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traintracksTitle: Announcing Your Place in the Family of Things
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
traintracks
Threesome: Teddy/James/Scorpius
Additional Pairings: James/Scorpius, Teddy/James, (*background Harry/Draco* [highlight to read])
Rating: NC-17
Word Count: 15,765
Contains (Highlight to view): *implied infidelity (background), not-quite-incest, dub-con (sort of). I tried to use as many prompts as possible. I managed: first time, falling in love, figuring things out, families, aurors, heavy magic, arguments, walking out, amnesia, running out of time *
Notes: This was written as a gift fortryslora for the ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
hp_3somes gift exchange. Enormous gratitude to my astoundingly awesome beta, sdkshelly and to elrhiarhodan who gave this story love enough to grow into what it is. The title is taken from the Mary Oliver poem, "Wild Geese".
Disclaimer: Harry Potter characters are the property of J.K. Rowling and Bloomsbury/Scholastic. No profit is being made, and no copyright infringement is intended.
Summary: When an unknown spell gives Teddy amnesia, and he can't remember what his relationship with James Potter ought to feel like, James' boyfriend, Scorpius Malfoy, hatches a plot to finally get James into bed with his secret first love.
I was the boy who tried to recall a nonexistent past – any memory of my mother's warmth, the sound of my father shaving his whiskers – and for obvious reasons, nothing ever surfaced.
I was the boy who manufactured a childhood, who got by, who saw by the light of his wand – saw just enough to carve out a little bit of a life.
But things didn't become clear, didn't become beautiful, until I forgot everything.
~~
"Don't worry. I can counter this."
"What?" His throat was sore. He didn't know why his throat was so sore. He could barely see.
"I've got you…I've got you…" The voice was trembling but confident, and this person was jostling him about and it made his head hurt.
"M'head hurts," he said, wincing.
"I know, Teddy. But I've got the antidote. Here. Take a drink. It's foul, so just do it fast."
"What? Who are you?" He scrambled to get away now.
Strong arms held him fast, but there was a falter in the voice. "Y-you don't…recognize me?"
He squinted, and the face over him became less fuzzy: dark, almost-black hair going every which way, green green eyes, a jagged scar on the creased forehead, just over the right eye. "No," he answered. "Should I?" A new panic started to set in.
The man swallowed hard. "Teddy. I need you to trust me right now. I'm your friend. I'm Harry." The voice broke just a little when it said, "Harry Potter."
Teddy. He'd called him Teddy. His name was Teddy? He frowned, his breath coming fast. "I don't…I can't…!"
"I know, and we'll deal with that, but right now you need to drink this or your heart's going to stop in about one more minute."
"What happened to me?"
"I'll tell you, but bloody drink this, Teddy!" the Harry person shouted at him, and something in him responded. He opened his parched lips and drank the stuff from the brown vial that tasted like someone's sweat with maybe some tar mixed in. "Good, good!" the man over him enthused. "Now, it might make you slee—"
Everything then went black.
~~
James was just in the middle of getting his prick sucked when they heard the front door of the house burst open.
Scorpius lifted his head. "What was that?"
"The door. Get dressed." James shoved him from between his thighs none-too-gently.
"Bugger!" Scorpius shouted.
"Shut it!" James hissed, pulling on pants and denims in a rush.
"But you said they wouldn't even be back tonight. You said that the mission was three days. 'Three days of suck and fuck,' you said to be precise and—"
"Shh. Listen."
They were both quiet. James could practically see his boyfriend's heart thumping away in his skinny chest. But what he heard stole any last vestiges of arousal he'd had.
"Get him to the guest room – don't bother with the stairs right now." That was Aunt Hermione's voice. Then someone called, "Teddy? Teddy! Can you hear me?" And everything else after that went unheard.
"Merlin," he breathed, magicking on his clothes and Scorpius' clothes, too, as fast as he could.
"What'd you hear?" Scorpius hissed.
James looked at him, the emotion welling in his eyes as he peered into Scorpius' worried face. "Teddy," James said breathlessly. "Teddy's hurt."
~~
"I don't know. I don't know!"
Teddy stirred, realizing he was lying somewhere soft and warm. He was under blankets, his clothes had been changed, his head still hurt.
"But you're Head Auror. If you don't know how to—"
"I understand that, Ron. We're all working on it. Hermione's in the books. I mean, there has to be something."
"But physically…he'll be okay, right? I mean, you fixed that bit."
Teddy heard a heavy sigh. "Yeah. He'll be okay. He just…can't remember. Ron, I've never heard of that spell before. It wasn't Obliviate."
"Yeah, no, me either. And I thought we'd have heard them all by now."
"I shouldn't have let him go in first. He's only been an Auror two years and—"
"Teddy Lupin is second only to you, Harry, when it comes to fighting dark magic," the Ron voice said. "He was fully capable. He went in on point because he knew the specs best. Nobody could have countered that curse. You have to believe that, mate."
Pain shot through Teddy's head, and he couldn't help but moan. Suddenly, a body was right next to him, and Teddy squinted his eyes open. "Where am I?"
This bloke calling himself Harry, who seemed to care about him, who had likely carried him here, wherever he was, sighed again. Teddy was beginning to hate that sound. It meant he wasn't going to like what he heard next.
"Home," Harry said. "Teddy, you're home."
~~
They hadn't been allowed in; his Dad had almost shut the door in his face. But not before he'd squeezed James' shoulder and said, "He'll be all right." Then he'd shot a lukewarm greeting at Scorpius and locked them out of the downstairs guest room where every powerful Auror, Healer, and available Hogwarts staff member had collected to try to figure out what was wrong.
All James knew was that…
"He doesn't remember."
"C'mon," Scorpius said, taking his hand. "I'll make us some tea, right?"
James had nodded and let himself be dragged to the kitchen. It was dark and silent in there at one in the morning until Scorpius wanded the candles lit and got the kettle on. Then it felt a little more like home. Not exactly like home. Because Teddy was in a locked room, in a bed, hurt and not remembering him.
"He's not hurt anymore, Jamie. He just can't remember," Scorpius said, sitting across from him and taking James' hands in his own.
"Stop reading me," James muttered curtly. But the hand-holding was rather nice. Most people thought Scorpius Malfoy was all misdeeds, bad magic, and buggering, but James knew better: his boyfriend had a sweet side – even a Gryffindor side James knew but never said for fear of that old Malfoy chin-jutting denial.
The tea steeped and the room filled with the warming smell of cinnamon and clove. "He'll remember," Scorpius said. "And if he doesn't…well, it won't be the end of the world. I promise."
"How can you say that? We grew up together! He's been like… He's been like a brother to me and now I've lost him."
"Okay, first of all, you haven't lost him, all right? He's in a room down the bloody hall, in one piece, thanks to your dad. And second of all, what are you on about, like a brother? Pull the other one, why don't you, you lying sod!" Scorpius was smiling at him, stroking along the backs of James' hands with his thumbs.
James just blinked at him. His heart was doing little flips. "I…don't know what you mean."
"Oh Merlin's sweaty arse, bollocks!" Scorpius laughed. "You think I don't know? You think you can shag me for three years and I won't catch on that you want to kneel at Teddy Lupin's feet and worship his gorgeous cock? You think I wouldn't want to share it with you?"
"Scorpius!" James shouted. He sounded like a prude old witch and he knew it. God, he was hot all over. He was red as hell. Damned Weasley blood. "But I love you," he said.
Scorpius smiled. "I know. But you love him, too. You have since you learned to wank your pud, right?"
James flushed all the worse. "How can you talk about him like that when he's…when he's…?"
"Alive and completely unaware of how things are supposed to be? How can I not?" Scorpius scoffed. "Don't forget who you're talking to, Jamie."
He got up to fetch the tea, and James felt like his world just got flooed to the other side of the Universe.
~~
Within two days Teddy was feeling physically fine. They'd tried to get him to go to some place called St. Mungo's, a hospital for wizards from the sound of it, but Teddy had vehemently refused. Wherever he was, while he couldn't quite conceive that it was his home, it felt rather good. And whoever this Harry Potter person was, Teddy liked being around him. He didn't want to be shuttled off to some hospital with cold floors and nameless nurses and nothing that was supposed to be familiar around him. Visiting hours and disinfecting spells. Teddy couldn't stomach it. So he asked to stay.
And Harry suffered his questions:
"I'm how old?"
"Twenty-six."
"And my last name again?"
"Lupin."
"Why can't I remember?"
And that one, nobody could answer except to rattle on about some spell some person did to him in words Teddy couldn't comprehend. They handed him his wand, and for whatever reason that was the one thing that held some glimmer of normalcy for him. He knew he was a wizard. He knew he lived in a world of magic. But that was practically all he knew.
Harry – who he'd gathered was not just his friend but his colleague and superior -- didn't seem inclined to tell him too much too fast. He'd overheard a meeting with all the rest of them while he was supposed to be sleeping. Some wanted to let him Legilimens everyone, and Teddy had a vague recollection of what that meant, but still others objected, especially the lady who spoke precisely, like a school teacher. She'd said he could suffer something called backlash. That had made the entire conversation shudder to a stop.
Then Teddy heard Harry. "We'll do it as a last resort. For now, we let him feel his way."
And that's what they'd done. The others had left. Then Harry'd taken him to a room upstairs and told him that he stayed there often, that it was, for all intents and purposes, his room. He was there now, left to touch the belongings he could only assume were his own.
Teddy walked slowly about the space, running his hand over an ancient cherry wood bureau, a dusty trunk he almost couldn't wait to open – except that there were photographs on a shelf that caught his eye. He walked over and looked in astonishment at his own face – the face he'd seen in the mirror when he'd asked for one…the same crazy blue hair -- maybe a couple years younger, looking happy. He was in the same clothes he'd been in the night he woke up – some weird kind of fitted robe, a uniform, he thought -- but they weren't bloody and dirty in the photo; they looked brand new. Next to him was Harry, an arm slung around Teddy's shoulders, wearing the same uniform but a different color, and they were both holding up glasses of liquor in a toast.
The next picture was him as a baby being held by two people who could only be his parents. As he watched, a tearful, pink-haired woman kissed the top of his infant head while a scruffy-looking man wiped at his eyes.
And Teddy felt nothing.
He moved on to the third and last photo on the shelf. It was him – two years younger again – and he was with a boy of perhaps seventeen or eighteen. They were smiling broadly, laughing. Teddy had his arm around him and the bloke had both his arms around Teddy's middle. They were quite close. The other boy had reddish brown hair, fair skin – a lot like one of the ladies he'd seen around the big house, the one who moved about as if she owned it. As he watched, the Teddy in the photograph, the one that knew everything about his own life, ruffled the boy's hair. The Teddy in the room – this man who he was and didn't know – thought the boy would get arsed with him then. But he didn't. The boy in the photograph blushed, reached up and smoothed his hair down, and then wrapped his arm around Teddy's middle once more.
"I'm sorry to bother you."
Teddy jumped about a foot from the place he stood and turned to the door. And there stood the exact same person. Older by a bit, but the same. Teddy couldn't help but peer at him eagerly, as though he could just remember if he stared hard enough. "You're…" he said. "You're this fellow." He pointed to the photograph.
The young man in his doorway smiled. "Yeah. Want to take a crack at my name?" His words were light, but Teddy heard the fragile hope in his voice. This person was important to him. He was important to this person.
"I'm so sorry," he found himself saying. Then, "Do come in. It's all right."
The bloke edged into the room warily. He'd obviously grown since the photograph had been taken; he was the same height as Teddy now.
"I can't begin to guess your name, I'm afraid," Teddy apologized. "I'd probably just start with the A's and work my way down to the C's by midnight only to find out your name's Zane or something."
"James," the boy said softly. "My name's James." His smile was tender and almost shy.
Teddy felt something inside himself respond – something that felt just this side of familiar. "Well, then I'd've gotten it before dawn." He found himself winking at the kid, and James blushed, just like in the photograph.
They must be quite good friends? And yet there was an age difference. They wouldn't have gone to school together. They wouldn't work together. Teddy was at a loss as to why he'd feel so close to this person, despite the fact that he did seem perfectly lovely.
"So, what do you do, James? Are you a wizard, too?" Then, "I'm sorry. Would you like to sit? I'm afraid all I've got is this…well, it's a crap desk chair looks like. That or the bed." He swallowed.
"The bed's fine," James said, and though it sounded nonchalant enough, there was an undercurrent of what felt like nervousness to him.
