Disclaimer (whoops, keep forgetting one of those…): I own nothing

12 things about Louis Weasley

1. Teddy Lupin had always had a large influence on his life. It wasn't just because both of Louis's sisters professed to be madly in love with him, at least until adulthood. It wasn't because Teddy was smart and successful either. It wasn't even because he was tough and brave. Louis admired him because he could change the way he looked. When Louis found out he would never be able to do the same, he made himself be just as brave and resourceful and independent as Teddy had always had to be.

It was the last time he let himself cry.

2. Louis thought Shelia was the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen. He'd always had a thing for blondes, and she was five foot eleven inches of long, tan, leggy blonde. He'd met her in Vegas, at the pool on top of his hotel, where she sun-bathing topless, and asked to draw her. She had a mole on one breast, just near the nipple, that his eyes and charcoal couldn't leave alone. He was only eighteen and at twenty-eight, she was full of life and knowledge. They were married that night.

Elvis was his favorite wedding.

3. When Theodore Nott told Louis he was beautiful, he had thanked him politely, used to flattery from both genders. Nott told him he was a collector of beautiful things and asked him to travel the world with him and his wife. He hadn't agreed until he'd seen Harmony, several years younger than her husband but old enough to be Louis's mother. He never asked Theodore if he knew Louis was carrying on an affair with Harmony. He'd just figured the man had assumed he was.

He's still ashamed.

4. He moved to India to paint without the interference of his family. It took an entire week to travel to India through magical means, and he knew his family would never think to travel the muggle way. He loved Mumbai, loved traveling around the entirety of India, loved the vivid paintings he'd done there. He was convinced that nowhere else could ever be so beautiful.

He understands why they were so loathe to let it go so long ago.

5. Kelly had intrigued Louis from the first moment he'd met her. She was only seventeen, but already Rose raved about her work at the publishing house. Eight years younger than him, he found her lack of experience appealingly stimulating. She was short and plump with thick glasses and her blonde hair bobbed too short. Her mouth though, was full and sensual, arousing. He loved to draw her mouth, to paint it and make love to it with his lips and his art. She was smarter than he was, though, and even though she'd married him, after just a year, she knew she'd come to regret it. When she left him, she told him that she would always be grateful to him for making her beautiful but that he could never love a woman half as well as he loved the women he painted.

Sometimes he can't paint for missing her.

6. He'd become involved with Nicolette out of sheer desperation. Kelly had left and taken his art with him. Nicolette was the most beautiful creature he'd ever seen, more beautiful than any piece of art could ever do justice. For weeks they had made love and he didn't touch a paintbrush or a charcoal crayon or a pencil. When she told him she was pregnant, he married her. At their wedding, he almost called her Kelly. On their wedding night, he did.

Nicolette never forgave him.

7. When Genevieve and Madeleine were born, Louis asked his sleeping daughters to forgive him. Just a little over half veela, he was afraid they would never find the happiness that eluded him. His maternal grandmother, though, convinced him he was wrong. Beautiful girls, she told him, find happiness easily; it is the beautiful boys that struggle. When Jean-Luc was born, he almost cried. Here was a boy too beautiful for words to describe, putting even his father's face to shame. Louis knows he's damned him to an eternity of searching for and never finding love.

Sometimes he can't bear to look at his son.

8. Louis worried about his daughter's desperately, terrified they would become as bitter and twisted towards each other as his own sisters were. Dominique always felt like she was in Victorie's shadow and Victorie hated that her little sister was more intelligent. He hated that he could never see them at the same time. He was almost glad of their animosity though, when at the memorial service the Weasley's hosted for James almost-fiancée, they ended up in a screaming match, half yelling curses and half-curse words. James could help but laugh. They made up after that night, if only because Maman would've killed them otherwise. He still entitled his painting of the event "The Pettiness of Harpies." Now they have him to be angry at.

He wonders what he will do if his daughters feud.

9. He never had a problem being loyal to any woman he was with. They fascinated his artistic senses for weeks on end, until either he or they ended the affair. The older he gets, the less fascinated he is with women, unless they have plump lips or a brilliant mind or wear think glasses and cut their hair too short. Genevieve, his vainest little darling, once asked him why he loved ugly women so. "They're beautiful to me" he had told her. What about the beautiful women? She had asked, flicking her hair and smiling her practiced smile. "Boring, boring, boring." He'd answered.

He didn't mean to make her cry.

10. Louis worries the most about Madeline. She's terribly shy, and young men often get angry at her for being so cold to them. He's frightened of what might happen to her. That's why he doesn't mind when she becomes best friend with young Aidan Wood next door, even if he is three years older. Aidan teaches her to punch harder than any girl Louis has ever known. He's the Gryffindor beater and only in his second year and Louis has never imagined his little girl so in love. Aidan is handsome, in a warm young puppy dog kind of way, but not too handsome and certainly not who you would expect a beautiful young girl to want. He's fairly intelligent and ambitious, Louis knows but most importantly, he's very kind.

Madeline was always the smartest of his children.

11. Sometimes he hates James. He doesn't mean to, of course, but James loves a dead woman who at least loved him back. He never got the chance to find out if they're love would wither away and die. Sometimes Louis wishes he'd never got the chance to find out that Kelly could only be grateful to him, even as his soul longs for her. He knows what he hates isn't James or fate or his own foolish heart.

He can't make himself admit that sometimes he hates her though.

12. When Jean-Luc ran away the first time, Louis couldn't blame him. He didn't yell or cry or do any of the things he guessed Jean-Luc wanted him to do when the seven year old returned. The second time, he sighed when the neighbors brought him home. By the tenth time Jean-Luc had run away, he didn't even worry. He knew he'd be back. When he wasn't home in two weeks though, Louis panicked, fearing the worst. And then the next day, he'd opened the door to find Jean-Luc holding the hand of a more beautiful, more mature and alluring woman from his past.

He'll never say it, but sometimes he loves Jean-Luc best.