Author's Notes: AU, everything the same except Remus and Tonks didn't die. You know the drill :)

The First Time He Saw It

He was four the first time he saw it.

He awoke with a gasp, looking wildly around. It had been a nightmare. A really really bad nightmare. He clutched Greeny, his stuffed turtle, to his chest and tried not to be scared anymore. But every dark shadow of his room could hold a monster, ready to jump out at him at any moment.

He wasn't safe here. He jumped out of bed, headed for the door, tripped, fell, whimpered, jumped back up, fumbled with the door handle, and raced down the hall and into Mummy and Daddy's room. He would be safe here. Mummy and Daddy would protect him from the monsters in the shadows.

Except Mummy and Daddy weren't there.

Teddy gazed at Mummy and Daddy's bed, neatly made and with nobody lying in it. Panic grabbed at his four-year-old heart. Why weren't they in their bed when Teddy needed them?

"Daddy?" Teddy whispered, not wanting the monsters to hear him as he made his way back into the hall and headed for the stairs. "Mummy?"

He crept down the stairs as quietly as possible. There were no sounds but the creaking of the stairs beneath his feet and his own frightened breathing in his ears. At the bottom of the stairs he saw that the sitting room door was open and a flickering light inside suggested that the fire was lit.

Feeling relieved, Teddy headed straight for the sitting room and took a few steps inside.

And that was the first time he saw it.

The four-year-old boy stopped dead in his tracks. Lying curled on the rug in front of the fire under a thick knitted blanket from Mrs. Weasley that usually hung over the back of the couch, was Mummy. She was sleeping, but instead of a pillow, her bright pink head lay on the back of a gigantic grey wolf. It had long pointy fangs and eerie yellow eyes that were watching the fire.

It was Teddy's small gasp that alerted the wolf to his presence. It lifted its giant head and turned so that its glowing yellow eyes stared directly at Teddy.

Teddy opened his mouth, ready to let lose a scream loud enough to wake his mummy, the neighbors, and, quite possibly, the dead.

But then…he didn't. Mouth hanging open, he stared at the wolf. The wolf stared back. It looked…afraid?

Teddy couldn't say what it was about the wolf that made him think the wolf looked afraid, only that it did. The wolf was frightened, he was sure of it. Except…that didn't make any sense. Why would a great wolf, large enough to swallow the little four-year-old in two bites, be afraid of him? He was small. He didn't even know any magic like Mummy or Daddy. He didn't have any kind of weapon, only Greeny. So why did the wolf look so scared? And why did Teddy feel less so?

Tentatively, Teddy took a few steps closer to the wolf. The wolf made a startled movement, as though to back away from the approaching boy, but stopped as its actions disturbed the woman lying next to it. Mummy made a small noise in her sleep as her pillow moved, then shifted slightly to bury her face more deeply in the grey fur on the wolf's back and became still once more. The wolf looked at Mummy, its frightened, now bordering on panicked looking eyes moving between Mummy and Teddy. It didn't try to move again, but simply stared as Teddy came closer and closer.

Teddy stopped right next to Mummy and the wolf. Teddy eyes roamed over the wolf, taking in its massive frame, the sharp tips on the ends of its paws, its pointy fangs that were so big that they hung out of either side off its firmly closed mouth, and finally the yellow eyes that were still staring at him unblinkingly.

It should have been scary. It should have been terrifying.

But it wasn't.

The wolf was a beast, a monster, but something about the expression in the wolf's yellow eyes as it and Teddy continued to stare at each other told Teddy that it wasn't going to hurt him. Something about it made him feel…safe?

Was that right? Did he feel safe? Really?

But yes. Yes he did feel safe. Teddy was surprised at how safe he felt standing just a foot away from the jaws of a monster.

He looked at Mummy, suddenly remembering the reason why he had come looking for her in the first place. He thought about waking her up to tell her that he had had a nightmare. That's what he usually did when he went to crawl into bed with his parents. Well, not usually. Usually he woke Daddy because he wasn't as grumpy as Mummy when woken in the middle of the night and he had to tell someone because he had to hear them tell him it was going to be alright.

He had to tell someone…

"I had a nightmare," Teddy told the wolf.

The wolf continued to look at him, then, slowly, it nodded.

Teddy's eyes grew wide. The wolf had nodded! It was almost like…like it had understood him.

"Mummy and Daddy weren't in their room," Teddy explained further. The wolf nodded again.

"Greeny was scared," Teddy told the wolf, "he doesn't like nightmares. I wasn't scared, but Greeny wanted us to find Mummy and Daddy." The wolf nodded.

"That's my mummy," Teddy said, pointing a small hand at the woman with her face buried in the wolf's fur, his other hand still clutching Greeny to his chest. "I…I don't know where my daddy is," he admitted, frowning.

The wolf's eyes looked very sad as it nodded once again. Teddy felt a little touched that the wolf was so worried that he couldn't find Daddy.

"It's okay," Teddy assured the wolf, "he'll come back. Sometimes he leaves, or sometimes Mummy leaves, but they always come back. And if they both have to leave then I go stay with Harry or with Gran, but they always come and get me."

The wolf nodded again.

Teddy shuffled his feet, looking at the wolf rather sheepishly. "Do you…do you ever have nightmares?" he asked. The wolf nodded earnestly. "Really?" Ted asked, amazed. He felt less sheepish knowing that even big and powerful wolves sometimes have nightmares.

