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[Victoire]Oh, they're... well, quite nice in their own ways, I'm sure.
Mina Moran is probably the one I get along with best, though I'm not sure I'd feel comfortable pulling her hair, if you understand. (Do you have sisters?) Abby Ryan has never liked me at all for some reason, but she sleeps far away from me, and we don't talk to each other much. Michelle Fitzpatrick is her best friend, and doesn't like me much, either, though I think she has perfectly lovely clothes and does her hair very prettily. Rabia Ackert is very shy, and almost never joins in with anything. I want to be her friend, but she won't let me. Hermione Rapp... I can't even use her name without giggling, because I've never met anyone less like Aunt Hermione! For one thing, she puts up with being called "Herman." Hermione Harfang is much more like her, but that makes it even harder, as I want to call her "Aunt" half the time. Jillian Fortescue has decided that she wants to be Quidditch captain someday, and she has the bed next to mine. Her Quidditch magazines are always spilling out into my space, but otherwise, I like her. I get along with the boys, better, though. Story Shacklebolt is my best friend, other than Teddy Lupin.
[Andromeda]I know Fern is still fuming about my Slytherinity being assumed by fandom, but it seems a necessary assumption. The problem for me wasn't Slytherin, but Bellatrix, Bellatrix, and more Bellatrix. Part of my early friendship with Ted was escaping to Hufflepuff for their weekly Friday night parties. And later, for homework every day. And eventually for many other things. But it started with escaping Bellatrix. That wasn't unusual. Anyone in Slytherin who didn't go along with Bella's madder ideas tended to keep a very low profile. We also didn't speak to one another. There was safety in solitude. A rising group would have attracted a fight.
Edited at 2007-11-26 08:19 pm (UTC)
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[Harry]It was calm and healing. I suppose that's odd, as an Auror's apprenticeship is somewhat stressful, but the fact that it was somewhere entirely new to me, and somewhere entirely my own, helped. I loved the Burrow, of course, but living in the same house with Ginny was becoming awkward. I wasn't ready to get married yet, and neither was she... but you didn't ask about why I wasn't at the Burrow. Oddly, neither did the Weasleys after a few token protests. At Andromeda's, I was able to come home at night and play with Teddy. After he went to sleep, I'd usually go outside with Andromeda if it was nice and have a drink in the garden. If it wasn't nice, we'd stay in the kitchen. She'd tell me about St. Mungo's and her work, and teach me Healing spells which have proved quite useful. I'd tell her about my training, and how things were moving along after the war, especially at Azkaban. We pieced together some of what must have happened, and tried to make a world for Teddy that would make sense to him, and where he could love the parents he didn't have without feeling unloved by the people who were looking after him. Now and then, Andromeda would drink a bit too much, and start crying. I learned then that I could be the one doing the comforting, and that was good. Mostly, though, it was about Teddy--about what he'd done while one or the other of us was away, what he was learning to say, how fast he was learning to read... everything any other parent talks about. I can't say she was like a mother to me, and we certainly didn't have any other sort of relationship (though Rita Skeeter tried damnably hard to imply that we did)--it was too late in my life for a mother, and Molly had filled that role years ago, and as to the other, we were both quite in love with other people, all age issues aside. But raising a baby together is an odd bonding experience for a grandmother and a nineteen-year-old boy, and we have an odd, undefined relationship because of it.
[Victoire]Dad says I can't go out with anyone until I've got three outstanding O.W.L.s, so I can't do anything at all until I'm practically old. He'd best not decide to leave school after his O.W.L.s and marry Ruth Scrimgeour, though.
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What do you mean?
I have to admit, the business with Victoire and Teddy has been a source of family amusement since the Christmas Teddy was six and Victoire had just turned five. I'd got Teddy a book of fairy tales, and he was reading aloud to Victoire, and she announced that she should be the princess, and he must absolutely be the knight, and they would marry and live happily ever after. Teddy looked at me like he'd been drinking a Mesmerizing Mixture and said, "Must I, Uncle Harry?" Of course, they were always together, and we all noticed that as they approached and later actually got to school, they were spending a lot of time together without anyone mandating it. But Teddy's still Teddy. And of course, as soon as Teddy met Ruth Scrimgeour, he started acting like Victoire, tagging around while she said, "Must I?" This amused me greatly.
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[Ruthless]There are so many rules! I swear, it would be a lot easier to just be a criminal. And Ron Weasley trying to tell me what to do? What a crock! The man breaks more rules in an hour than he censures me for breaking in a week. Honestly. Of course, I have to suddenly get up at all hours--it's not an office job, after all--but I don't mind that. As to my romantic life... "romantic" might be an overstatement. I realized Teddy was gone on Victoire a long time before he did, and I haven't especially fancied anyone else, though I've had a few laughs with some of the younger blokes at work. I'm not wandering around waiting for a knight, a prince, or a dashing pirate to discover me, though. And if one tries, I've got a pretty good Stunner.
[Andromeda]There are quite a few surprisingly good memories, though what happened later with Bellatrix taints most of them. Most of my very best memories are with the boys, when I was old enough to be the wise grown-up, but I do have good memories of shopping with Narcissa, and one especially good one of spending the day in the consevatory with her, when she was learning to play the harp, and we got goofing around with Muggle music that was strictly forbidden. There is nothing in the world like the Beach Boys by wizard harp.