Teddy held out his arm and they sat together and began to talk.
"Quidditch," the young man said.
"Bless you?" Teddy replied.
James laughed, and Teddy startled. It was a familiar sound. It was a comforting sound. But before he could process it, James went on, "It's a sport. I play it. I'm Keeper for the national team. Youngest Keeper they've ever had."
"And bloody talented as hell," came a new voice from the doorway.
Teddy peered around to see maybe the prettiest bloke he'd ever laid eyes on. But then how would he know? Teddy wanted to laugh, but the timing would make him seem terribly rude. Or mental. Still, the boy was striking: shining blond hair; svelte frame; lopsided white grin; big, long lash-framed grey eyes. He was beautiful but utterly unfamiliar. "Hello," Teddy offered.
He seemed to take that as his cue to enter. And when he entered, he sauntered. "I'm Scorpius Malfoy." He held out his hand. Teddy could see that James had set his teeth together; it made a hard angle of his clean jaw.
Teddy took the offered hand and shook. "Teddy Lupin, they tell me."
"We've met," Scorpius admitted. "I just wanted to say," he looked down at James and his gaze flared, "good luck." He smiled warmly back at Teddy again.
"Thank you."
"Don't you mention it." Then he looked at James again. "See you later then." He reached out and squeezed James' shoulder and then strode out of the room, this time shutting the door on them when before it had been open.
"That was interesting," Teddy allowed.
"Don't mind Scorpius. He's a ponce." James appeared agitated.
"He seemed rather fond of you. Are you good friends?"
James cleared his throat. "He's…he's my boyfriend, actually." Then he managed to look Teddy square in the eye, though he was flushed and barely breathing.
Oh.
His boyfriend.
Oh.
"Oh," Teddy said, at a loss. He swallowed. "Well, he seemed lovely."
James grinned at him. "He's a lovely ponce."
Teddy laughed. No wonder he was friends with this James fellow. He liked him. Teddy scooted so that he could lean his back against the headboard. "So can you explain Quimmitch to me?" he said.
James grinned hugely, got comfortable sitting cross-legged across from him, and began, "It all starts with the Snitch."
~~
"Oh, fuck, Jamie," Scorpius breathed as James pounded his body against the wall, Scorpius' back to James' front, James' cock hammering home inside him, ready to come. "Tell me again."
"Sod off," James gritted out, holding Scorpius' hips in both hands, giving it all he had.
Scorpius leaned his head back against James' shoulder, eyes blissfully closed, and sighed, "Tell me."
"Scor, dammit…"
"Tell me or I'll tell him."
"Dirty Malfoy," James ground out, loving him and hating him all at once.
Scorpius, the devil, laughed, and it closed his arse tight down on James' cock. He wouldn't last but another minute.
So he told his boyfriend, "We talked – for three –hours and – when I left – oh fucking Christ you're so tight –"
Scorpius wound his arm around the back of James' head, holding him close so James could whisper it into his ear, Scorpius' other hand flat on the wall in front of him. "Yeah, Jamie. Tell me what he did."
"He h-hugged me…close…and I…"
"You what?"
"I got so fucking hard," James gasped, and then he was coming. The memory of Teddy's arms around him was so fresh, the whispered, "Thank you," in his ear – how he'd smelled so beautiful, how James had sprung wood instantly against his hip and had to worm away. And now he was coming in his boyfriend's slick ass, loads of it, and he was moaning and trembling, stumbling, hands gripping hard at Scorpius' bony hips.
"Ride it out in me, baby," Scorpius soothed, butting back against him.
James grabbed his hair and pulled, got their mouths close, and kissed him quiet.
Two hours to dawn and James lay awake next to his first real boyfriend. Scorpius was wheezing in his sleep, something James found hilariously endearing – usually. Tonight, he was too pensive. He was too guilty. Because Scorpius wasn't his first love. That was Teddy Lupin, and James had never told a soul. How Scorpius had known was rather beyond him. James had taken pains to hide it. Still, Scorpius, for all his free-wheeling reputation, his fuck-first-study-later approach to life, was a skillful wizard, had unending curiosity, and possessed not the best moral code. It was entirely possible he'd even simply taken advantage of one night of James talking in his sleep, which Al had assured him he did do.
Despite the vigorous fuck when James got back to his room tonight and found Scorpius waiting for him with a hand around his own prick, James felt guilty about that, too. He'd shagged Scor like everything was all right – like Teddy wasn't balefully alone in the room three doors down, empty of memory, stripped of everything love was made from.
He'd fucked Scorpius like he hadn't just come from Teddy's room, from the kind of all night talk that cemented relationships, that bound hearts. James told Teddy how it started with Scorpius sixth year, about cheating on his Muggle Studies OWL and never getting caught, about how flying around a Quidditch stadium was the closest thing to heaven he could think of -- all things that Teddy had already known.
He knew he wasn't supposed to tell Teddy too much about his life, but he couldn't help reminding him what a brilliant wizard he was.
"I am?" Teddy asked, head tilted, eyes bright.
James had nodded. "You're kind of my idol."
And then Teddy had blinked at him, the candles they'd lit burning down low, casting long blankets of shadow. He'd said, "James, tell me," and James' breath had stopped before he'd finished, "Is my hair always this silly color?"
James smiled now, staring out the window at the setting moon. No, but whatever color it is, I want to run my fingers through it until you either have to push me away or snog me one or the other, he thought.
And then he looked down at Scorpius. Beautiful, wicked Scorpius whose mouth on his cock after class that day, under the bleachers, had been what had convinced James he simply must be dodgy. And if this was dodgy, he'd happily suffer every homophobic epithet in the book to keep Scorpius Malfoy in his bed, by his side, in his life.
They'd been inseparable from that day. And now Scorpius wanted him to bed Teddy Lupin. He hadn't come right out and said so, but he would. James knew his boyfriend, knew his scheming mind and open heart, and he knew what was coming. He knew Scorpius probably even already had a plan. James knew he should feel repulsed by it – the idea of tricking an oblivious Teddy into bed with them – and he was. He absolutely was. But still some perverse part of him, some deep desperation, saw this as possibly his only chance.
He wanted to do it so very badly.
James sighed and carded his fingers through Scorpius' wild sleep-hair. The other boy stirred but kept sleeping. "I love you," James murmured. "You're a jackass, and I think this idea of yours is vile, but…I love you for it."
"No punkin juice…" Scorpius slurred.
"Bugger, you're awake, aren't you?"
Scorpius smiled but didn't open his eyes. "Isn't it the rule that you have to jack someone off if you wake them up whispering mushy rubbish in their ear?"
"I've never heard of such a rule," James smiled.
But his hand was already slipping down Scorpius' stomach, and the sheet was already tenting, and the moon drifted down behind the hillside as James jacked his boyfriend back to sleep.
~~
Teddy found Harry in his study the next day going over parchments, his glasses perched on his nose. He'd debated bothering him. But after spending half the night in a sleepless stupor, staring at the picture of himself with James, then the picture of himself with Harry, back and forth until he'd fallen asleep with both on his chest, it really seemed the only thing to do.
"James is your son, isn't he?" Teddy began before Harry could even invite him in.
"You're remembering."
"I don't know. I don't think so."
"Come in and sit, Teddy, please." Harry pushed his papers aside without a second thought.
Teddy thought he'd sit across from Harry, the desk separating them, but Harry came around and sat in the chair next to him, turning it to face him, leaning forward, elbows on knees.
Teddy sighed. "He has your smile. And your jaw. And your ears."
"My ears?" Harry smiled. Then, "He's my oldest son, yes. There's also Albus and Lily. They'll be here later today."
Teddy scratched his head. "I don't mean to be rude, but it's a bit odd to live with your boss and his kids, isn't it?"
Harry looked flummoxed. His lips pressed together as though keeping back words he very much wanted to say. Finally he took a deep breath and just said, "You're always more than welcome here."
"I don't feel like my memory is budging at all. I talked to your son for hours last night, and it was like…I don't know what it was like."
"I'm glad you're talking to James, Teddy. That's good. And I believe it will just take time."
"Do you?" Teddy asked. "Do you think I'll ever work again? What if I can't remember any spells, like, ever?"
"If you don't remember, I'll simply have to teach you until you've got them all learned again," Harry said with a sympathetic smile. "I know James would be happy to help, too. His main interest is Quidditch, but he always got Outstandings in Defense Against the Dark Arts – not to mention if you need broom lessons. And Al's superb with potions. Lily's extraordinary at Arithmancy. Whatever you need, we're here for you. Hell, even Scorpius Malfoy. He's here every bloody day seems like, and I've never seen anyone hex like he can." Harry rolled his eyes at that.
"Can I ask you something?" Teddy began slowly, but Harry stopped him.
"You want to know if I know, right?"
Teddy just blinked at him, sure this was a trap of some kind, meant to get him to tattle on James and his beau. But it wasn't.
"I've known for a while," Harry said. "And it's not the gay thing that's the problem. It's the Malfoy thing, believe me!" He ran his hands through his hair and when they came away he ended up looking like some sort of deranged, electrocuted professor. "I guess, once I knew, I sort of hoped he'd wind up fancying an older lad, someone with a good head on his shoulders, a Muggle dentist like Hermione's mum and dad. Or an Auror."
He didn't say it weird or anything, but Teddy got a weird feeling in his stomach. A nervousness. Like suddenly a spotlight was shining down on him and he didn't know the words of the song he was supposed to sing. He swallowed.
Harry went on, "But all I've ever wanted for my kids is for them to be happy. And Merlin knows there are worse cads out there than Scorpius, although not by much." Harry shook his head. "I don't know. It's none of my business. I keep out of it. Scorpius gets a stocking on Christmas and all. Like it or not…well, there he is." And then Harry laughed. He clapped Teddy on the shoulder. "I'm not supposed to offer you a drink – the Healers said it'd be bad for your memory – but I think a butterbeer'd be all right, don't you?"
"I'd bloody love one," Teddy said. And then for one bright moment, he heard a familiar bell-ring of laughter in his head, tasted the creamy bubbly warmth, felt the heat of a blazing hearth on cold, wet feet…. Then it was gone. But three words remained, in the otherwise empty black: "The Three Broomsticks," he said.
Harry turned from where he'd been headed for the door. "Teddy!"
Teddy stood abruptly. "Is that a place? A place I've been?"
"Yes!" Harry said, coming over and hugging him hard.
At first Teddy just stood there shocked that he'd remembered anything and that it hadn't taken any effort – it had just come upon him like the sun through clouds – then he put his arms around Harry, and he laughed.
~~
The next day Scorpius had to get back to work.
"Dad's got a new shipment of books coming in and he said he doesn't trust the new stockboy to Leviose them to the right shelves. I told him it's what he gets for hiring a greenhorn Ravenclaw. Bloke'll have to read every book before he shelves it."
James shoved him in the shoulder. "My sister's a Ravenclaw, you git." But then he pulled him right into a hard kiss. "I don't want you to go," he admitted once they broke apart.
"Why not? He's more likely to shag you alone the first time, you know."
"I'm not going to try to shag him, Scorpius." James sighed. "Maybe I should tell him."
"What are you on about? James." Scorpius took him by the shoulders. "He'll forgive you afterwards. There won't be an afterwards if you tell him the truth."
"I don't want to hurt him."
Scorpius stroked along his jaw with his thumbs, and James shivered. "You won't, Jamie. For once in your life, trust me."
James grinned. "I've always trusted you. I've always been able to see right through you, Scorpius Malfoy." His boyfriend rolled his eyes, but James went on, "I'll just have to come to grips with loving a stockboy is all."
"Shut it," Scorpius scolded, but he was smiling. "General Manager, thank you very much, you bum."
"Who are you calling bum?"
"Sodding Quidditch players who get three months off every bloody year!" he teased. But then he leaned in and grabbed James' earlobe up in his teeth, and he said around it, his hand slipping down his chest slowly, "But I do love this one's hard body." His deft tongue licked where he'd bitten.
James swatted him on the arse, but the compliment felt good. "Back this weekend, yeah?"
"Yeah. And you'd better have bedded that bloke and have him ready for a third by then." Scorpius winked.
"Scor," James warned, but the prat ignored him, and on his way out of the room, he threw back, "But owl me if you have any trouble, right?"
"Right," James murmured, already feeling too alone in his own house. "Right…" he whispered, sitting heavily on the foot of his bed.
Al and Lily flooed home that afternoon. Lily was first through, and James grabbed her up in a hug.