"Oh, err, I'm Teddy," he said, suddenly remembering his manners. Introducing yourself to new people was the polite thing to do. He supposed the same thing went for new animals. "And this is Greeny," he added holding out the stuffed turtle for the wolf's inspection. "My daddy gave him to me." The wolf nodded again, looking a bit happier than it had done so far. Teddy smiled.

"Daddy and I got him at the zoo," he said excitedly. "Daddy took me there and we saw lots of aminals." He told the wolf all about his trip to the zoo with his daddy, how he had liked all the animals, but he liked the turtles the best. The wolf listened to his story intently, nodding at all the right times. Teddy liked how good a listener the wolf was. Sometimes grown-ups didn't listen to him because he was just a kid. Daddy always listened to him though, and so did Harry. Mummy and Gran were pretty good listeners if they didn't get distracted, but the wolf's completely focused attention reminded him much more of Daddy and Harry.

Teddy explained that he had been scared when they first went into the building with the turtles because it was dark, so his daddy picked him up and he had felt safer. He had liked the turtles that walked around on the land in their little tanks, but his favorite were the big ones in the big tank of blue water that swam around with flipper-like feet coming out of their shells. He and Daddy stood in front of their tank for a long time, watching the turtles move back and forth, Daddy carrying him from side to side so they could follow the turtles' movements across the tank.

"Then we went to the shop and Daddy told me to pick out a turtle and I picked Greeny," Teddy finished his story happily. "I named him Greeny 'cause he's green," Teddy explained.

The wolf nodded in fervent agreement with his name choice. Teddy smiled. He really liked the wolf.

"Do you want to be my friend?" Teddy asked. The wolf gave its most enthusiastic nod yet and Teddy's smile grew wider. He liked making new friends.

He reached out a hand to the wolf and it looked momentarily frightened again. Teddy put his hand on top of the wolf's head and patted it several times. The wolf's eyes were very round. It looked…surprised, Teddy decided.

"I'm glad we're friends," Teddy told the wolf as he patted it. "I think I'll call you … Wolfie."

Yes, Teddy thought. That was a good name for his new friend. He really was good at naming things (e.g. Greeny the green turtle).

"Is that alright?" he asked, removing his hand and watching the wolf closely. The wolf nodded.

"Good," Teddy said, sitting down on the rug to continue his chat with the wolf, "you're my new friend Wolfie. You can't be my best friend though 'cause Daddy's my best friend," he explained.

"Mummy's my friend too, but Mummy has to work a lot. Daddy stays home with me and we do lots of stuff together. Sometimes he takes me places like the zoo or the park or Hogsmeade. I like when we go to Hogsmeade 'cause we go to the candy store and try all the chocolate, but don't tell Mummy! Daddy always makes me promise not to tell Mummy how much chocolate he let me eat.

"Daddy teaches me stuff too, like numbers and the affabet," Teddy continued. He recited the alphabet for Wolfie, who looked appropriately impressed.

"Wanna see something cool?" Teddy asked. Wolfie nodded. Teddy screwed up his face and turned his hair from what he assumed was his natural light brown (that's how it usually was after a nightmare) to bright purple.

"Isn't that cool?" Teddy asked, and the wolf nodded. Its eyes looked like it might have been smiling even though it kept its mouth firmly shut.

"Mummy can do it too," Teddy explained. "Sometimes we morph together and she shows me how to do funny noses and stuff!"

Wolfie looked more and more relaxed and happy as Teddy continued to talk and talk, telling Wolfie all about his morphing and his parents and his friends. But there was still a certain wariness that never quite left the wolf's eyes.

He told Wolfie about going clothes shopping with Mummy and picking out dozens of pairs of brightly colored and patterned socks for both him and Mummy. He told the story of going to watch Quidditch with Harry. He told about making Christmas cookies with Gran. But mostly he told stories about him and Daddy, because those were the stories he had the most of.

"My daddy is the best daddy in the whole world," Teddy told the wolf, having no idea how much those words meant to the man inside it.

Teddy was enjoying his talk with his new friend Wolfie, but eventually he started to feel sleepy again. He should probably go to bed. But he didn't want to. What if the monsters came back out of the shadows when he and Greeny went back up to his room alone?

He yawned widely and Wolfie looked concerned. "Can I stay here and sleep with you and Mummy?" Teddy asked. The wolf considered him for a long moment before nodding slowly. "Thanks!" Teddy said. He scooted closer to Wolfie and Mummy, picking up the edge of the blanket covering Mummy and sliding underneath it. He and Greeny laid down next to Mummy and the boy placed his head down in the thick fur on the wolf's back.

"G'night Wolfie," Teddy mumbled sleepily, letting his eyes close. He fell asleep quickly, not noticing that the wolf had turned its head to watch him, not seeing the expression on its face when he nuzzled into the beast's fur, and not knowing the wolf continued to stare at him for a long time as he slept peacefully at its side.

Author's Notes: I should be working on other things, like my chapter fics or, you know, not failing college. But the idea of little Teddy telling the wolf all about how much he loves his daddy without knowing that the wolf is his daddy was just TOO ADORABLE not to write down immediately. There will be two more chapters, one the next morning and one a few days later. How will Teddy react to Wolfie's true identity? Please leave a review!