that despite whatever positive resume they might put forth, the Potters were a twisted crew, with too many skeletons in their closet for any of them to ever get away with a light perspective on the world. Teddy alone understood the true weight of all of their loss, and he typically wouldn't use it to his advantage.

But Eloise needed that reality check. It might shake some empathy into her.

Florence teased her, and Teddy blinked, torn between his feelings of solidarity with the Slytherin girl and his desire to keep things civil. He knew Eloise shared none of the former, so he relied on her for the latter, and indeed - she had a perfectly manicured answer for the situation, skirting the implications and doubling down on the slim shade of truth that was there... only if you squinted.

Teddy took the pen, tapping the end of it on the stack of his papers as Eloise left them to their own devices, presumably so she could take her frustration out on some unsuspecting Ministry intern - Teddy knew how these things worked. Florence, apparently, was surprised even at that this new low displayed by the Ministry's dutiful servant. He grimaced. "Yeah, I did get that impression."

He cleared his throat. "To be fair, I might have overblown the whole 'surrounded by dark forces' bit. But I dunno. Couldn't help it, I suppose."

Her question was a relevant one, even if it was an awkward one, and she seemed to be more overcome by her sense of uncertainty. He looked down at the papers and cleared his throat. "I know what it's like to not have a place, and to have everyone determine your path before you've even decided for yourself." He shrugged. "I don't want to give myself too much credit, but that might qualify me in the 'caring' area."

Again, he cleared his throat. "Thanks, it's not at all straightforward here," he said, shuffling through the papers.

((If you want we can time jump to going to his place. We also gotta figure out when exactly this happened. xD))

“It’s usually the first page, the twenty-third page, the sixty-second page, the hundredth, and the last page,” Florence recited, eyes twisted up towards her eyebrows in recantation.

The papers on the desk before Teddy were stalwarts of her childhood that grew in number as her years advanced and exploded upon her arrival at Hogwarts. The sixty-second page was her favourite. Wand wardship. Her guardian was expected to retain her wand to some degree throughout the summer holidays and any other intervals during the school year in which she found herself in their care. It could be adhered to at their discretion, of course, but in an ideal world, her wand would be confiscated and locked away the moment she crossed over the threshold of her guardian’s home. It was probably to prevent her from practising dark magic at night under her bedspread by torchlight – as if the Ministry wouldn’t be keeping an eye out for it.

“They prefer it signed in blood,” she quipped despite herself, a smirk pulling at her mouth.

If their arrangement lasted any length of time, Teddy would get to know the reports. It all became rather predictable after a while. There was a template that all guardians had to fill out, allowing the Ministry to observe the progress of the children. It wasn’t necessarily unusual. But of course, Florence’s was slightly more tailored to her situation insofar as … well, I’m sure you can imagine, reader. Anything suspicious, even benign but odd, needed to be reported … but even that was down to the guardian’s discretion – and, indeed, malevolence. Still, it must have made for interesting reading.

“If they’re wrong about your good, maybe they’re wrong about my bad,” Florence suggested softly, turning a little in her chair so she could reach out to turn the pages of the great, hulking tome that was her life in ink.

“Maybe we’re all a bit more complicated than that. Have you? Figured out your path, I mean? And found your place? That, actually, might be a bit much for a Ministry office on a … what is it? Tuesday? Don’t worry about answering.”

She waved her hand dismissively and sat back, dropping both back into her lap as the quality of her cuticles suddenly became quite interesting.

“When do we get out of here, then?” She asked, right on time, as it was then that Eloise re-entered, face flushed with irritation. Sobs could be heard, just in the distance, before the door shut again. Teddy had been right about the intern. Escape was now the only option.


((Go, go, go, go! Haha. Ummm, I remember we figured it was somewhere between them getting back from Ilvermorny and going back to Hogwarts but we might have to suspend disbelief and just say it was "sometime" heh))