"You're not going to miss too much, are you? No tests this week, right?" he asked.
She rolled her eyes. "If it's all right with Mum and Dad for me to miss three days of school, what's your problem?"
"I dunno. Big brother-itis?"
"They've got potions for that," she said and then went to hug their dad.
Al was next out of the floo. "Merlin!" he exclaimed. "You people could clean it out now and then, yeah?" He hugged James hard and long, the kind of hug you reserve for people just out of St. Mungo's or something. "How you doing?" he said lowly.
James frowned. "Why?"
Al leaned back. "Seriously?" Then, "You're so bloody thick sometimes. We'll talk later."
"What the hell does that mean?"
"It means we'll vocalize from our lips and throats a little further on in the day," he deadpanned, but then he'd already moved on. "Dad – how's the Auror business?"
"It's crap right now," he answered. "How's teaching?"
"Assistant teaching, Dad," Al corrected. "Professor Longbottom's fun, but Chang's a taskmaster in Potions. She's got me mixing night and day. You'd think I was a slave! You'd think I was a Slytherin!" He cleared his throat and looked at James. "Sorry."
James just blinked. It wasn't often his relationship with an often-unnamed Slytherin went something other than unspoken of.
Once everybody had dusted off the floo powder and said their hellos, Teddy's presence by the doorway became like an awkward beacon.
"Hullo," Teddy said, and James could tell he was forcing the friendliness. He just plain didn't know these people.
Lily lost her mind for a moment and ran at him. "Oh, Teddy!" she exclaimed, throwing her arms around him, burying her face in his neck.
"Lils, he doesn't bloody recognize you," Al provided with zero tact.
James elbowed him in the ribs.
"What? We talked about this before we left and she still can't help herself."
Lily backed away, all apologies. "I'm so sorry. I don't know what got into me. When we heard you were hurt, I just…well, we just couldn't wait to get back here and make sure you'd be all right. I'm Lily. By the way." She backed up.
Teddy smiled at her reassuringly. "Charmed," he said with a little bow.
"And I'm Al. The awesome one." Albus stuck out his hand, and Teddy shook it with a chuckle.
"Right," he said. "Surely your awesomeness will be the first thing to come back to me."
Then Teddy's eyes met James'. They looked at one another across the room for all of three seconds, but it caught James' breath. It was as though Teddy looked to him for grounding, for mooring in a sea of unfamiliarity. James nodded at him, wanting to help him any way he could but also feeling quite unraveled by the way Teddy's eyes flickered from blue to a sort of mossy green, rich and bright, while he watched.
~~
Harry went back to work and Teddy spent a few days getting barraged with so-called fun and familiar activities with his kids.
They'd tried Quidditch (Teddy's broom bucked like a bronco and he got himself stuck up a tree.) They'd played wizard chess and watched Muggle shows on the telly. They'd fixed Teddy's favorite meals and stared at him while he ate.
They'd made popcorn and sat around the living room swapping stories.
"Remember when he scored us the hard cider for your party, James, that weekend Mum and Dad actually went away together to, where was it? Bloody Wales? Leave it to them to go to bloody Wales for a holiday. I mean, Bali, anyone?" Al stuffed his mouth full of popcorn and continued. "But what the plonker here didn't tell us was that it was just sparkling cider! And we all thought we were drunk off our arses but we were just…"
"Dorks," Lily supplied.
"I did that?" Teddy asked, looking around the living room at these people who seemed to think he was their best friend. His gaze fell on James in the end, and he nodded, although it was Al who answered.
"You did indeed. You got us good that time, Teddy. But we got you back."
And then he'd proceeded to recount how he'd convinced the others to turn all Teddy's clothes pink for a week.
"But shit if it didn't work on you, mate!" Al had laughed, Lily joining him.
Only James had been relatively quiet, staring into his tea or into the hearth or into Teddy's eyes.
Teddy found he sought out James' gaze often. It felt comforting and real and something else entirely. It felt a little too good, soothing and exciting all at once.
And Teddy found himself knocking on James' bedroom door at night, wanting company, wanting something less boisterous than Al, less bubbly than Lily. Teddy wanted the easy way he could talk to James – about his fears, about what this felt like to be so alone and surrounded by over-eager friendliness. What it felt like to be undiscovered by oneself.
He kept James up too late, but he didn't seem to mind – kept reassuring Teddy that he didn't start back to practice for another month, that he wanted Teddy there.
Their talks always ended in a hug good-night. Teddy wasn't sure why he wanted to hug James. Maybe because of that photograph – the one with Jamie's – for he was becoming Jamie – arms around him. He wanted to keep feeling that. He liked feeling that.
He liked that it made James flustered. All sorts of feelings of guilt flooded Teddy when they embraced. He's a bit young. It isn't supposed to feel this way. And yet it did. It bloody did.
Teddy had felt James get hard against him. Teddy had liked it. He'd liked it an awful lot.
He's nineteen, Teddy would tell himself, lying in bed at night, reliving the day, searching the black corners of his mind for anything bright wanting to surface. But it was always just Jamie. It was the soft looks across a room. It was the long talks, the intermittent laughter, the shared space.
It was the auburn of his hair, the strength in his sport-hewn body, the arms that held Teddy hard.
He's nineteen.
Yes, and you're only twenty-six. It's not as though you've got a foot in the damned grave! Maybe you and he have felt this way all along. Ever thought of that? Maybe he's just dying for you to remember.
But then there was Scorpius.
How could he not think of the two of them together? How could he not think of his own involvement ruining everything?
"Fuck," Teddy sighed, reaching over and dousing his light.
Harry would be back day after next, and maybe he'd have answers. He'd be back from wherever he'd gone on his important Auror business.
Teddy missed a career he couldn't recall. He missed a life he couldn't remember.
But what made that all right was Jamie.
Teddy shut his eyes, grabbed a pillow to his body, turned over on his side and fought the sordid daydreams that wanted to come.
~~
James found Teddy the next day in the kitchen with his brother and sister. Again. They had him blindfolded and were making him smell things.
"Merlin, what are you doing to him?"
"Smell is the sense most connected to memory in the brain," Lily informed him, wafting an apple tart under Teddy's nose.
"It's all right," Teddy said in his general direction.
James walked over, took the blindfold, and eased it off his eyes and then off his head completely. Teddy gazed up at him, blinking, a tender smile tugging at his lips. "Good morning," he said.
"Good morning," James answered. Then, "But you're lying."
"What are you on about?" Al asked, in the process of bringing over what appeared to be the neighbor's wet dog.
"I mean, he's lying. It's not all right, you two treating him like a lab rat. Now, dry Donald off and send him home."
"But—"
"Now!" James yelled. It wasn't often he raised his voice; his siblings startled.
"All right, already. Don't get your knickers in a twist," Al said.
"Too late," Lily joined in.
But they dried the dog with a charm and then left to return him to his rightful place inside the Donoghue's warm living room.
"Thank you," Teddy said, trying to fix his hair from where the blindfold had mussed it.
Before he thought, James reached out and smoothed down a particularly unruly indigo strand. He froze, looking down into Teddy's kind eyes, turning brown, then he snatched his hand away and cleared his throat. "Want to split this apple tart then?"
"No, actually."
"No?"
"No. I want to go out."
"Out where?"
"I don't bloody care," he sighed. "I just want to take a day off from trying to remember. I just want to be for a while."
James found himself nodding, though his insides were a riot. Teddy wanted to go out with him. Just the two of them. Almost like a date. He'd get Teddy all to himself for the day, and he didn't even have to feel guilty because it was Teddy's idea. It'd be rude not to go, he rationalized. He wasn't – he absolutely wasn't – succumbing to Scorpius' wicked ideology.
"Let's hurry before they get back," James said.
"We should leave a note," Teddy decided.
James went to the drawer by the fridge and pulled out a parchment and laid it down on the kitchen island. He wrote quickly:
Gone to Hogsmeade. Don't follow us. Don't wreck the house. Back in a few.
Teddy and James
"Good?" he asked.
"Good," Teddy smiled. "Will you Apparate us? I'm afraid that's a little beyond my skill level at this point."
James gulped. "Sure. Just, uh, take my arm?"
Teddy stood, and James had to remind himself how to breathe as he took not James' arm but his hand, holding it snugly and gently in his own. James swallowed, tried to concentrate, and then they cracked away.
~~
They were starving, so they ate first, and once they were full, they walked through the shops talking of nothing important. They'd separate from one another to investigate different shelves, but then Teddy would always find James' eye across the store and smile or wave. James would wave back, and his smile was always warm and full of promise.
James showed him funny pranks or got him to try weird flavors of candies. They went to the bookstore, and James became engrossed with a book entitled, Keeping Quidditch Through Two Wars and Beyond, written by the apparently-famous Keeper, Lucky DeShazer. Teddy left him there to browse the Muggle literature section. When he peered around the corner twenty minutes later, James had moved on to spell books, so Teddy grabbed up the Quidditch tome and took it to the checkout.
"What've you got there?" James asked once he'd paid and gotten it into a bag.
"I'll show you outside," he said. "Let's get a drink somewhere."
"Sure," James said, then once they were outside, the shop's bell ringing over their heads, James opened the bag and pulled out his book. "You got this for me?"
Teddy shrugged. "Yeah. You did want it, didn't you?"
James nodded. He hugged the book to his chest. "Thank you, Teddy."
"It was my pleasure," Teddy told him and then watched a shiver work its way over James' body. He had the not-so-passing thought that he'd like to touch him and make that happen. "I'm parched," he said.
"Yeah." James cleared his throat. "Yeah, okay. Well, how about the Three Broomsticks?"
Teddy started. His mind's eye opened up. Cedar logs in the hearth. A girl laughing. Victoire. His…girlfriend? She'd charmed their mugs to automatically refill, and she was laughing, and Teddy had kissed her in the alley earlier, and…
"Teddy? Are you all right?"
Teddy opened his eyes, not realizing they had closed. "What?"
"Where did you go? Are you okay?" James' hand was on his arm.
Teddy looked into his eyes, still seeing another time. Then James' thumb brushed over his arm, and Teddy blinked. He was staring into caring, frightened brown eyes.
"Teddy?"
Teddy licked his lips. "Jamie," he said. "I think I just remembered something."
James' reaction wasn't what Teddy had been expecting: he looked, if anything, terrified.
"It's really nothing," Teddy prevaricated. He'd do anything, he thought, to take the fear out of those beautiful eyes. "It was just this girl. I think it was while I was in school. She might have been…I dunno, my girlfriend?"
He watched James swallow, his jaw tightening. This was getting worse, not better.
"What was her name?" James asked, though Teddy could tell he already didn't like the answer.
Oh.
"Uh, Victoire? I think?"
James looked down. He nodded. Teddy wanted to pull him close and tell him that it wasn't her he wanted now – hell, he hardly even remembered anything at all. It was James he wanted. Teddy took a breath and then took his wrist gently. James looked back up at him.
"I remember her," Teddy said. "Barely. But I don't… Jamie, I don't feel anything for her. Do you understand?"
James looked down at where Teddy's hand encircled his wrist. He looked impossibly conflicted for a moment – he'd practically stopped breathing – but then Teddy shivered when James then slipped his own hand into Teddy's and took one slow, decisive step in, bringing their bodies just a couple of inches apart. "I think so," he said. Teddy tightened the hold on his hand, and James looked into his eyes once more.
"Do you want to say fuck the drink?" Teddy breathed.
"Yeah sure," James breathed back.
Then the book fell to the ground, and James' arms came around him, and their lips crashed together, and James' tongue licked into his mouth, hot and not at all hesitant. Teddy pulled him in, his hands at James' lower back, his hips, sliding his tongue over Jamie's, into his mouth and oh my sweet God!
Before he knew what he was doing, Teddy had James pressed back against the shop window, and James moaned into his mouth, and he tasted like lemons and peppermint and everything good there was to eat. Teddy's cock was getting hard. Their kiss was wild, untempered, their bodies pressed tight.
"Dear Merlin," Teddy heard behind them and broke away to see an old woman with a hand over a little girl's eyes, walking away as quickly as she could without tripping them both.
"Blimey!" came another muffled whisper of awe, this time from one of a flock of Hogwarts students gazing at them from inside the window James was backed up against.
"Shit," Teddy laughed uncomfortably.
James was smiling and blushing both.
"Maybe we should go now?" Teddy said when James made no move to Disapparate them.