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Two things. The first is what he's beginning to suspect, I think--that if I'd been ten minutes faster on the uptake, he'd have parents. The second is that I threw away the Resurrection Stone. I promised I'd tell him someday how it was that his father was in that clearing with him, but the older he gets, the angrier he gets, and I have a very deep fear that he won't understand why I couldn't keep it, and let them be with him from time to time, even I sent them back at the end of the day. There have been times I've questioned it myself, and have to remind myself that it wouldn't be them, or would only be part of them, but when I do, I imagine Teddy's face setting hard, and his mouth spitting out that part of them was better than none of them, and if I'm arguing that they'd be happier, am I seriously suggesting that they'd rather not be part of his life? I know there are answers, but I can't actually shape them, and I don't think they're acceptable until they've been accepted, and...
Well, it's going to be ugly.
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[Andromeda]I visited the Garveys with Teddy when he was a baby. I'd managed not to cry until then, but when I told them... I suppose it just all came out. They'd been helping out during that last year, and they had to know what happened, both to Dora and Remus, and with the baby they'd been watching her carry all year, but telling them was very hard for me. I don't see them regularly. I have a hard time seeing most people who've seen me at my weakest. But for the first few years, it was all well.
[Daniel]I'm still around, and still working in Doctors Without Borders. I've never married, and there are circumspect speculations among my family about why not--nice young doctor, really, surely there must be some reason that there's no nice young doctor's wife--but the truth is, there's just never been anyone. Sometimes, when I'm awake in the small hours of the morning, I feel like something was taken from me. But I'm beginning to forget.
[Dudley]Harry's world is still freakish, but I'm getting used to the idea of it at least. My parents are what they always were. They seem smaller than they used to.
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My love life. AAARGH. Sorry, no offense, but all that other nonsense all boils down to it. Rosie warned me, of course--she said Rita Skeeter nearly had her married off to Scorpius Malfoy when they were in their first year just because the public thought it would be a good story. Luckily, no Death Eaters' sons were in my year, though everyone seems inordinately interested in it. They were with the boys, too, until James managed to scare them by saying he was in love with Al and they were going to start a pirate gang together. They were sure he wasn't telling the truth, but I guess they didn't want to give him an opportunity to come up with another story, hence it all ended up on me, thank you James, AS USUAL. Honestly. There's only one person I can talk to, but I can't talk ABOUT him, as he's not entirely meant to be back in the world of the living, even though Teddy got permission from the Department of Mysteries to try it, but now they're all about re-forming the Nebulous and Most Annoying, which I suppose is enough for people to twig to who I'm talking about, but I can't say it. But that's not my love life either, of course, he's just my friend, and he knows what I'm talking about, as he has all sorts of irritating questions about who he's going to pick to reform form the Nebulous and Most Annoying with, and he says he wishes he liked blokes, just to spite Teddy for deciding on his own to grab him out of time, but I'm rather glad he doesn't like blokes as he's a very good kis... a very good friend, of course.
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Well, it was guilt and duty that got me to the house. But if you want to know where the guilt is now, it's that I wouldn't want to give him up. And I sometimes feel like that means I'm glad Remus is dead, which I'm not, but what in the name of heaven would I do without Teddy?
I was worried when James was born, that Teddy would think he'd been replaced by my "real" child, so I asked Andromeda if Teddy could stay with us for the first few weeks, as part of the family. We treated him as we treated James and Al when Lily was born. (James was too young to worry about it with when Al was born.) Bill had a houseful of children by then, and we asked his advice. He was the one who suggested letting Teddy hold James when he was a baby and tell him stories. To give him responsibilities. It worked quite beautifully, as Teddy turned out to quite like being a big brother.
But that was after James was born. The reason we started asking was, of course, that Teddy had started referring to James as my "real" baby, and packing up all the things I'd accidentally left at Andromeda's, as I would no doubt stop visiting him now that my "real" baby was coming. Troubling as it was, I was also amused, as it was the first time Teddy ever consciously tried to use guilt on me, and he was so like Remus when he did it. It was like watching a short Professor Lupin stalking around, and the memory made me happy.
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[Honoria]I'm sure it's just temporary, and I'm rather fond of it, in its own rough way. It's a nice, small community. I can do as I please and build my own little newspaper a lot more easily than I could have under the Ministry. It's started to be picked up elsewhere, and I imagine that when we go back to Britain, it will be to a tidy little reputation.
[Teddy]As a child, my favorite memory of Christmas was when I was eight, at Uncle Harry's, when James was just learning to walk. He was following me around, mostly crawling, and making those funny baby sounds that sound like they mean to be talk, but don't actually mean anything. It was almost time for Al to be born, so Aunt Ginny didn't have much lap left, and I ended up with him on my lap most of the day. As an adult... I love them all. The first Christmas when it was just Victoire and me in that huge house, the second Christmas, when Mira was with us, and every Christmas with a new baby. They're all very different from one another, all nine of them. We've got into the habit of having an evening party at the Roost after supper at Uncle Harry's. Aunt Hermione insists on calling it the Yule Ball, and we do have dancing in the ballroom. My friends generally come to it, and the children who are old enough ask their friends from Hogwarts. It's very crowded and quite fun.
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