The idea for this story hit me when I was thinking about Father's day, and I decided to write some short pieces that explore the father-child relationship between each of the next generation characters and their dads. It's true that nobody sees a person in quite the same way as their children do, and I liked the idea of the war heroes being viewed just as people in a Post DH world.

These won't come in age order, but all of the next gen will get their say.

As always, I own not a Bertie Botts' Every Flavour Bean of this world.

Hope you enjoy it!

Victoire

When Victoire was about six years old, she began to notice that going out in public with her father made people stare. It wasn't the regular kind of staring, either. Not like she was used to. There were no compliments and awws. There was never a clamour to get autographs. There would just be some whispers and double-takes. Nervous glances were exchanged. Children would cringe into their parents' legs as they passed.

It took her a long time to realise why. People looked at Vicky because she was beautiful, like her mother. But people stared at her daddy because of his scars.

She tried to ignore it. She tried to do what her daddy did, and just walk tall with her head held high like she didn't care what anyone else thought. But Vicky wasn't like that. She did care. After a while, it became too much. She stopped going on trips to Diagon Alley with him. She declined his invitations for her to come exploring the caves on the beach by their house with him and her sister, just in case a muggle would see his face and have that same, horrible reaction.

The less time she spent with him, the guiltier she felt, but she never let it show. One day, when she was nine, she overheard her mother talking to her father in the living room, long after she was supposed to be in bed.

"Eet is just a phase, Bill. You know 'ow leetle girls can be sometimes."

She inched closer to the half-open door, thinking that the conversation must've been about something her sister had done. That was the norm. Dominique was a one-girl wrecking ball, and she'd always done something she wasn't supposed to. She was the daughter that gave their parents sleepless nights and reason for muted conversation. That's why Victoire was so surprised when she heard her name.

"I just don't know what I've done. Or how I can fix it. I feel like Vicky doesn't want to be seen with me." Her daddy's voice didn't sound angry. It wasn't even annoyed. He just sounded tired, and sad. Somehow, that was worse.

"Zat is ridiculous! You are her fazzer – she loves you. Why would you theenk that?"

"I don't know, Fleur. That's why I'm asking."

Her mother, the most beautiful woman that Victoire knew, had leaned over and kissed her father's ruined cheek without so much as a shudder. She then kissed each one of the raised scars that cleaved his face, and when she pulled back, the way she looked at him made it clear that she didn't even notice the marks on his face. They weren't important to her.

The whole display of unconditional love had made Victoire feel wretched with shame.

Vicky hated making her father sad. She hated the fact that she was so shallow. But she couldn't help it, no matter how hard she tried. Sometimes, she envied Dominique for the time she spent with their dad – the way she'd come back gibbering with excitement as she regaled them all with tales of their latest adventure over dinner. Vicky would sit quietly through this, staring at her plate without eating and wishing that she didn't care so much about appearances.

At home, she was still the same loving daughter she always had been, but she couldn't deny that even she felt a fleeting shudder of revulsion if she stared at her daddy's torn face for too long.

One day, just before she started Hogwarts, her father persuaded her to go with him to get her school supplies. She'd tried to wheedle her mother into going instead, but Fleur had her hands full at home with little Louis – he'd recently contracted Kneasle flu. So it was with a resigned and heavy heart that Vicky set off with her father for Diagon Alley.

It was as bad as she'd feared. On the way, they took the muggle Underground. A baby cried when he caught sight of her father's face, and a woman who stood in front of them at the ticket barrier gasped when she caught a glimpse of him in her peripheral vision. Victoire's cheeks were scarlet with embarrassment for the entire journey.

She wasn't a bad person, not really. She'd often wished that there would be some kind of magical cure for her father, something to make his face heal up as good as new, so that she didn't have to be embarrassed about being seen with him. He would be handsome, she thought, without those raised, twisted ridges that ripped across his flesh like knife marks in a canvas.

The minute they'd stepped inside the Leaky Cauldron, her dad had been waylaid by someone, a ministry official no doubt, waving him over to chat about something. He'd bent down to give Vicky a kiss on the nose, and told her that he'd be right back, before heading over to join the conversation. Vicky stood in the middle of the floor, her gaze bouncing from one face to the next with benign interest.

Then a voice behind her said, "You've grown up, Vicky. Hogwarts shopping already?"

She whipped around, squealing in delight. The man that stood behind her held out his arms for a hug, and she hurtled into them without hesitation. Neville Longbottom squeezed her tightly before setting her back on her feet and giving her hair an affectionate ruffle.