"Oh, bugger. Right. Accio book," he called. Then they squeezed through space and landed in James' room back at the house. James tossed the book aside, charmed the door closed and locked quickly, and then they were kissing once more – hungry, can't-wait kisses – and James' hands were going up Teddy's shirt, skating hot over his skin, up his chest, and Teddy was pulling at James' shirt, trying to get it off.
He stopped suddenly, though.
James whispered, "What is it?" shucking his shirt anyway, working Teddy's up his stomach.
"Scorpius," Teddy said. "You have a boyfriend, Jamie. I can't—"
At that, James broke into a breathtaking smile.
Teddy frowned. "What?"
"He'll be over the moon," James told him. His fingers danced up Teddy's abdomen and made his cock twitch.
"What – why?"
"He wants this, Teddy – you and me."
Teddy's eyes couldn't help but drop to James' chest, his sturdy shoulders, bitable neck… "He does? You're serious?"
"Yeah," James told him, leaning in to nip wet kisses at Teddy's throat. "He'll be even more thrilled if you want him, too."
"Like…all of us? Together?" Teddy felt a little dizzy at that.
"Yeah." The fingers on his stomach slid up his ribs, onto his nipples. Christ… "Would you consider that?"
"Bloody hell," Teddy sighed. "I think I could consider that, yeah."
James smiled, and Teddy couldn't not kiss it off his perfect mouth, then.
"Have I ever been in a threesome before?" Teddy laughed while James pulled his t-shirt off and walked back, pulling Teddy along by the waist, toward his bed.
"I don't believe so."
"Merlin, have we…? God, I didn't think to ask. We haven't, have we?" Teddy's mouth went dry.
But James bit his lip and then shook his head. "No. I—"
"You what?"
"I've just always wanted to."
"You have?"
James' fingers were working his trousers open now, but Teddy couldn't look away from his warm eyes.
"Jamie?" He held James' wrists, keeping him from touching his cock, even though Teddy ached for him to do it.
James looked up at him. "I've been in love with you for ages," he said, blinking furiously.
"Christ…" Teddy exhaled. He palmed James' face and felt him shivering. "I… I hope I don't suck," he said finally.
James laughed, his face transforming with the brilliant smile that took it over. "C'mere," James whispered, kissing him chastely, pulling Teddy by the open denims. Teddy followed, unable not to, transfixed by James' beauty, his openness, his courage, the sheer sex in that hushed command.
Then James sat at the foot of his bed and pulled Teddy between his open legs. He looked up into Teddy's eyes as he pulled his trousers and pants down until Teddy's cock sprang free. And then his gaze dropped to it, and his eyes became almost all pupil. His lashes fluttered as he leaned in, and then he pressed his face to Teddy's cock and said his name: "Teddy…"
Teddy groaned, watching him, feeling the softness of his lips, the rough, shadowed skin of his jaw. Their gazes met again, and it was like…voltage. Teddy felt it in his cock and balls, down his legs, deep in his chest, up in his throat. He swallowed.
And then James held Teddy's arse in his warm hands, cupping, and took his cock almost all the way to the root in one go.
"Holy fuck holy fuck holy FUCK," Teddy hissed. "Jamie!"
He could swear that the bastard smiled even with his mouth full of Teddy's thick purple cock. If anyone had ever done this to Teddy before, he felt certain it couldn't have been half this wonderful.
It was then that Teddy realized – he was essentially a virgin.
"James," he said.
The little ponce bobbed his head, not listening.
"God, James, wait." Teddy wasn't sure where he got the strength to say that one awful word. But James slurped off of him, looking wicked with his mouth that blush color and slightly swollen.
"Don't you like it?" he asked, blinking.
Teddy palmed his cheek. "God, yes, I love it! It's just that… Jamie, I've never done this. At least not that I can remember. At all," he emphasized.
"Right," James breathed. "Merlin's beard." Then, "May I? Be your first?"
"Well, I fucking hope so," Teddy burst out, his prick already prematurely scared Jamie would stop.
James smiled up at him, took the base of his cock in his fist and thumbed the underside slowly, waiting.
"I just needed you to know that."
"In case you suck?"
Teddy breathed a laugh. "Yeah, in case of that."
"Don't worry," James said softly. "I'll show you how." And then he enveloped the head of Teddy's cock in his luscious mouth again and began to lick at the slit in a way that was maddening and had Teddy wanting to push hard into his mouth until he felt hot, tight throat.
He dropped his head back and groaned.
"It doesn't -- Christ – bother you that I'm older?" Teddy found himself asking while James enveloped his cock in his brilliant mouth again..
But the question made Jamie pull back on a little laugh. "You're kidding, right?"
The way he said it made Teddy think possibly he wasn't bothered one bit. Perhaps he was the opposite of bothered. "Just asking," he said.
"Teddy."
"Yes?"
"Shut it," Jamie laughed.
Teddy smiled down at him and nodded. And what happened then was perfect.
James took him to the brink twice with his mouth, both times pulling off and holding the base of Teddy's cock in the vice of his circled fingers until it passed some. "Bloody hell, what are you doing to me?" Teddy breathed, his legs starting to shake.
James smiled up at him, looking perfectly happy, perfectly calm. "Everything I've always wanted to," he replied. James nuzzled his cock.
"I'm dying to fuck you," Teddy told him.
Jamie smiled up at him, alight with pleasure, then he moved back and turned away, getting up on his hands and knees on the bed. He looked back at Teddy invitingly, his gorgeous arse bare, pale, waiting – the small, ginger-rimmed hole soft and fuckable before him.
"C'mere," Jamie said again with that sly little knowing smile that made Teddy feel as though James could ask anything of him and he'd do it. "Take those trousers off and bring your wand to bed," James said to him, dropping his head to wait.
Teddy's cock began leaking badly at the sight of him there like that, submissive yet in utter control.
Teddy shucked his trousers and mindlessly grabbed his wand from where it had fallen on the floor. He crawled up, walking on his knees until he was right behind James.
"Now point it at my arse and say, Madidus," Jamie instructed.
Teddy gulped. "You're not serious."
"Do it."
Teddy swallowed. He couldn't help but gape at the vision in front of him, how James' bollocks hung, how heavy and hard his cock was, red at the tip and wet.
"You're bloody good at this; you should trust yourself," James told him.
"How do you know?"
"Wizard shite, Teddy. I don't know how you shag. I only suspect." James shot him a lusty grin over his shoulder.
Teddy took a deep breath, aimed the wand at Jamie's winking arsehole, and enunciated, "Madidus."
James gasped, and Teddy saw that now he was slippery as hell and ready. Teddy touched the sweet pucker with the tip of his index finger, applying a gentle circling pressure until he breached it and sank his finger deep inside.
James let out a long wordless groan, arching his back.
Teddy began to finger-fuck him open. James felt soft and furnace-hot inside. Teddy desperately wanted to feel that around his cock.
"Fuck, how much more of this do you need?" he asked, feeling like a wanker.
James didn't seem to mind the rush. "I'm ready now, Teddy," he whined. "Please… Put your cock in me."
Teddy's whole body flushed with it – something beyond but including lust. Teddy supposed he'd have to call it love. He withdrew his finger, letting the grasping rim kiss the tip good-bye. He laid his cock down in the cleft of James' arse, slid it there a few times just to see the contrast of its dark hue against his lover's pale back.
His lover….
He felt love for this person he hardly knew.
"It must have broken my heart not to be with you," he found himself whispering.
There was a moment of stillness – when James' body tensed against him and once again he seemed to stop breathing. Then he exhaled in a rush, "Teddy—"
Teddy massaged James' arse, gently butting up against him. "What?" he asked. "What is it, Jamie?"
"I--" James whispered. "I need -- to tell you. Teddy… Just—" And then whatever force had hold of him relinquished its grip, and James simply begged him, "Please. Please, Teddy. Do it now, please."
The last just killed him. There was an unmasked anguish there that spoke to something familiar inside himself. Teddy aimed, pressed forward, took a moment to find the right degree of pressure to angle, and then just like that, his cock popped inside the cinched ring of muscle, and James gasped. Teddy couldn't help but groan as he sank deeper and deeper – Jamie's arse to his cock like the heart to its blood, a connection so intimate it goes unquestioned by the body entirely. They fit so bloody good.
When he was in to the hilt, he shuddered, draped himself over Jamie's strong back, curling around this exquisite person who'd become so important to him, to whom his heart sang, and began to thrust. Teddy wrapped his arm around James' body, palm pressed to his chest, and fucked, feeling James move with him as they found the right pace, the right push and strive.
Teddy tasted the back rippling against his lips and wanted to die from the longing in his heart. He was fucking James Potter, and he was so full of love for him, a love he must have felt for years, that he felt it simply had to overflow, to escape the skin of his limited body, to cry out to the world somehow.
Teddy slipped his hand down and curled it around James' cock. He started to pull in time to his own hips' rolling.
James turned his head and bit into his own bicep, whining. Five smooth strokes and James came, rocking against him, panting and crying out, the warm semen filling Teddy's hand and then coating Jamie's cock on the next pass of his fist down to the root.
"Sweet Merlin," Teddy breathed, unable to resist the way Jamie's arse clamped down on him in rhythm with his orgasm. He felt it approaching and at once wanted to grasp at it, to force it on his body, and to push it away, unready to end this bloody transcendent thing he wasn't near ready for – or wouldn't have been if he'd known.
But in the end, he couldn't stop it. And he didn't really want to. He wanted to come inside Jamie's perfect body, to leave something of himself, to fall into this feeling and succumb to it completely.
When the climax hit him and he began to empty himself inside, to quiver with the intensity of it, Teddy closed his eyes –
-- and then with every jolt of the orgasm came a new round of memory with it:
Teddy teaching James to ride a broom.
Dinners together when he'd come home from school, Al and James kicking each other under the table, Teddy shaking his head at James and getting that guilty dog look, the way he always, always deferred to Teddy, obeyed him. Adored him.
And how hard Teddy had fought it. From the time he'd come back from Auror training and found James nearly a man, seventeen – tall and broad in the shoulder – and fucking God how he'd wanted this.
This.
For Jamie to be his.
Teddy's eyes snapped open, his entire world crashing down on him like waking from a dream in which one has been flying only to fall back into the body, slammed back into life.
"No!" Teddy cried, pulling out of him, falling backward, landing on the floor and still scrabbling.
"Teddy, what--?"
"I remember!" Teddy cried. "Christ. Christ!" His cock was still tingling. It could still feel him.
James turned, reaching for him, and Teddy snarled, "I can't believe you'd do this." The tears stung his eyes and throat.
And, of course, there was the guilty dog look he was so infernally familiar with. Everything was so horribly, scandalously familiar. God! His heart hurt. It was breaking like it never had. Not when he'd stayed at Hogwarts, choosing not to come home for first, second, third year because he thought Harry and his family would be better off. Not when he visited his parents' graves. Not when he slept with Victoire for the first time and realized something was very wrong with him. Not when he left school and trained in the mountains with healing magicks and didn't answer any of Harry's owls – when he tore James' letters to pieces.
It broke in ways it hadn't even when he'd come back home, the prodigal son, and started to mend his relationships, started to take responsibility for himself. When he became a brother again to Al and Lily.
When he held James in his arms after all those years and knew, without a doubt, that he'd never feel like he should. Not what he felt for the others. Never.
And now this.
Now everything he'd wanted for too long and worked so hard to push away had happened. James had known how Teddy should feel – and he'd let him do it anyway. James had gotten him to do it.
Teddy grabbed his clothes off the floor, accioed his wand.
"Teddy, please, I lo—"
"Leave me alone, Jamie!" Teddy cried.
He slammed the door on his way out. When he got to his own room, he put up every barrier he could, knowing Jamie wasn't half the wizard he was and would take days to bring them all down. He dressed as quickly as he could with his fingers trembling so badly.
And then he sat at his desk and buried his face in his hands. He wanted to break – to let himself dissolve into ridiculous tears. All the tears he never let himself cry before because he was trying to be so bloody strong for everyone.
But he didn't. He couldn't. There was something he had to do first. Something that made him sick – something that made him feel dark and powerful and horrible all at once.
He had to kill Scorpius Malfoy.
