"You're better off than I was."

Teddy knows this. He is sure there is something justifying what he's doing.

--

Teddy Lupin just is, sometimes. He sits by his parents' graves, sitting on the grass and staring at the sunset (he is always there to see the sunset) and pretending there are no graves behind him, just more grass.

He does not pretend there is a man with graying brown hair and an easygoing smile behind him, or a bright woman with pink hair and a vibrant grin. There is no reason that they would go with him and just be when they could go and do other things suitable for living people.

Teddy Lupin stares, sometimes. It is in the grass, again (there are no graves), and sometimes it's sunset (sometimes it's night), but staring makes all the difference. Maybe he's staring at the sky, or somewhere beyond it, or somewhere in it that no one else can see. Maybe he's just staring. Usually there comes a voice behind him; this one is real: sometimes it tells him to get to bed, to eat dinner, to offer words of comfort that mean well but don't do anything, and sometimes it says nothing at all and just sits behind him.

(That always makes him feel worse. Harry has a reason to stare. Teddy does, too, but mostly he doesn't. He usually tries to avoid Harry these times.)

He's right. Teddy is better off. Harry had relatives that hated him and no friends before Hogwarts. Teddy has relatives that love him and friends before and after Hogwarts. It only seems right in an unfortunate way that Harry would be an orphan to add to it all. Teddy being an orphan is an unreasonable, last-minute add-on.

(Somehow, this makes all the tragic difference.)

I'm unsure if this is bad or okay. It didn't come out right, I think. I dunno.