"Daddy's taking me to get my supplies," she told him.

"Yeah, he's been looking forward to this day ever since you were born," Neville said with a grin.

Victoire felt a twinge of guilt in her chest as she thought of how she'd tried to persuade her mother to take her instead. "He has?"

"Yeah. He wouldn't stop talking about his baby girl heading off to Hogwarts at last when I saw him last week. Made me promise to keep my eye on you." Neville shot her a conspiratorial wink. He was the Herbology professor at Hogwarts, and possibly the most popular teacher since Dumbledore himself, or so they said. "Are you excited?"

"I can't wait," Vicky answered truthfully.

Just then, a woman seated at the bar interrupted their conversation. She leaned forward on her stool, bright eyes fixed on Victoire's small face. "Is this her, Neville?"

"This is our Vicky," he agreed, clapping one hand onto Victoire's skinny shoulder.

"You're very like your mother," she murmured, her eyes roaming over the girl's face. "Except that red in your hair is your dad's genes, I'll bet."

Victoire nodded. Her hair wasn't a true red, but a light strawberry gold. People always gushed about how pretty it looked in the sunlight. The woman glanced over to where Vicky's dad stood, chatting animatedly with the small group of wizards in green and purple travelling cloaks. To Victoire's surprise, she didn't grimace at the sight of his face. Instead, the woman smiled, brushing a lock of her brown hair away from her eyes as she studied him.

She turned back to Vicky. "Amazing man, your daddy is."

"Why?" Victoire was curious. If this woman could look at her father without cringing, maybe she could let Victoire in on the secret. Maybe then, she could be like her mother, and gaze up into her father's face as though the scars didn't exist.

Neville, who had been watching the exchange quietly, bent down to whisper in Vicky's ear. "This is Lavender Brown, Victoire." He examined her face as he spoke, looking for a flicker of recognition, but when he found none, he didn't elaborate.

Lavender spoke again. "Did you ever hear about the werewolf called Fenrir Greyback?"

This was a name that Vicky recognised. She nodded emphatically. "Yes, I know about him. He was a Death Eater. He's the one who bit Teddy's father."

Lavender nodded. "Your dad was the wizard that defeated him once and for all, during the battle of Hogwarts. He saved a lot of lives. I'd been attacked by Greyback that night."

Victoire felt a sense of amazement and pride settle over her, as she always did when people spoke about her parents' role in the Second Wizarding War. "I didn't know that."

"Justice was served by the right man, in the end," Lavender said fervently. "It's just a pity he couldn't manage to undo what had been done to poor Remus Lupin, and himself."

"What do you mean?" Victoire perked up. She'd never heard anything about Greyback and her father before.

Lavender's eyes widened. "His scars, of course. Greyback ruined your poor father's face a year before he killed him. Didn't you know that, either?"

Victoire shook her head. Greyback, the werewolf, was the one who had hurt her daddy? "But dad isn't a werewolf."

"No," Lavender agreed. "And neither am I." She raised one arm, pushing her sleeve back so that Vicky caught a glimpse of the long, vicious scar that ran from her wrist to her elbow, disappearing up into the folds of her robes. "He wasn't transformed when he attacked us, you see."

"Your dad saved my life, the night Greyback attacked him," Neville interjected quietly, and Victoire gaped at him in astonishment. "Greyback had been aiming for me, but your dad threw himself in the way instead."

Victoire's head was reeling. People had told her that her father was a hero before, but she'd never truly understood what that meant. Not until she was standing there with people, real people, who owed him their lives. Her dad was brave.

"It's such a shame," Lavender sighed, turning back to her drink. "About his face, I mean. He used to be so handsome."

Victoire looked back at her father, really looked at him. It was suddenly as though a mask had been lifted from his face, and she could see underneath. The light reflected off the twisted ridges of scar tissue that scored his cheeks and nose and forehead, but she didn't pay that any attention. She could see the man underneath, beautiful and vital and heroic.

For the first time ever, Vicky didn't see the scars, and her dad's face was the handsomest one she'd ever laid eyes on.

Then she said the last words she expected to hear coming out of her mouth, and was surprised to discover that she meant every word. "What are you talking about? He still is."

A/N - This Victoire shows a shallow side that I wanted to explore. It seemed only natural to me that a child who had grown up being told how beautiful she was by everyone she met would end up with a bit of a fixation on appearances, and I thought that her dad would be a perfect way for her to discover how to look beyond the superficial.

James next.

PJ

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