Chapter Text
For the first few years of his life, he is Teddy-Beary.
Teddy-Beary is a typical child: he cannot bear to be still, in body or in mind. Questions pour from his mouth like a never ending stream. He fidgets if asked to sit for a single minute. He shapes volcanoes and villages and dragons and unicorns from his supper. His hair changes hue at least once every few minutes.
Maybe not so typical, then. (But Gram assures everyone that Nymphadora was just the same at this age.)
There is no rhyme or reason to the color changes. For it to go from silver to flame-red to vibrant green to polka dots is common, and his close ones get used to it quickly.
But amidst all this change, Teddy-Beary has constants – he has Gram to hug and to make smile, he has Harry to impress and to laugh with, he has Gin-Nee-Nee to listen to his stories and to take him into the air on her broom. He has Gram Molly to coddle him and to fuss and to worry. He has Gramps to show him things like the mike-wave and the fellyfone and the Puter (as long as he doesn’t tell Gram Molly). He has Ron to get him all the cool toys from the shop first and he has Mine-y to read to him and to answer all his questions.
Eventually, he has Vicky too. He has her to play with and to push in the mud and to tease and to protect.
These are the good constants – but Teddy-Beary has bad constants in his life too, even if no one thinks he sees them.
Gram, in particular, will sometimes slow down and stare at Teddy-Beary, without seeing him, not really. Teddy-Beary knows she isn’t because one time, when it happened, he focused really hard and he actually changed the shape of his ears, which was really hard, so he was really proud of it. So of course he bragged about it to Gram – but she said she hadn’t seen it. Which Teddy-Beary thought was stupid, because she was right there, in front of him, staring right at him when he did it.
So that’s how he know she wasn’t really seeing him.
When that happens, Teddy-Beary just goes right up to her and hugs her hard and scrambles into her lap, if she’s sitting. When that happens, he just lets her snuggle and play with his hair and all the other stuff he normally complains about.
Because if he does that, when that happens, Gram gets all smilely and she starts singing this song he can’t make out this words to – and when Gram does that, it makes him feel all warm and nice inside, like he just drank some warm milk.
Teddy-Beary likes that warm milk feeling, so he tries to make everyone smilely, all the time, even if it means cuddling and fussing and not-fidgeting and not having adventures.
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Teddy-Beary disappears when James is born. After that, he is just Teddy, too old for a baby name like Beary.
And while outgrowing childhood nicknames might be typical, the rest of the changes that accompany Teddy-Beary’s change to just Teddy are not.
The most apparent change is, again, his hair.
When he steps inside the room in St. Mungo’s where Gin-Nee-Nee is, his hair is flashing excitedly between pink-blue-green-gold with the odd purple stripe appearing here and there. He takes in Gin-Nee-Nee’s smile, which is more smilely than he has ever seen before, and feels a pang of failure.
Teddy-Beary never made her smilely like that. Gin-Nee-Nee is not even looking at him.
She’s looking, beaming, at this little bundled up thing. It has a scrunched up red face, and tiny hands, and a frowny mouth, and shockingly red-orange hair.
Teddy-Beary feels jealous. He doesn’t know why Gin-Nee-Nee is all smilely for this whatever-it-is, but he wants her to be smilely for him.
At that moment, Teddy-Beary flashing hair just … stops. It settles, on a shockingly red-orange color, that exactly matches that thing’s hair.
And now he’s Teddy, and he’s apparently done something really cute, by changing to match the thing. Gin-Nee-Nee looks up at him and beams at him too, and gushes about how they really look like a family now.
And that’s when he finds out that the thingy is actually a baby boy named Jamie. And Jamie is Teddy’s little brother so it’s his job to protect and look after Jamie.
Harry says, “Teddy-Beary, do you want to hold Jamie?”
And no, Teddy really doesn’t, because he’s still a bit jealous. But Gram and Gin-Nee-Nee and Harry are all looking at him and are all smilely so he does anyway.
But while he’s holding the bundled-thing-called-Jamie, something awesome happens. The Jamie-thing’s eyes focus on Teddy’s hair and the itty-bitty hand reaches up and grabs one of the long strands of bright red-orange. And Teddy’s about to yelp and get angry at the Jamie-thingy even more, because that hurt, when it happens: the Jamie-thing’s frowny mouth opens and then…
Jamie laughs. And it’s a wonderful, really awesome and cute, little baby laugh that melts everyone’s hearts like a popsicle in August.
Instead of making Teddy more jealous, he’s happy, and warm milk feeling-y inside, because Jamie laughed because of Teddy.
So Teddy decides that if being red-orange haired Teddy can make Gin-Nee-Nee gush, and Harry beam, and Gram look proud, and Jamie laugh, then he’ll stay red-orange haired Teddy.
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Being red-orange haired Teddy doesn’t come easy.
He has to stop everyone calling him Teddy-Beary. Gram Molly takes the longest to catch on. Teddy thinks it shouldn’t be this hard. The difference is obvious to him- Teddy-Beary’s hair changed all the time; Teddy’s hair is almost constantly red-orange.
Keeping his hair still is hard too. He has to focus really hard at first, and when he’s excited or scared or surprised or angry, he slips up. But he’s getting better.
Gin-Nee-Nee still gushes about looking like a real family and Jamie still yanks and laughs at his hair.
But Teddy thinks Gram might be worried. He doesn’t know why, but he heard her tell Harry, “Nymphadora didn’t settle down until much later.”
He heard Harry smile and say, “I guess Teddy is just ahead of the curve then.” Teddy doesn’t know what that means, but it must be something good.
But he doesn’t think Gram agreed, because he saw her shake her head, cross her arms, and frown.
Teddy-Beary would have gone over and cuddled and hugged. Teddy feels the urge to do that, but he stays away, because he’s pretty sure that’s not what Teddy does.
He’s still figuring out what Teddy does. He knows Teddy is a big brother, and that means he has look out for the little kids more now. Teddy has ‘sponsibilities.
He stops pushing Vicky in the mud, and starts defending her from anyone who does. Jamie doesn’t get out much yet, but Teddy figures this will be good practice for when he does.
Teddy has to share. A lot. Teddy-Beary would have hated it, so it’s a good thing he’s Teddy now. Teddy has to share his toys and his books and his time with Harry and Gin-Nee-Nee and Mine-y and Ron and Gram Molly.
Being Teddy isn’t very fun, with the one hair color and the sharing and the no-pushing-in-mud, but he thinks it’s worth it because of the really big smilelys he gets from everyone, especially Gin-Nee-Nee.
(And if he stops getting as many smilelys from Gram, and more frowny-mouths, well, at least he’s getting so many from everyone else.)
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