Raised By Wolves

For Liza

Everyone knew Teddy Lupin wasn't going to be a werewolf.

(But they still breathed a sigh of relief when his first full moon came and went and nothing happened.)

"He's such a happy baby," his mother cooed as she rocked him in her arms. "Such a happy little baby."

"Happy and human," his father said as he stood over the two of them, and that was the last time they were a family.

"Theodore Lupin," his grandmother scolded when he ate his food with his hands. "Knife and fork, if you please."

"Sorry, Gran," Teddy said in his high-pitched little five-year-old voice. "I forgot."

"You forget every time." Gran handed him a cloth napkin, and he wiped his hands. "Were you raised by wolves?"

Teddy grinned; he liked this little joke. "No, but I could have been!" he chirped, and the two of them laughed. Gran's laugh didn't quite reach her eyes, but there was no pain in Teddy's chuckle. He didn't remember his father or his mother, and as far as he was concerned, they were nothing but stories and photographs and punch lines of silly jokes about his table manners.

His mother had been a Hufflepuff, and his father was a Gryffindor, but Teddy ended up in Ravenclaw, and part of him was ashamed of it.

"Guess I'm not like my parents at all," he said to one of the boys he was sharing a dormitory with.

"That's not true," the boy said, rolling over in bed to look at Teddy. "You're a metamorphagus like you said your mum was."

"Yeah. I s'pose." Teddy shrugged one shoulder as he slid under the covers. "Nothing like my dad, though."

"You could be," the boy said. "Maybe you just haven't grown into it yet."

"Maybe," said Teddy with a great yawn.

(The moon was full that night, and he had never slept more soundly.)

His parents had their names on the plaque set up outside the gates of the castle. It wasn't alphabetical, so it took Teddy a long time to skim through all the names and find the ones he wanted, but there they were: Nymphadora Tonks Lupin was near the top, and Remus John Lupin was midways down.

There were other names Teddy recognized from the stories his family liked to tell: Fred Gideon Weasley, Severus Tobias Snape, Bellatrix Black Lestrange. Everyone who had died in the Battle of Hogwarts was on the plaque, no matter their affiliation, no matter which side of the army they belonged to.

Tom Marvolo Riddle was set apart from the rest of the names, but it was there all the same, and Teddy felt an ache deep in his stomach when he looked at it.

"GRYFFINDOR," said the Sorting Hat, and Victoire Weasley slid down from the stool and floated down the steps to join her new house. She gave Teddy a wave as she sat down; he returned it half-heartedly. Everyone knew Victoire was like her mother - they could see it in her fair hair, her slightly upturned nose, her clear, blue eyes and sunny skin - and now everyone knew she was brave, like her father.

Teddy told himself he didn't mind, but the ache in his stomach that appeared when he looked at Voldemort's name on the plaque came back as he watched Victoire sit down.

The next night he slept fitfully under a full moon and woke up feeling somehow both exhausted and energized.

"Studying hard for your OWLS?" Teddy's godfather asked over Christmas holidays, and Teddy pulled his nose out of his textbook to reply that yes, he was, and he did not appreciate the interruption, where were Harry's manners, was he raised by wolves?

(Harry always humored his godson with a laugh, but like Gran, it didn't reach his eyes.)

"Leave him alone, Harry," said Hermione. "OWLS are incredibly important."

"So's Quidditch," Ron said loudly. "You still playing Quidditch, Teddy?"

"I've never played Quidditch in my life, Uncle Ron," Teddy said.

"Oh. Why not?"

"Clumsy," Teddy said. "Like my mum."

"Oh." Ron looked unsatisfied. "What about Lupin?" he asked Harry. "Was Lupin good on a broom."

Harry shrugged.

"It wouldn't matter if he was," Teddy said, going back to his book. "I'm nothing like my father."

It wasn't until his sixth year that Teddy learned about animagi.

He stumbled across the term in a book, and from that moment on, he knew he had to be one. He spent hours in the library looking up techniques and incantations, and when he found everything he needed he began to practice.

The key was to visualize the animal within you, according to all the books, but Teddy didn't have a clue what the animal within him could be.

"An owl," he decided late one night when he was having trouble sleeping - the full moon made it too bright in his dormitory, and the ache in his stomach was back for no reason. "I'm an owl, since I can't sleep."

"You look exhausted, Teddy."

"Gee, thanks, James," Teddy said without looking up from his textbook. "I've got NEWTS to study for, you'll be exhausted too when you're a seventh-year."

His cousin - they weren't technically related, but Teddy liked to call them cousins, and nobody seemed to mind that Teddy had invited himself into the family like that - sat down next to him, his short little eleven-year-old legs dangling over the edge of the tall library chair. "What are you studying for?"

"Transfiguration." It wasn't a lie; hidden between the leaves of his book were his animagus notes, and if becoming an animal wasn't a form of transfiguration, Teddy didn't know what was.

"Which parts of transfiguration?" James asked.

"Animals," Teddy said vaguely.

"Like pincushions to hedgehogs?" James asked. "We're doing that in my Transfiguration class."

"Like animals into other animals."

"Oh. Like hedgehogs into . . . what, horses?"

"Something like that." Teddy flipped a page. One of his pieces of parchment flew out and fluttered to the floor. "Hand me that, will you James?"

"Sure." James dove beneath the table to retrieve the notes and came up with a furrowed brow. "Anima - animagus?" he sounded out.

Teddy snatched it away. "Keep your voice down."

"Sorry. What is it?"

"Animal transfiguration, like I told you."

"It didn't look like animals into other animals," James said, squinting hard at his cousin. "It looked like people."

"It's - yes, it can be."

"Can you do that?" James asked. "Turn into an animal?"

Teddy finally closed his book. "No," he said. "But I'm learning."

James' eyes lit up. "What kind of animal are you going to be?"

"An owl."

James shook his head. "Not an owl, mate," he said. "That's not you at all. You don't fly."

"It's not up to you to decide," Teddy said. "It's about which animal is inside of me."

"It's not an owl," James insisted loudly, and the librarian raised her head to shush him.

"Keep your voice down," Teddy whispered. "Were you raised by wolves?"

James apologized, but Teddy didn't hear.

(Because the ache in his stomach, which had grown nearly constant over the past year, tripled at the word wolves, and suddenly everything made sense.)

He waited until the next full moon to test it out - it seemed fitting.

"This one's for you, Dad," he said to the plaque as he walked out through Hogwarts' iron gates and headed for the seclusion of the forest.

With a deep breath, he closed his eyes and allowed the ache in his stomach to overtake him - because it wasn't an ache, after all, it was more of a growl, more of an instinct, more of a discomfort.

Because there was a part of him that felt empty and ashamed at being nothing like his father.

And the very first time Teddy Lupin became a wolf, he felt utterly and completely whole.

[Disney Character Competition: Kenai - write about why someone changes into the animagus they do]

[Battleship Competition II: C5 - Teddy Lupin]

[Twelve Days of Christmas Style Challenge: 8 different genres - 3/8, Family]