Too good for your own good

Teddy wasn't exactly sure how he could explain this.

So, during his time working at Mungo's, he had received special permission to take his patient's files home with him. Because of the nature of his job, there was every chance that he could get a call at any time and would need to attend to one of his patients, and he simply had to have access to the specifics of their diagnosis, past history, and any type of potions they might be currently taking it. It was often an actual matter of life or death and the records department just had a few too many steps to make anything else a viable option. Obviously, there were files still in the records department, but copies had been made for his purposes.

Now that it was set in stone, that he would indeed be leaving therapy entirely to try his hand at teaching, he needed to return the records. He arrived and was allowed back, since everyone still knew him and expected him to be back once the Slytherins tore his idealistic heart in two.

An elderly woman named Doris typically handled filing but when Teddy entered the room he found, instead, one of the Mungo's interns. Doris was supposedly in Costa Rica and this kid, who had a lazy loll in his neck and eyes that rolled a bit too easily, was covering for her. Teddy realized all too quickly that, in the hands of this youngster, his patient's sensitive files would never be filed correctly. So Teddy offered to file them himself.

He realized now what had happened. Because a mere five minutes into the task, the teenager and claimed he needed to use the restroom. Now that another ten minutes had passed, Teddy was beginning to wonder if the boy was ever coming back. And then his files were done, but the files that the kid had not gotten too were just sitting out on the counter. So he began filing those away too.

And that's when he realized he had been tricked into doing the job of an intern.

Teddy was mad for about a minute, and considering just storming out then. But it left his good-natured body quickly. Mungo's had treated him well, and Doris has always been kind to him. He imagined she was going to come back from her vacation with days and days of work to be done, not to mention improperly filed papers everywhere else. Teddy had not had a busy day planned, and there was something therapeutic about the work. It was like having a really practical way to say good bye.

So that's what he did.

#Tavery

"Remind me again why you're making me run errands with you."

"Because, love. I'm a dreadful sod since... what happened. You've got to keep me from being awful to people."

Avery smiled slightly, almost proud of the influence she had over him. Still, she was concerned about him. He wasn't okay, and even though he could clearly admit that fact, it didn't change how anxious she felt about him sometimes. Like he might fall apart right in front of her. She had no way of knowing, of course, that Keiran was quite afraid of the same thing.

And that, of course, was the real reason that Avery Ivanov Bishop was traveling around the Wizarding World with him that day rather than spending it with her daughter. In her arms, she carried a massive tower of files, and Keiran held one of his own as they stumbled down the halls of St. Mungo's together. It was important, of course, to keep records up-to-date everywhere, not just at Hogwarts. And with Theo so concerned about Mai and Keiran's new position requiring that he be the one to take the project on, it was about time they were copied and brought over.

The copying had been the easy part. Avery had nearly been granted permission to use one of those extendable bags, but then Keiran had worried that things would get out of order and thus have to be reorganized again. And so they arrived looking in quite a mess, and Avery was about to complain again just to fill the silence around their footsteps, but Keiran spoke first.

"Teddy? Mate, that you?" He asked, turning sideways so he could look at the other man properly. "How strange, the way paths line up. First at the school, now here as well."

Avery shifted slightly to her left, trying to look at the man in question, but she didn't manage more than a blink of one before the topmost portion of her stack very swiftly and suddenly toppled, sending pages flying all around her like something out of one of those Muggle films. Merlin help her, but she had turned into something of a klutz after having Sophie, hadn't she? Hours of pretending to be one to make her daughter feel better had formed a truly embarrassing habit.

"Merlin," Keiran gaped, setting his stack down on the desk without so much as glancing to see what he was covering. He then turned back to her, forcefully taking her bunch away as well. "Even without the bag you managed to make a mess, Avery," he teased with one of the fullest laughs she had heard in weeks.

Despite how frustrated she was with herself, she couldn't keep the smile off of her face as she knelt down to collect the trashed files. Once they were all back in her arms, she began sifting through them - carefully this time - and trying to rearrange them.

Keiran had other ideas, though. He set her stack down as well, then took the ones she had collected, lifting one hand to rest between her shoulder blades as he gestured towards Teddy with the mess of papers. "Avery, this is Teddy Lupin. He's teaching at Hogwarts this year."

She blinked once before gathering herself and stepping away from Keiran, instead moving towards Teddy and offering a hand and a chagrined smile. "Hello. I'm not usually such a travesty in public, but you're one of the lucky ones who can say they've caught me, I suppose."