Go to Part Two
Author:
traintracksThreesome: Teddy/James/Scorpius
Additional Pairings: James/Scorpius, Teddy/James, (*background Harry/Draco* [highlight to read])
Rating: NC-17
Word Count: 15,765
Contains (Highlight to view): *implied infidelity (background), not-quite-incest, dub-con (sort of). I tried to use as many prompts as possible. I managed: first time, falling in love, figuring things out, families, aurors, heavy magic, arguments, walking out, amnesia, running out of time *
Notes: This was written as a gift for
tryslora for the hp_3somes gift exchange. Enormous gratitude to my astoundingly awesome beta, sdkshelly and to elrhiarhodan who gave this story love enough to grow into what it is. The title is taken from the Mary Oliver poem, "Wild Geese".Disclaimer: Harry Potter characters are the property of J.K. Rowling and Bloomsbury/Scholastic. No profit is being made, and no copyright infringement is intended.
Summary: When an unknown spell gives Teddy amnesia, and he can't remember what his relationship with James Potter ought to feel like, James' boyfriend, Scorpius Malfoy, hatches a plot to finally get James into bed with his secret first love.
I was the boy who tried to recall a nonexistent past – any memory of my mother's warmth, the sound of my father shaving his whiskers – and for obvious reasons, nothing ever surfaced.
I was the boy who manufactured a childhood, who got by, who saw by the light of his wand – saw just enough to carve out a little bit of a life.
But things didn't become clear, didn't become beautiful, until I forgot everything.
"Don't worry. I can counter this."
"What?" His throat was sore. He didn't know why his throat was so sore. He could barely see.
"I've got you…I've got you…" The voice was trembling but confident, and this person was jostling him about and it made his head hurt.
"M'head hurts," he said, wincing.
"I know, Teddy. But I've got the antidote. Here. Take a drink. It's foul, so just do it fast."
"What? Who are you?" He scrambled to get away now.
Strong arms held him fast, but there was a falter in the voice. "Y-you don't…recognize me?"
He squinted, and the face over him became less fuzzy: dark, almost-black hair going every which way, green green eyes, a jagged scar on the creased forehead, just over the right eye. "No," he answered. "Should I?" A new panic started to set in.
The man swallowed hard. "Teddy. I need you to trust me right now. I'm your friend. I'm Harry." The voice broke just a little when it said, "Harry Potter."
Teddy. He'd called him Teddy. His name was Teddy? He frowned, his breath coming fast. "I don't…I can't…!"
"I know, and we'll deal with that, but right now you need to drink this or your heart's going to stop in about one more minute."
"What happened to me?"
"I'll tell you, but bloody drink this, Teddy!" the Harry person shouted at him, and something in him responded. He opened his parched lips and drank the stuff from the brown vial that tasted like someone's sweat with maybe some tar mixed in. "Good, good!" the man over him enthused. "Now, it might make you slee—"
Everything then went black.
James was just in the middle of getting his prick sucked when they heard the front door of the house burst open.
Scorpius lifted his head. "What was that?"
"The door. Get dressed." James shoved him from between his thighs none-too-gently.
"Bugger!" Scorpius shouted.
"Shut it!" James hissed, pulling on pants and denims in a rush.
"But you said they wouldn't even be back tonight. You said that the mission was three days. 'Three days of suck and fuck,' you said to be precise and—"
"Shh. Listen."
They were both quiet. James could practically see his boyfriend's heart thumping away in his skinny chest. But what he heard stole any last vestiges of arousal he'd had.
"Get him to the guest room – don't bother with the stairs right now." That was Aunt Hermione's voice. Then someone called, "Teddy? Teddy! Can you hear me?" And everything else after that went unheard.
"Merlin," he breathed, magicking on his clothes and Scorpius' clothes, too, as fast as he could.
"What'd you hear?" Scorpius hissed.
James looked at him, the emotion welling in his eyes as he peered into Scorpius' worried face. "Teddy," James said breathlessly. "Teddy's hurt."
"I don't know. I don't know!"
Teddy stirred, realizing he was lying somewhere soft and warm. He was under blankets, his clothes had been changed, his head still hurt.
"But you're Head Auror. If you don't know how to—"
"I understand that, Ron. We're all working on it. Hermione's in the books. I mean, there has to be something."
"But physically…he'll be okay, right? I mean, you fixed that bit."
Teddy heard a heavy sigh. "Yeah. He'll be okay. He just…can't remember. Ron, I've never heard of that spell before. It wasn't Obliviate."
"Yeah, no, me either. And I thought we'd have heard them all by now."
"I shouldn't have let him go in first. He's only been an Auror two years and—"
"Teddy Lupin is second only to you, Harry, when it comes to fighting dark magic," the Ron voice said. "He was fully capable. He went in on point because he knew the specs best. Nobody could have countered that curse. You have to believe that, mate."
Pain shot through Teddy's head, and he couldn't help but moan. Suddenly, a body was right next to him, and Teddy squinted his eyes open. "Where am I?"
This bloke calling himself Harry, who seemed to care about him, who had likely carried him here, wherever he was, sighed again. Teddy was beginning to hate that sound. It meant he wasn't going to like what he heard next.
"Home," Harry said. "Teddy, you're home."
They hadn't been allowed in; his Dad had almost shut the door in his face. But not before he'd squeezed James' shoulder and said, "He'll be all right." Then he'd shot a lukewarm greeting at Scorpius and locked them out of the downstairs guest room where every powerful Auror, Healer, and available Hogwarts staff member had collected to try to figure out what was wrong.
All James knew was that…
"He doesn't remember."
"C'mon," Scorpius said, taking his hand. "I'll make us some tea, right?"
James had nodded and let himself be dragged to the kitchen. It was dark and silent in there at one in the morning until Scorpius wanded the candles lit and got the kettle on. Then it felt a little more like home. Not exactly like home. Because Teddy was in a locked room, in a bed, hurt and not remembering him.
"He's not hurt anymore, Jamie. He just can't remember," Scorpius said, sitting across from him and taking James' hands in his own.
"Stop reading me," James muttered curtly. But the hand-holding was rather nice. Most people thought Scorpius Malfoy was all misdeeds, bad magic, and buggering, but James knew better: his boyfriend had a sweet side – even a Gryffindor side James knew but never said for fear of that old Malfoy chin-jutting denial.
The tea steeped and the room filled with the warming smell of cinnamon and clove. "He'll remember," Scorpius said. "And if he doesn't…well, it won't be the end of the world. I promise."
"How can you say that? We grew up together! He's been like… He's been like a brother to me and now I've lost him."
"Okay, first of all, you haven't lost him, all right? He's in a room down the bloody hall, in one piece, thanks to your dad. And second of all, what are you on about, like a brother? Pull the other one, why don't you, you lying sod!" Scorpius was smiling at him, stroking along the backs of James' hands with his thumbs.
James just blinked at him. His heart was doing little flips. "I…don't know what you mean."
"Oh Merlin's sweaty arse, bollocks!" Scorpius laughed. "You think I don't know? You think you can shag me for three years and I won't catch on that you want to kneel at Teddy Lupin's feet and worship his gorgeous cock? You think I wouldn't want to share it with you?"
"Scorpius!" James shouted. He sounded like a prude old witch and he knew it. God, he was hot all over. He was red as hell. Damned Weasley blood. "But I love you," he said.
Scorpius smiled. "I know. But you love him, too. You have since you learned to wank your pud, right?"
James flushed all the worse. "How can you talk about him like that when he's…when he's…?"
"Alive and completely unaware of how things are supposed to be? How can I not?" Scorpius scoffed. "Don't forget who you're talking to, Jamie."
He got up to fetch the tea, and James felt like his world just got flooed to the other side of the Universe.
Within two days Teddy was feeling physically fine. They'd tried to get him to go to some place called St. Mungo's, a hospital for wizards from the sound of it, but Teddy had vehemently refused. Wherever he was, while he couldn't quite conceive that it was his home, it felt rather good. And whoever this Harry Potter person was, Teddy liked being around him. He didn't want to be shuttled off to some hospital with cold floors and nameless nurses and nothing that was supposed to be familiar around him. Visiting hours and disinfecting spells. Teddy couldn't stomach it. So he asked to stay.
And Harry suffered his questions:
"I'm how old?"
"Twenty-six."
"And my last name again?"
"Lupin."
"Why can't I remember?"
And that one, nobody could answer except to rattle on about some spell some person did to him in words Teddy couldn't comprehend. They handed him his wand, and for whatever reason that was the one thing that held some glimmer of normalcy for him. He knew he was a wizard. He knew he lived in a world of magic. But that was practically all he knew.
Harry – who he'd gathered was not just his friend but his colleague and superior -- didn't seem inclined to tell him too much too fast. He'd overheard a meeting with all the rest of them while he was supposed to be sleeping. Some wanted to let him Legilimens everyone, and Teddy had a vague recollection of what that meant, but still others objected, especially the lady who spoke precisely, like a school teacher. She'd said he could suffer something called backlash. That had made the entire conversation shudder to a stop.
Then Teddy heard Harry. "We'll do it as a last resort. For now, we let him feel his way."
And that's what they'd done. The others had left. Then Harry'd taken him to a room upstairs and told him that he stayed there often, that it was, for all intents and purposes, his room. He was there now, left to touch the belongings he could only assume were his own.
Teddy walked slowly about the space, running his hand over an ancient cherry wood bureau, a dusty trunk he almost couldn't wait to open – except that there were photographs on a shelf that caught his eye. He walked over and looked in astonishment at his own face – the face he'd seen in the mirror when he'd asked for one…the same crazy blue hair -- maybe a couple years younger, looking happy. He was in the same clothes he'd been in the night he woke up – some weird kind of fitted robe, a uniform, he thought -- but they weren't bloody and dirty in the photo; they looked brand new. Next to him was Harry, an arm slung around Teddy's shoulders, wearing the same uniform but a different color, and they were both holding up glasses of liquor in a toast.
The next picture was him as a baby being held by two people who could only be his parents. As he watched, a tearful, pink-haired woman kissed the top of his infant head while a scruffy-looking man wiped at his eyes.
And Teddy felt nothing.
He moved on to the third and last photo on the shelf. It was him – two years younger again – and he was with a boy of perhaps seventeen or eighteen. They were smiling broadly, laughing. Teddy had his arm around him and the bloke had both his arms around Teddy's middle. They were quite close. The other boy had reddish brown hair, fair skin – a lot like one of the ladies he'd seen around the big house, the one who moved about as if she owned it. As he watched, the Teddy in the photograph, the one that knew everything about his own life, ruffled the boy's hair. The Teddy in the room – this man who he was and didn't know – thought the boy would get arsed with him then. But he didn't. The boy in the photograph blushed, reached up and smoothed his hair down, and then wrapped his arm around Teddy's middle once more.
"I'm sorry to bother you."
Teddy jumped about a foot from the place he stood and turned to the door. And there stood the exact same person. Older by a bit, but the same. Teddy couldn't help but peer at him eagerly, as though he could just remember if he stared hard enough. "You're…" he said. "You're this fellow." He pointed to the photograph.
The young man in his doorway smiled. "Yeah. Want to take a crack at my name?" His words were light, but Teddy heard the fragile hope in his voice. This person was important to him. He was important to this person.
"I'm so sorry," he found himself saying. Then, "Do come in. It's all right."
The bloke edged into the room warily. He'd obviously grown since the photograph had been taken; he was the same height as Teddy now.
"I can't begin to guess your name, I'm afraid," Teddy apologized. "I'd probably just start with the A's and work my way down to the C's by midnight only to find out your name's Zane or something."
"James," the boy said softly. "My name's James." His smile was tender and almost shy.
Teddy felt something inside himself respond – something that felt just this side of familiar. "Well, then I'd've gotten it before dawn." He found himself winking at the kid, and James blushed, just like in the photograph.
They must be quite good friends? And yet there was an age difference. They wouldn't have gone to school together. They wouldn't work together. Teddy was at a loss as to why he'd feel so close to this person, despite the fact that he did seem perfectly lovely.
"So, what do you do, James? Are you a wizard, too?" Then, "I'm sorry. Would you like to sit? I'm afraid all I've got is this…well, it's a crap desk chair looks like. That or the bed." He swallowed.
"The bed's fine," James said, and though it sounded nonchalant enough, there was an undercurrent of what felt like nervousness to him.
Teddy held out his arm and they sat together and began to talk.
"Quidditch," the young man said.
"Bless you?" Teddy replied.
James laughed, and Teddy startled. It was a familiar sound. It was a comforting sound. But before he could process it, James went on, "It's a sport. I play it. I'm Keeper for the national team. Youngest Keeper they've ever had."
"And bloody talented as hell," came a new voice from the doorway.