The work was simple and repetitive and soon he found himself falling into a rhythm, slightly out of touch with the world around him as his body became a machine. Left index finger trailing over labels, right hand clutching a file and conducting a little four count, lifting his hand on the downbeat of the next unsung measure to deposit the file into its slot, the next folder in his hand by the count of three for the prep. He knew that magic wasn't relied upon extensively because a misfile could be disastrous - which was why it shocked him that that intern had ever been allowed with ten feet of the room. That said, a small stack of files floated behind him, refilling itself as it went. He lost himself in his little system before long and then-

At the sound of Keiran's voice, though, Teddy flinched, his file-cladden arm jerking outward as he spun around, his left hand having to grab the floating pile of files to keep himself from overshooting his spin and collapsing. "Merlin!" he couldn't help but gasp, releasing the files quickly and attempting to pull his body back into a more casual, less deer-in-the-headlights, stance.

"How strange, how you almost killed me and don't seem to mind," he said with a good-natured smile, reaching up to adjust his glasses, which had begun their belated slip down his nose. "I, um... It's a long story why I'm here."

It wasn't long, it was just a little pathetic.

His eyes had reached the blonde woman, who was holding an impressive stack of files herself, enough that he couldn't even see her face. He opened his mouth to ask if they would like help with their files, but before he could say anything, the files had burst from the woman's arms and were scattering everywhere. Teddy let out a noise of surprise and moved the floating files to step forward and catch the few files that were floating in the air, stepping through the swinging gate of the counter to join in the gathering of files. After all, that had almost been him.

The woman stood and Keiran took her stack of papers. Teddy quickly stacked the few he had caught atop the pile, drawing him a bit closer to the woman he was now being introduced to him. He straightened up and glanced at Keiran, before turning his sheepish smile on the blonde and offering his hand in return. "And you've caught me on the wrong side of the counter, so I guess we can both do a little forgiving and forgetting." An awkward laugh slipped past his lips and he reached up to adjust his glasses, something he only did when they were either slipping or he was nervous.

They weren't slipping.

Avery would shout at Keiran later, when he refused to let it drop. She really would. Because if he couldn't have something like that moment himself, the person that deserved it the most was Avery. He hated the idea that she had an instant smile for someone else, for someone besides him or Robin or her family. He really did. But at the same time, he got the distinct feeling that the pair of them would make fantastic friends, once he really thought about it.

But, indeed, her embarrassment blossomed into a pleased smile when he turned a greeting of his own towards her. When she laughed in return, Keiran's eyes narrowed sharply. Yes, they'd get along brilliantly. And from what he had seen, they could both use somebody these days.

He crossed his arms casually over his chest, looking between the pair of them for a moment as Avery took her hand back and flicked her head to the side to give Keiran a slightly questioning glance. She tried to hide it from Teddy, though, everything about her expression casual except for the lift in her eyebrows, small though it was.

He didn't make any sort of face back, but he did hesitate for a breath before looking at Teddy and gesturing with a tilt of his head towards the desk.

"Somebody gone missing? Looked like you were up to something. I've got to get these filed before I leave so if someone's gone off somewhere, I have no problem finding them."

Avery couldn't help but smirk at that. "Yeah, you've got to get some, uh, Headmaster practice in, eh?"

Teddy could not help but notice the ease between Avery and Keiran, the comfortable back and forth, making him long for the days where he could count on Bernice and Sawyer to fill his nights with the escapades of their youth. But Sawyer got himself a fiancee, and Bernice got herself a girlfriend, and they all got Grown Up Jobs, which meant going out for a pint every Tuesday and Saturday simply wasn't in the cards for them anymore. Every now and then, Bernice sent a letter and Sawyer would floo over, but the premises for these visits were almost always business. He missed that gentle comfort of having people gather around who simply knew you.

Keiran asked further into his current predicament and he felt a flush appear on his neck, his mouth tipping open in an uncertain gape as a hand went to rub away the growing pink beneath the ends of his mop of hair, but Avery was quick to quip towards Hayes, providing Teddy with the out he so desperately needed. "Right! Mate, I don't think I've had a chance to say in person but, congratulations. Can't lie, makes me much more optimistic about this whole hare-brained become-a-professor idea I had. You're going to be brilliant."

(Trying to find my Teddy hat still, don't mind me while I get back in the groove <3 )

Perhaps, if Avery had been more observant - or actually looking at Keiran at all - she would have noticed that he was actually bashful. Usually, comments about his new position brought out tightened shoulders, a subtle gleam in his eye and the twitch of his lips that suggested just how proud he was. But coming from Teddy, it somehow made him a little embarrassed. Probably because it sounded quite genuine, and because Keiran knew few people as just plain nice as Teddy seemed to be.