Teddy peered around to see maybe the prettiest bloke he'd ever laid eyes on. But then how would he know? Teddy wanted to laugh, but the timing would make him seem terribly rude. Or mental. Still, the boy was striking: shining blond hair; svelte frame; lopsided white grin; big, long lash-framed grey eyes. He was beautiful but utterly unfamiliar. "Hello," Teddy offered.
He seemed to take that as his cue to enter. And when he entered, he sauntered. "I'm Scorpius Malfoy." He held out his hand. Teddy could see that James had set his teeth together; it made a hard angle of his clean jaw.
Teddy took the offered hand and shook. "Teddy Lupin, they tell me."
"We've met," Scorpius admitted. "I just wanted to say," he looked down at James and his gaze flared, "good luck." He smiled warmly back at Teddy again.
"Thank you."
"Don't you mention it." Then he looked at James again. "See you later then." He reached out and squeezed James' shoulder and then strode out of the room, this time shutting the door on them when before it had been open.
"That was interesting," Teddy allowed.
"Don't mind Scorpius. He's a ponce." James appeared agitated.
"He seemed rather fond of you. Are you good friends?"
James cleared his throat. "He's…he's my boyfriend, actually." Then he managed to look Teddy square in the eye, though he was flushed and barely breathing.
Oh.
His boyfriend.
Oh.
"Oh," Teddy said, at a loss. He swallowed. "Well, he seemed lovely."
James grinned at him. "He's a lovely ponce."
Teddy laughed. No wonder he was friends with this James fellow. He liked him. Teddy scooted so that he could lean his back against the headboard. "So can you explain Quimmitch to me?" he said.
James grinned hugely, got comfortable sitting cross-legged across from him, and began, "It all starts with the Snitch."
"Oh, fuck, Jamie," Scorpius breathed as James pounded his body against the wall, Scorpius' back to James' front, James' cock hammering home inside him, ready to come. "Tell me again."
"Sod off," James gritted out, holding Scorpius' hips in both hands, giving it all he had.
Scorpius leaned his head back against James' shoulder, eyes blissfully closed, and sighed, "Tell me."
"Scor, dammit…"
"Tell me or I'll tell him."
"Dirty Malfoy," James ground out, loving him and hating him all at once.
Scorpius, the devil, laughed, and it closed his arse tight down on James' cock. He wouldn't last but another minute.
So he told his boyfriend, "We talked – for three –hours and – when I left – oh fucking Christ you're so tight –"
Scorpius wound his arm around the back of James' head, holding him close so James could whisper it into his ear, Scorpius' other hand flat on the wall in front of him. "Yeah, Jamie. Tell me what he did."
"He h-hugged me…close…and I…"
"You what?"
"I got so fucking hard," James gasped, and then he was coming. The memory of Teddy's arms around him was so fresh, the whispered, "Thank you," in his ear – how he'd smelled so beautiful, how James had sprung wood instantly against his hip and had to worm away. And now he was coming in his boyfriend's slick ass, loads of it, and he was moaning and trembling, stumbling, hands gripping hard at Scorpius' bony hips.
"Ride it out in me, baby," Scorpius soothed, butting back against him.
James grabbed his hair and pulled, got their mouths close, and kissed him quiet.
Two hours to dawn and James lay awake next to his first real boyfriend. Scorpius was wheezing in his sleep, something James found hilariously endearing – usually. Tonight, he was too pensive. He was too guilty. Because Scorpius wasn't his first love. That was Teddy Lupin, and James had never told a soul. How Scorpius had known was rather beyond him. James had taken pains to hide it. Still, Scorpius, for all his free-wheeling reputation, his fuck-first-study-later approach to life, was a skillful wizard, had unending curiosity, and possessed not the best moral code. It was entirely possible he'd even simply taken advantage of one night of James talking in his sleep, which Al had assured him he did do.
Despite the vigorous fuck when James got back to his room tonight and found Scorpius waiting for him with a hand around his own prick, James felt guilty about that, too. He'd shagged Scor like everything was all right – like Teddy wasn't balefully alone in the room three doors down, empty of memory, stripped of everything love was made from.
He'd fucked Scorpius like he hadn't just come from Teddy's room, from the kind of all night talk that cemented relationships, that bound hearts. James told Teddy how it started with Scorpius sixth year, about cheating on his Muggle Studies OWL and never getting caught, about how flying around a Quidditch stadium was the closest thing to heaven he could think of -- all things that Teddy had already known.
He knew he wasn't supposed to tell Teddy too much about his life, but he couldn't help reminding him what a brilliant wizard he was.
"I am?" Teddy asked, head tilted, eyes bright.
James had nodded. "You're kind of my idol."
And then Teddy had blinked at him, the candles they'd lit burning down low, casting long blankets of shadow. He'd said, "James, tell me," and James' breath had stopped before he'd finished, "Is my hair always this silly color?"
James smiled now, staring out the window at the setting moon. No, but whatever color it is, I want to run my fingers through it until you either have to push me away or snog me one or the other, he thought.
And then he looked down at Scorpius. Beautiful, wicked Scorpius whose mouth on his cock after class that day, under the bleachers, had been what had convinced James he simply must be dodgy. And if this was dodgy, he'd happily suffer every homophobic epithet in the book to keep Scorpius Malfoy in his bed, by his side, in his life.
They'd been inseparable from that day. And now Scorpius wanted him to bed Teddy Lupin. He hadn't come right out and said so, but he would. James knew his boyfriend, knew his scheming mind and open heart, and he knew what was coming. He knew Scorpius probably even already had a plan. James knew he should feel repulsed by it – the idea of tricking an oblivious Teddy into bed with them – and he was. He absolutely was. But still some perverse part of him, some deep desperation, saw this as possibly his only chance.
He wanted to do it so very badly.
James sighed and carded his fingers through Scorpius' wild sleep-hair. The other boy stirred but kept sleeping. "I love you," James murmured. "You're a jackass, and I think this idea of yours is vile, but…I love you for it."
"No punkin juice…" Scorpius slurred.
"Bugger, you're awake, aren't you?"
Scorpius smiled but didn't open his eyes. "Isn't it the rule that you have to jack someone off if you wake them up whispering mushy rubbish in their ear?"
"I've never heard of such a rule," James smiled.
But his hand was already slipping down Scorpius' stomach, and the sheet was already tenting, and the moon drifted down behind the hillside as James jacked his boyfriend back to sleep.
Teddy found Harry in his study the next day going over parchments, his glasses perched on his nose. He'd debated bothering him. But after spending half the night in a sleepless stupor, staring at the picture of himself with James, then the picture of himself with Harry, back and forth until he'd fallen asleep with both on his chest, it really seemed the only thing to do.
"James is your son, isn't he?" Teddy began before Harry could even invite him in.
"You're remembering."
"I don't know. I don't think so."
"Come in and sit, Teddy, please." Harry pushed his papers aside without a second thought.
Teddy thought he'd sit across from Harry, the desk separating them, but Harry came around and sat in the chair next to him, turning it to face him, leaning forward, elbows on knees.
Teddy sighed. "He has your smile. And your jaw. And your ears."
"My ears?" Harry smiled. Then, "He's my oldest son, yes. There's also Albus and Lily. They'll be here later today."
Teddy scratched his head. "I don't mean to be rude, but it's a bit odd to live with your boss and his kids, isn't it?"
Harry looked flummoxed. His lips pressed together as though keeping back words he very much wanted to say. Finally he took a deep breath and just said, "You're always more than welcome here."
"I don't feel like my memory is budging at all. I talked to your son for hours last night, and it was like…I don't know what it was like."
"I'm glad you're talking to James, Teddy. That's good. And I believe it will just take time."
"Do you?" Teddy asked. "Do you think I'll ever work again? What if I can't remember any spells, like, ever?"
"If you don't remember, I'll simply have to teach you until you've got them all learned again," Harry said with a sympathetic smile. "I know James would be happy to help, too. His main interest is Quidditch, but he always got Outstandings in Defense Against the Dark Arts – not to mention if you need broom lessons. And Al's superb with potions. Lily's extraordinary at Arithmancy. Whatever you need, we're here for you. Hell, even Scorpius Malfoy. He's here every bloody day seems like, and I've never seen anyone hex like he can." Harry rolled his eyes at that.
"Can I ask you something?" Teddy began slowly, but Harry stopped him.
"You want to know if I know, right?"
Teddy just blinked at him, sure this was a trap of some kind, meant to get him to tattle on James and his beau. But it wasn't.
"I've known for a while," Harry said. "And it's not the gay thing that's the problem. It's the Malfoy thing, believe me!" He ran his hands through his hair and when they came away he ended up looking like some sort of deranged, electrocuted professor. "I guess, once I knew, I sort of hoped he'd wind up fancying an older lad, someone with a good head on his shoulders, a Muggle dentist like Hermione's mum and dad. Or an Auror."
He didn't say it weird or anything, but Teddy got a weird feeling in his stomach. A nervousness. Like suddenly a spotlight was shining down on him and he didn't know the words of the song he was supposed to sing. He swallowed.
Harry went on, "But all I've ever wanted for my kids is for them to be happy. And Merlin knows there are worse cads out there than Scorpius, although not by much." Harry shook his head. "I don't know. It's none of my business. I keep out of it. Scorpius gets a stocking on Christmas and all. Like it or not…well, there he is." And then Harry laughed. He clapped Teddy on the shoulder. "I'm not supposed to offer you a drink – the Healers said it'd be bad for your memory – but I think a butterbeer'd be all right, don't you?"
"I'd bloody love one," Teddy said. And then for one bright moment, he heard a familiar bell-ring of laughter in his head, tasted the creamy bubbly warmth, felt the heat of a blazing hearth on cold, wet feet…. Then it was gone. But three words remained, in the otherwise empty black: "The Three Broomsticks," he said.
Harry turned from where he'd been headed for the door. "Teddy!"
Teddy stood abruptly. "Is that a place? A place I've been?"
"Yes!" Harry said, coming over and hugging him hard.
At first Teddy just stood there shocked that he'd remembered anything and that it hadn't taken any effort – it had just come upon him like the sun through clouds – then he put his arms around Harry, and he laughed.
The next day Scorpius had to get back to work.
"Dad's got a new shipment of books coming in and he said he doesn't trust the new stockboy to Leviose them to the right shelves. I told him it's what he gets for hiring a greenhorn Ravenclaw. Bloke'll have to read every book before he shelves it."
James shoved him in the shoulder. "My sister's a Ravenclaw, you git." But then he pulled him right into a hard kiss. "I don't want you to go," he admitted once they broke apart.
"Why not? He's more likely to shag you alone the first time, you know."
"I'm not going to try to shag him, Scorpius." James sighed. "Maybe I should tell him."
"What are you on about? James." Scorpius took him by the shoulders. "He'll forgive you afterwards. There won't be an afterwards if you tell him the truth."
"I don't want to hurt him."
Scorpius stroked along his jaw with his thumbs, and James shivered. "You won't, Jamie. For once in your life, trust me."
James grinned. "I've always trusted you. I've always been able to see right through you, Scorpius Malfoy." His boyfriend rolled his eyes, but James went on, "I'll just have to come to grips with loving a stockboy is all."
"Shut it," Scorpius scolded, but he was smiling. "General Manager, thank you very much, you bum."
"Who are you calling bum?"
"Sodding Quidditch players who get three months off every bloody year!" he teased. But then he leaned in and grabbed James' earlobe up in his teeth, and he said around it, his hand slipping down his chest slowly, "But I do love this one's hard body." His deft tongue licked where he'd bitten.
James swatted him on the arse, but the compliment felt good. "Back this weekend, yeah?"
"Yeah. And you'd better have bedded that bloke and have him ready for a third by then." Scorpius winked.
"Scor," James warned, but the prat ignored him, and on his way out of the room, he threw back, "But owl me if you have any trouble, right?"
"Right," James murmured, already feeling too alone in his own house. "Right…" he whispered, sitting heavily on the foot of his bed.
Al and Lily flooed home that afternoon. Lily was first through, and James grabbed her up in a hug.
"You're not going to miss too much, are you? No tests this week, right?" he asked.
She rolled her eyes. "If it's all right with Mum and Dad for me to miss three days of school, what's your problem?"
"I dunno. Big brother-itis?"
"They've got potions for that," she said and then went to hug their dad.
Al was next out of the floo. "Merlin!" he exclaimed. "You people could clean it out now and then, yeah?" He hugged James hard and long, the kind of hug you reserve for people just out of St. Mungo's or something. "How you doing?" he said lowly.
James frowned. "Why?"
Al leaned back. "Seriously?" Then, "You're so bloody thick sometimes. We'll talk later."
"What the hell does that mean?"
"It means we'll vocalize from our lips and throats a little further on in the day," he deadpanned, but then he'd already moved on. "Dad – how's the Auror business?"
"It's crap right now," he answered. "How's teaching?"
"Assistant teaching, Dad," Al corrected. "Professor Longbottom's fun, but Chang's a taskmaster in Potions. She's got me mixing night and day. You'd think I was a slave! You'd think I was a Slytherin!" He cleared his throat and looked at James. "Sorry."
James just blinked. It wasn't often his relationship with an often-unnamed Slytherin went something other than unspoken of.
Once everybody had dusted off the floo powder and said their hellos, Teddy's presence by the doorway became like an awkward beacon.
"Hullo," Teddy said, and James could tell he was forcing the friendliness. He just plain didn't know these people.
Lily lost her mind for a moment and ran at him. "Oh, Teddy!" she exclaimed, throwing her arms around him, burying her face in his neck.
"Lils, he doesn't bloody recognize you," Al provided with zero tact.
James elbowed him in the ribs.
"What? We talked about this before we left and she still can't help herself."
Lily backed away, all apologies. "I'm so sorry. I don't know what got into me. When we heard you were hurt, I just…well, we just couldn't wait to get back here and make sure you'd be all right. I'm Lily. By the way." She backed up.
Teddy smiled at her reassuringly. "Charmed," he said with a little bow.
"And I'm Al. The awesome one." Albus stuck out his hand, and Teddy shook it with a chuckle.
"Right," he said. "Surely your awesomeness will be the first thing to come back to me."
Then Teddy's eyes met James'. They looked at one another across the room for all of three seconds, but it caught James' breath. It was as though Teddy looked to him for grounding, for mooring in a sea of unfamiliarity. James nodded at him, wanting to help him any way he could but also feeling quite unraveled by the way Teddy's eyes flickered from blue to a sort of mossy green, rich and bright, while he watched.
Harry went back to work and Teddy spent a few days getting barraged with so-called fun and familiar activities with his kids.
They'd tried Quidditch (Teddy's broom bucked like a bronco and he got himself stuck up a tree.) They'd played wizard chess and watched Muggle shows on the telly. They'd fixed Teddy's favorite meals and stared at him while he ate.
They'd made popcorn and sat around the living room swapping stories.
"Remember when he scored us the hard cider for your party, James, that weekend Mum and Dad actually went away together to, where was it? Bloody Wales? Leave it to them to go to bloody Wales for a holiday. I mean, Bali, anyone?" Al stuffed his mouth full of popcorn and continued. "But what the plonker here didn't tell us was that it was just sparkling cider! And we all thought we were drunk off our arses but we were just…"
"Dorks," Lily supplied.
"I did that?" Teddy asked, looking around the living room at these people who seemed to think he was their best friend. His gaze fell on James in the end, and he nodded, although it was Al who answered.
"You did indeed. You got us good that time, Teddy. But we got you back."
And then he'd proceeded to recount how he'd convinced the others to turn all Teddy's clothes pink for a week.
"But shit if it didn't work on you, mate!" Al had laughed, Lily joining him.
Only James had been relatively quiet, staring into his tea or into the hearth or into Teddy's eyes.
Teddy found he sought out James' gaze often. It felt comforting and real and something else entirely. It felt a little too good, soothing and exciting all at once.
And Teddy found himself knocking on James' bedroom door at night, wanting company, wanting something less boisterous than Al, less bubbly than Lily. Teddy wanted the easy way he could talk to James – about his fears, about what this felt like to be so alone and surrounded by over-eager friendliness. What it felt like to be undiscovered by oneself.
He kept James up too late, but he didn't seem to mind – kept reassuring Teddy that he didn't start back to practice for another month, that he wanted Teddy there.
Their talks always ended in a hug good-night. Teddy wasn't sure why he wanted to hug James. Maybe because of that photograph – the one with Jamie's – for he was becoming Jamie – arms around him. He wanted to keep feeling that. He liked feeling that.
He liked that it made James flustered. All sorts of feelings of guilt flooded Teddy when they embraced. He's a bit young. It isn't supposed to feel this way. And yet it did. It bloody did.
Teddy had felt James get hard against him. Teddy had liked it. He'd liked it an awful lot.
He's nineteen, Teddy would tell himself, lying in bed at night, reliving the day, searching the black corners of his mind for anything bright wanting to surface. But it was always just Jamie. It was the soft looks across a room. It was the long talks, the intermittent laughter, the shared space.
It was the auburn of his hair, the strength in his sport-hewn body, the arms that held Teddy hard.
He's nineteen.
Yes, and you're only twenty-six. It's not as though you've got a foot in the damned grave! Maybe you and he have felt this way all along. Ever thought of that? Maybe he's just dying for you to remember.
But then there was Scorpius.
How could he not think of the two of them together? How could he not think of his own involvement ruining everything?
"Fuck," Teddy sighed, reaching over and dousing his light.
Harry would be back day after next, and maybe he'd have answers. He'd be back from wherever he'd gone on his important Auror business.
Teddy missed a career he couldn't recall. He missed a life he couldn't remember.
But what made that all right was Jamie.
Teddy shut his eyes, grabbed a pillow to his body, turned over on his side and fought the sordid daydreams that wanted to come.
James found Teddy the next day in the kitchen with his brother and sister. Again. They had him blindfolded and were making him smell things.
"Merlin, what are you doing to him?"
"Smell is the sense most connected to memory in the brain," Lily informed him, wafting an apple tart under Teddy's nose.
"It's all right," Teddy said in his general direction.
James walked over, took the blindfold, and eased it off his eyes and then off his head completely. Teddy gazed up at him, blinking, a tender smile tugging at his lips. "Good morning," he said.
"Good morning," James answered. Then, "But you're lying."
"What are you on about?" Al asked, in the process of bringing over what appeared to be the neighbor's wet dog.
"I mean, he's lying. It's not all right, you two treating him like a lab rat. Now, dry Donald off and send him home."
"But—"
"Now!" James yelled. It wasn't often he raised his voice; his siblings startled.
"All right, already. Don't get your knickers in a twist," Al said.
"Too late," Lily joined in.
But they dried the dog with a charm and then left to return him to his rightful place inside the Donoghue's warm living room.
"Thank you," Teddy said, trying to fix his hair from where the blindfold had mussed it.
Before he thought, James reached out and smoothed down a particularly unruly indigo strand. He froze, looking down into Teddy's kind eyes, turning brown, then he snatched his hand away and cleared his throat. "Want to split this apple tart then?"
"No, actually."
"No?"
"No. I want to go out."
"Out where?"
"I don't bloody care," he sighed. "I just want to take a day off from trying to remember. I just want to be for a while."
James found himself nodding, though his insides were a riot. Teddy wanted to go out with him. Just the two of them. Almost like a date. He'd get Teddy all to himself for the day, and he didn't even have to feel guilty because it was Teddy's idea. It'd be rude not to go, he rationalized. He wasn't – he absolutely wasn't – succumbing to Scorpius' wicked ideology.
"Let's hurry before they get back," James said.
"We should leave a note," Teddy decided.
James went to the drawer by the fridge and pulled out a parchment and laid it down on the kitchen island. He wrote quickly:
Gone to Hogsmeade. Don't follow us. Don't wreck the house. Back in a few.
Teddy and James
"Good?" he asked.
"Good," Teddy smiled. "Will you Apparate us? I'm afraid that's a little beyond my skill level at this point."
James gulped. "Sure. Just, uh, take my arm?"
Teddy stood, and James had to remind himself how to breathe as he took not James' arm but his hand, holding it snugly and gently in his own. James swallowed, tried to concentrate, and then they cracked away.
They were starving, so they ate first, and once they were full, they walked through the shops talking of nothing important. They'd separate from one another to investigate different shelves, but then Teddy would always find James' eye across the store and smile or wave. James would wave back, and his smile was always warm and full of promise.
James showed him funny pranks or got him to try weird flavors of candies. They went to the bookstore, and James became engrossed with a book entitled, Keeping Quidditch Through Two Wars and Beyond, written by the apparently-famous Keeper, Lucky DeShazer. Teddy left him there to browse the Muggle literature section. When he peered around the corner twenty minutes later, James had moved on to spell books, so Teddy grabbed up the Quidditch tome and took it to the checkout.
"What've you got there?" James asked once he'd paid and gotten it into a bag.
"I'll show you outside," he said. "Let's get a drink somewhere."
"Sure," James said, then once they were outside, the shop's bell ringing over their heads, James opened the bag and pulled out his book. "You got this for me?"
Teddy shrugged. "Yeah. You did want it, didn't you?"
James nodded. He hugged the book to his chest. "Thank you, Teddy."
"It was my pleasure," Teddy told him and then watched a shiver work its way over James' body. He had the not-so-passing thought that he'd like to touch him and make that happen. "I'm parched," he said.
"Yeah." James cleared his throat. "Yeah, okay. Well, how about the Three Broomsticks?"
Teddy started. His mind's eye opened up. Cedar logs in the hearth. A girl laughing. Victoire. His…girlfriend? She'd charmed their mugs to automatically refill, and she was laughing, and Teddy had kissed her in the alley earlier, and…
"Teddy? Are you all right?"
Teddy opened his eyes, not realizing they had closed. "What?"
"Where did you go? Are you okay?" James' hand was on his arm.
Teddy looked into his eyes, still seeing another time. Then James' thumb brushed over his arm, and Teddy blinked. He was staring into caring, frightened brown eyes.
"Teddy?"
Teddy licked his lips. "Jamie," he said. "I think I just remembered something."
James' reaction wasn't what Teddy had been expecting: he looked, if anything, terrified.
"It's really nothing," Teddy prevaricated. He'd do anything, he thought, to take the fear out of those beautiful eyes. "It was just this girl. I think it was while I was in school. She might have been…I dunno, my girlfriend?"
He watched James swallow, his jaw tightening. This was getting worse, not better.
"What was her name?" James asked, though Teddy could tell he already didn't like the answer.
Oh.
"Uh, Victoire? I think?"
James looked down. He nodded. Teddy wanted to pull him close and tell him that it wasn't her he wanted now – hell, he hardly even remembered anything at all. It was James he wanted. Teddy took a breath and then took his wrist gently. James looked back up at him.
"I remember her," Teddy said. "Barely. But I don't… Jamie, I don't feel anything for her. Do you understand?"
James looked down at where Teddy's hand encircled his wrist. He looked impossibly conflicted for a moment – he'd practically stopped breathing – but then Teddy shivered when James then slipped his own hand into Teddy's and took one slow, decisive step in, bringing their bodies just a couple of inches apart. "I think so," he said. Teddy tightened the hold on his hand, and James looked into his eyes once more.
"Do you want to say fuck the drink?" Teddy breathed.
"Yeah sure," James breathed back.
Then the book fell to the ground, and James' arms came around him, and their lips crashed together, and James' tongue licked into his mouth, hot and not at all hesitant. Teddy pulled him in, his hands at James' lower back, his hips, sliding his tongue over Jamie's, into his mouth and oh my sweet God!
Before he knew what he was doing, Teddy had James pressed back against the shop window, and James moaned into his mouth, and he tasted like lemons and peppermint and everything good there was to eat. Teddy's cock was getting hard. Their kiss was wild, untempered, their bodies pressed tight.
"Dear Merlin," Teddy heard behind them and broke away to see an old woman with a hand over a little girl's eyes, walking away as quickly as she could without tripping them both.
"Blimey!" came another muffled whisper of awe, this time from one of a flock of Hogwarts students gazing at them from inside the window James was backed up against.
"Shit," Teddy laughed uncomfortably.
James was smiling and blushing both.
"Maybe we should go now?" Teddy said when James made no move to Disapparate them.
"Oh, bugger. Right. Accio book," he called. Then they squeezed through space and landed in James' room back at the house. James tossed the book aside, charmed the door closed and locked quickly, and then they were kissing once more – hungry, can't-wait kisses – and James' hands were going up Teddy's shirt, skating hot over his skin, up his chest, and Teddy was pulling at James' shirt, trying to get it off.
He stopped suddenly, though.
James whispered, "What is it?" shucking his shirt anyway, working Teddy's up his stomach.