But Avery wasn't looking at Keiran. She was glancing between the files and Teddy's face, trying to figure him out somehow. She was waiting for Keiran to reply, but he was just smiling a little and nodding his head in thanks. Trust Avery to ruin a moment, though.

"Oh, but from the sounds of things you'll both be doing well. A professor!" She said, gesturing towards Teddy as though that explained her attempted compliment. "Your family must be terribly proud. I mean, my parents were proper surprised, and probably a bit scared, when they found out what I do. But teaching is really lovely. I bet your folks were thrilled to hear about it."

"Avery."

She very nearly kept talking, despite the sharp tone in Keiran's voice. But then she blinked, glanced his way, and then looked back at Teddy. She didn't understand, of course. If she had actually been paying attention to the introduction, rather than taking in his little smile and his mannerisms, perhaps she could have forced herself to make the connection. But studying at Durmstrang hadn't done for her what Hogwarts had for Keiran. Sure, she could name the key players, but history had never been her strong suit. Even if Keiran had made a face about it to begin with, to warn her, she probably wouldn't have understood.

So she just looked back at Keiran again, unable to help it when she glanced at Teddy once more. Her eyebrows pulled together as she tried to read his face but she did stop herself, rather than prattling on again. Whatever she'd done, Avery had the distinct feeling that she would be chided for it later. And she half wondered if Keiran would ever dare bring her out in public again - particularly around Teddy - if she'd done something so bad.

Ducking her chin, Avery cleared her throat and stepped past Keiran to pick up a few of the files that he'd put on the desk. She passed them to Keiran, turning her back to Teddy and shooting her friend a look that clearly screamed HELP. He most certainly did not help.

Keiran set the files back down, stepping back. "I really ought to find whoever is meant to be here," he said, ignoring the terrified, tiny shake of her head. "Perhaps they can help us get this sorted out."

"Keiran-"

"It's fine. I'll be only a minute. Teddy, can you try and get her started or something?"

Keiran backed out of the room, finally acknowledging her disapproval and red cheeks as the confusion and panic properly set in. But then he turned, wandering down the hallway, and Avery stared at the floor out of the corner of her eye. At least, for a moment, anyway. Recovering as best as she could, she stood up straighter, spun to look at Teddy - though she could admit to being slightly surprised when her curls flew and one brushed her chin - and she gave him a rather weak attempt at a smile.

"Show me?"

Teddy was one of those well-intentioned people who always seemed to be punished for his good deeds. Maddie, who on more than one occasion had acted as his makeshift therapist, would have told him that such thoughts were self-destructive, setting himself up for failure, and that it probably never happened.

She would have been wrong in this instance.

For no sooner had his rushed congratulations tumbled out of his mouth than Avery eagerly picked up the threads of the conversation. Teddy attempt to bat away her initial admirations, offering a little scoff and tilt of his head, shaking his chin as his mouth opened to quickly assure her that it was nothing special. But she kept going. And her found his mouth trapped open just a bit, incapable of closing as a strange expression of surprise and mild horror fell on his face. He could feel Keiran's eyes and felt embarrassment rush in to back up all those other tricky emotions.

The problem with Teddy was that his given circumstances had always been that he had never known his parents. Everyone knew it and was used to it, so they didn't often think of it. Many had even said he was lucky, at least, to have the Potters. And he had been, of course, until he lost them. Not many orphans who never knew their parents... also had to go through losing a set of parents. But that was Teddy's luck for you.

His luck was also having to tell a pretty woman the unfortunate news and see her optimism get ripped to shreds.

The moment was awkward. Teddy's comforting nature immediately wanted to pick up and reassure Avery, to play it off, to help her wide eyes and now tense stance relax, but he was too surprised by the sudden remembrance of his own tragedy to be quick on the uptake. She jumped into action and Keiran began to fill the void with chatter, chatter Teddy barely heard or processed until suddenly - wait, shit, no, no, no - Keiran had left them on their own.

Teddy blinked and reached up, adjusting his glasses and dropping his hand down to a file, squinting a little too much to make out the label. Avery was staring after Keiran, probably desperate for relief from such an awkward man and an awkward situation, and Teddy was just fine if she did run off. He had made things horrible enough.

But she turned and his head lifted and he couldn't help but stare for a moment. How had she done that? Just... let it melt away? The uncertainty flickered somewhere behind her eyes, but the sudden firmness and willingness to help...

Teddy blinked and his lips parted as he tried to figure out... yes! They had files too.

"Um, right, what do you have there?" He held out a hand for one of the files, leaning forward as well to peer at the top. "Right. Um, so, Hogwarts files are actually against this wall. Sorted by the school year, then alphabetically within that. I can do it, if you want. If you'd rather catch up with Keiran that is."