"Scorpius," Teddy said. "You have a boyfriend, Jamie. I can't—"
At that, James broke into a breathtaking smile.
Teddy frowned. "What?"
"He'll be over the moon," James told him. His fingers danced up Teddy's abdomen and made his cock twitch.
"What – why?"
"He wants this, Teddy – you and me."
Teddy's eyes couldn't help but drop to James' chest, his sturdy shoulders, bitable neck… "He does? You're serious?"
"Yeah," James told him, leaning in to nip wet kisses at Teddy's throat. "He'll be even more thrilled if you want him, too."
"Like…all of us? Together?" Teddy felt a little dizzy at that.
"Yeah." The fingers on his stomach slid up his ribs, onto his nipples. Christ… "Would you consider that?"
"Bloody hell," Teddy sighed. "I think I could consider that, yeah."
James smiled, and Teddy couldn't not kiss it off his perfect mouth, then.
"Have I ever been in a threesome before?" Teddy laughed while James pulled his t-shirt off and walked back, pulling Teddy along by the waist, toward his bed.
"I don't believe so."
"Merlin, have we…? God, I didn't think to ask. We haven't, have we?" Teddy's mouth went dry.
But James bit his lip and then shook his head. "No. I—"
"You what?"
"I've just always wanted to."
"You have?"
James' fingers were working his trousers open now, but Teddy couldn't look away from his warm eyes.
"Jamie?" He held James' wrists, keeping him from touching his cock, even though Teddy ached for him to do it.
James looked up at him. "I've been in love with you for ages," he said, blinking furiously.
"Christ…" Teddy exhaled. He palmed James' face and felt him shivering. "I… I hope I don't suck," he said finally.
James laughed, his face transforming with the brilliant smile that took it over. "C'mere," James whispered, kissing him chastely, pulling Teddy by the open denims. Teddy followed, unable not to, transfixed by James' beauty, his openness, his courage, the sheer sex in that hushed command.
Then James sat at the foot of his bed and pulled Teddy between his open legs. He looked up into Teddy's eyes as he pulled his trousers and pants down until Teddy's cock sprang free. And then his gaze dropped to it, and his eyes became almost all pupil. His lashes fluttered as he leaned in, and then he pressed his face to Teddy's cock and said his name: "Teddy…"
Teddy groaned, watching him, feeling the softness of his lips, the rough, shadowed skin of his jaw. Their gazes met again, and it was like…voltage. Teddy felt it in his cock and balls, down his legs, deep in his chest, up in his throat. He swallowed.
And then James held Teddy's arse in his warm hands, cupping, and took his cock almost all the way to the root in one go.
"Holy fuck holy fuck holy FUCK," Teddy hissed. "Jamie!"
He could swear that the bastard smiled even with his mouth full of Teddy's thick purple cock. If anyone had ever done this to Teddy before, he felt certain it couldn't have been half this wonderful.
It was then that Teddy realized – he was essentially a virgin.
"James," he said.
The little ponce bobbed his head, not listening.
"God, James, wait." Teddy wasn't sure where he got the strength to say that one awful word. But James slurped off of him, looking wicked with his mouth that blush color and slightly swollen.
"Don't you like it?" he asked, blinking.
Teddy palmed his cheek. "God, yes, I love it! It's just that… Jamie, I've never done this. At least not that I can remember. At all," he emphasized.
"Right," James breathed. "Merlin's beard." Then, "May I? Be your first?"
"Well, I fucking hope so," Teddy burst out, his prick already prematurely scared Jamie would stop.
James smiled up at him, took the base of his cock in his fist and thumbed the underside slowly, waiting.
"I just needed you to know that."
"In case you suck?"
Teddy breathed a laugh. "Yeah, in case of that."
"Don't worry," James said softly. "I'll show you how." And then he enveloped the head of Teddy's cock in his luscious mouth again and began to lick at the slit in a way that was maddening and had Teddy wanting to push hard into his mouth until he felt hot, tight throat.
He dropped his head back and groaned.
"It doesn't -- Christ – bother you that I'm older?" Teddy found himself asking while James enveloped his cock in his brilliant mouth again..
But the question made Jamie pull back on a little laugh. "You're kidding, right?"
The way he said it made Teddy think possibly he wasn't bothered one bit. Perhaps he was the opposite of bothered. "Just asking," he said.
"Teddy."
"Yes?"
"Shut it," Jamie laughed.
Teddy smiled down at him and nodded. And what happened then was perfect.
James took him to the brink twice with his mouth, both times pulling off and holding the base of Teddy's cock in the vice of his circled fingers until it passed some. "Bloody hell, what are you doing to me?" Teddy breathed, his legs starting to shake.
James smiled up at him, looking perfectly happy, perfectly calm. "Everything I've always wanted to," he replied. James nuzzled his cock.
"I'm dying to fuck you," Teddy told him.
Jamie smiled up at him, alight with pleasure, then he moved back and turned away, getting up on his hands and knees on the bed. He looked back at Teddy invitingly, his gorgeous arse bare, pale, waiting – the small, ginger-rimmed hole soft and fuckable before him.
"C'mere," Jamie said again with that sly little knowing smile that made Teddy feel as though James could ask anything of him and he'd do it. "Take those trousers off and bring your wand to bed," James said to him, dropping his head to wait.
Teddy's cock began leaking badly at the sight of him there like that, submissive yet in utter control.
Teddy shucked his trousers and mindlessly grabbed his wand from where it had fallen on the floor. He crawled up, walking on his knees until he was right behind James.
"Now point it at my arse and say, Madidus," Jamie instructed.
Teddy gulped. "You're not serious."
"Do it."
Teddy swallowed. He couldn't help but gape at the vision in front of him, how James' bollocks hung, how heavy and hard his cock was, red at the tip and wet.
"You're bloody good at this; you should trust yourself," James told him.
"How do you know?"
"Wizard shite, Teddy. I don't know how you shag. I only suspect." James shot him a lusty grin over his shoulder.
Teddy took a deep breath, aimed the wand at Jamie's winking arsehole, and enunciated, "Madidus."
James gasped, and Teddy saw that now he was slippery as hell and ready. Teddy touched the sweet pucker with the tip of his index finger, applying a gentle circling pressure until he breached it and sank his finger deep inside.
James let out a long wordless groan, arching his back.
Teddy began to finger-fuck him open. James felt soft and furnace-hot inside. Teddy desperately wanted to feel that around his cock.
"Fuck, how much more of this do you need?" he asked, feeling like a wanker.
James didn't seem to mind the rush. "I'm ready now, Teddy," he whined. "Please… Put your cock in me."
Teddy's whole body flushed with it – something beyond but including lust. Teddy supposed he'd have to call it love. He withdrew his finger, letting the grasping rim kiss the tip good-bye. He laid his cock down in the cleft of James' arse, slid it there a few times just to see the contrast of its dark hue against his lover's pale back.
His lover….
He felt love for this person he hardly knew.
"It must have broken my heart not to be with you," he found himself whispering.
There was a moment of stillness – when James' body tensed against him and once again he seemed to stop breathing. Then he exhaled in a rush, "Teddy—"
Teddy massaged James' arse, gently butting up against him. "What?" he asked. "What is it, Jamie?"
"I--" James whispered. "I need -- to tell you. Teddy… Just—" And then whatever force had hold of him relinquished its grip, and James simply begged him, "Please. Please, Teddy. Do it now, please."
The last just killed him. There was an unmasked anguish there that spoke to something familiar inside himself. Teddy aimed, pressed forward, took a moment to find the right degree of pressure to angle, and then just like that, his cock popped inside the cinched ring of muscle, and James gasped. Teddy couldn't help but groan as he sank deeper and deeper – Jamie's arse to his cock like the heart to its blood, a connection so intimate it goes unquestioned by the body entirely. They fit so bloody good.
When he was in to the hilt, he shuddered, draped himself over Jamie's strong back, curling around this exquisite person who'd become so important to him, to whom his heart sang, and began to thrust. Teddy wrapped his arm around James' body, palm pressed to his chest, and fucked, feeling James move with him as they found the right pace, the right push and strive.
Teddy tasted the back rippling against his lips and wanted to die from the longing in his heart. He was fucking James Potter, and he was so full of love for him, a love he must have felt for years, that he felt it simply had to overflow, to escape the skin of his limited body, to cry out to the world somehow.
Teddy slipped his hand down and curled it around James' cock. He started to pull in time to his own hips' rolling.
James turned his head and bit into his own bicep, whining. Five smooth strokes and James came, rocking against him, panting and crying out, the warm semen filling Teddy's hand and then coating Jamie's cock on the next pass of his fist down to the root.
"Sweet Merlin," Teddy breathed, unable to resist the way Jamie's arse clamped down on him in rhythm with his orgasm. He felt it approaching and at once wanted to grasp at it, to force it on his body, and to push it away, unready to end this bloody transcendent thing he wasn't near ready for – or wouldn't have been if he'd known.
But in the end, he couldn't stop it. And he didn't really want to. He wanted to come inside Jamie's perfect body, to leave something of himself, to fall into this feeling and succumb to it completely.
When the climax hit him and he began to empty himself inside, to quiver with the intensity of it, Teddy closed his eyes –
-- and then with every jolt of the orgasm came a new round of memory with it:
Teddy teaching James to ride a broom.
Dinners together when he'd come home from school, Al and James kicking each other under the table, Teddy shaking his head at James and getting that guilty dog look, the way he always, always deferred to Teddy, obeyed him. Adored him.
And how hard Teddy had fought it. From the time he'd come back from Auror training and found James nearly a man, seventeen – tall and broad in the shoulder – and fucking God how he'd wanted this.
This.
For Jamie to be his.
Teddy's eyes snapped open, his entire world crashing down on him like waking from a dream in which one has been flying only to fall back into the body, slammed back into life.
"No!" Teddy cried, pulling out of him, falling backward, landing on the floor and still scrabbling.
"Teddy, what--?"
"I remember!" Teddy cried. "Christ. Christ!" His cock was still tingling. It could still feel him.
James turned, reaching for him, and Teddy snarled, "I can't believe you'd do this." The tears stung his eyes and throat.
And, of course, there was the guilty dog look he was so infernally familiar with. Everything was so horribly, scandalously familiar. God! His heart hurt. It was breaking like it never had. Not when he'd stayed at Hogwarts, choosing not to come home for first, second, third year because he thought Harry and his family would be better off. Not when he visited his parents' graves. Not when he slept with Victoire for the first time and realized something was very wrong with him. Not when he left school and trained in the mountains with healing magicks and didn't answer any of Harry's owls – when he tore James' letters to pieces.
It broke in ways it hadn't even when he'd come back home, the prodigal son, and started to mend his relationships, started to take responsibility for himself. When he became a brother again to Al and Lily.
When he held James in his arms after all those years and knew, without a doubt, that he'd never feel like he should. Not what he felt for the others. Never.
And now this.
Now everything he'd wanted for too long and worked so hard to push away had happened. James had known how Teddy should feel – and he'd let him do it anyway. James had gotten him to do it.
Teddy grabbed his clothes off the floor, accioed his wand.
"Teddy, please, I lo—"
"Leave me alone, Jamie!" Teddy cried.
He slammed the door on his way out. When he got to his own room, he put up every barrier he could, knowing Jamie wasn't half the wizard he was and would take days to bring them all down. He dressed as quickly as he could with his fingers trembling so badly.
And then he sat at his desk and buried his face in his hands. He wanted to break – to let himself dissolve into ridiculous tears. All the tears he never let himself cry before because he was trying to be so bloody strong for everyone.
But he didn't. He couldn't. There was something he had to do first. Something that made him sick – something that made him feel dark and powerful and horrible all at once.
He had to kill Scorpius Malfoy.
Go to Part Two
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Date: 2015-03-08 05:45 pm (UTC)There's so much lovely writing! "He'd shagged Scor like everything was all right – like Teddy wasn't balefully alone in the room three doors down, empty of memory, stripped of everything love was made from." I mean wow. That's just beautiful.
And I how you characterized everyone, esp hilariously boisterous Al. "Lils, he doesn't bloody recognize you," Al provided with zero tact." And "Dad – how's the Auror business?" Haha.
And wonderfully wicked Scorpious! That devious mastermind. I was panicking as my scroll bar was nearing the bottom of my screen, and I thought Nooo, this cant be over yet! Not like this! I need more! And then I saw that blessed "Go to Part 2" and I could breathe again. Off to read more! <3
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Date: 2015-07-01 07:10 pm (UTC)