Avery wasn't sure what was happening to her pulse, now that she tried to figure it out. Because, actually, it was thundering beneath her skin. She didn't register the fact until his reply widened her smile, and it properly shocked her when he leaned in and she felt herself stop breathing.

She wasn't in trouble. She hadn't ruined it all.

Really, she should have registered - or Keiran should have, at the least - that Avery used phrases like that. They were ones he would hear Darcie, Liam and Kelly use as they got further into their vocabularies. But they were terms she hadn't lost from her childhood, and ones that still haunted her. But they weren't in that moment. Rather, they were pushed away.

That is, until he suggested she go and find Keiran. She felt certain that it was what he'd meant by it. So. He was just pretending, too, then. Her smile faltered. Disappointment flickered in her eyes, bringing her eyebrows down for less than a moment. It almost didn't happen.

She had two choices, really. On the one hand, she could do as he'd said. Or, she could do what Keiran wanted and stay put. And, frankly, Keiran's preferences mattered to her much more than the man who was apparently trying to send her away.

Something in her stomach curled uncomfortably but she just shook her head and somehow drew an even brighter smile out of her dismay. Accompanying it was a laugh that was more exhale than chuckle, but she hoped it would do the trick.

"It's like I said. I'm quite good at making a fool of myself without meaning to. That doesn't mean I'm going to run off and leave you with these."

She relinquished the file he had reached for, but held the others tightly to her chest. And with that, she stepped around the desk in the same manner Teddy had, then started to flick through the files and sort them.

Oh, Merlin.

It was so quick, that flicker, that wave of uncertainty, and Teddy almost tripped over himself in an effort to explain that he wasn’t trying to get rid of her, no, he was trying to relieve her from… from… more of this. More of his own ineptitude at having a normal social interaction. He used to be so good at it, so relaxed and comfortable in his own skin. He could admit without exaggeration or boasting that he was fairly popular in school, and had retained many close friendships even outside of it. But then, doubt had come in. And it hadn’t left.

Apparently that what was one of the side effects when your family fell apart and everything you once knew was thrown into the shadow of doubt.

But she was it again. That quick shift from negative emotion to positive energy and he swore they could positivity as an alternative energy force. Her words confirmed his thoughts, that she was still putting the blame on her shoulders and he knew he had to right the situation…

As awkward as it was going to be.

“No, no, sorry, I just thought you’d rather…” he shook his head, losing his words. “I’m sorry we got weird it’s just… I’m used to people knowing that... um…” There wasn’t really a way of making this normal. “I never really got to know… whether or not my parents would be proud.” He hoped she could piece things together. This was getting worse and worse. “And my godparents never got the chance to see me do much either. People around here follow anything to do with the Potters like mad, so I’m not used to- but it’s.. it’s… Like I said, it just… threw me off guard.”

Avery's fingers faltered as she reached up to tuck a file into place. Miraculously, she didn't drop it, but instead let her hand hover as he attempted to explain. Not that she'd really expected him to, or like she would have asked for it. But she turned to look over her shoulder at him, her hand lowering as he went on.

Avery didn't know what he was expecting, or what usually happened. Then again, he had already explained that this situation was quite unusual, even for him. So she didn't know what he imagined he would find when her eyes met his. It wasn't pity, exactly, to be fair. It was empathy.

And then it was guilt. Because the way he said it made everything clear, and she suddenly remembered: Lupin. Lupins. Death. He hadn't had the chance to so much as try. Avery had been granted the chance and had soiled it. Ignored it, really, and pushed it away. And then her father-

No.

Avery realized that her gaze had dropped to his chest - not because he had on a particularly interesting sweater or anything, but rather because it was at eye level and it was much easier than looking at his expression. But she cleared her throat and nodded slowly, as if her attention falling was part of that gesture.

"I-- yeah, um. I'm not technically from around here," she offered with a half smile. "Um.. Sorry. But, I mean, I get it, sort of."

Avery ducked her chin, glancing between him and the files as she tried to come up with something good to say that would fix the mood. She was used to sorting things out when Sophie became alarmed or upset. Surely she would be able to do it in this case as well.

"Well, it's a good thing you have people like Keiran to offer some support. Granted, I don't know how close the two of you are. Surely you've got.. cousins or best friends or, I don't know - a mentor or girlfriend or something to do the same. Or boyfriend," she added with a weak, almost watery grin, holding up her hands, "no judgement.

"I just mean that you undoubtedly have people who are .. much more, I guess, aware than I am. More, um, ..helpful."