Author's Note:
Hi, everyone! I'm super stoked to be participating in QLFC this season as part of the Kenmare Kestrels. :D So many exciting new fics coming your way!
This story was written for Round 1. I play Keeper, which means my job is to try and stop the other team from scoring points. This round explores some of Jung's character archetypes.
My Prompt: The Caregiver (Goal: help others OR Fear: selfishness). I chose to focus on the first one (Goal: help others), but in the end, you can't really have one without the other, can you? ;)
Word Count (excluding this A/N): 1,928
Much love,
Ari
25 April 2011
Victoire watched with interest as her uncle George bent over the bubbling green potion he was stirring in the basement of the joke shop, eyes narrowed in concentration. Frowning, he took a cautious sniff—and then made a gagging face at Victoire. She giggled at him, and he grinned, gesturing for her to take a whiff. Nervously, she leaned over the smoking pewter and chanced a small sniff. The next moment, she lunged backwards, coughing violently.
Uncle George was laughing. Still coughing, Victoire threw him a reproachful glare.
"What is that?" she demanded, her throat burning.
"Portable Swamp," Uncle George told her cheerfully. "Well, not quite—but it's getting there."
Victoire shuddered. "That smells horrible."
"Why don't I give Louis one to bring home?" Uncle George asked, his eyes sparkling in the way that Victoire usually associated with her parents' disapproval. "I'm sure your mum and dad'll love it."
"I don't think so," Victoire said delicately, and Uncle George laughed again, resuming his stirring of the potion with his wand.
"Pass me that vial?" he asked, pointing at a small tube of murky, purple liquid near the edge of the desk. Victoire nodded, picking up the vial and holding it out to him. Her uncle gave her a cheesy salute, making her grin, then poured the vial into the pewter. It began bubbling faster than ever, frothing into a darker, more brown-ish green.
For several moments, Victoire observed her uncle work in silence. Uncle George had always fascinated her. She adored her other uncles too, of course, but Uncle George was…well, different. He was so bright, so loud—and strangest of all, it never seemed to bother him an inch if people liked it or not. Victoire didn't think she could ever be like that, but she liked to pretend she was when she was with Uncle George.
Of course, Victoire also knew her uncle wasn't always like this. She had seen it for herself, though she'd never told anyone, not even her dad. Her fourth birthday party—it was one of her earliest memories. Fueled by Gran's pink and white frosted cupcakes, she and Teddy had spent most of the evening racing each other up and down the Burrow's spiral staircase. At one point, Victoire had collapsed, breathless, on the second floor landing and, without meaning to, she had gotten a glimpse into Uncle George's dimly lit bedroom. The memory of her uncle sitting on the carpet with his face in his hands, while Aunt Angelina rubbed his back with an odd, closed expression on her face, frightened her to this day.
A year later, after her fifth birthday, Dad had finally told her about Uncle Fred. On the night of her sixth birthday, she'd managed to worm the story of Uncle Harry and the Very Bad Man out of her parents. On her eighth birthday, she'd asked Maman and Dad to hold her party earlier in the day, so she could go with her aunts and uncles to the memorial ceremony at Hogwarts. And now, three years later, whenever her parents left her and her siblings with Uncle George and Aunt Angelina for an afternoon, Victoire almost always spent the whole day in the dusty storeroom with her uncle, instead of up in the flat with the others.
Suddenly, Uncle George cleared his throat, and Victoire startled, looking up. He was looking at her shrewdly, and Victoire felt her face heat up, knowing that he must have caught her staring.
"Not that I don't appreciate having an assistant down here," her uncle said lightly, giving the potion one final stir before setting his wand down on the desk and dusting his hands. "But why aren't you upstairs with the other sproglets, driving your aunt mad?"
Victoire looked down, shrugging her shoulders. "I like it here."
"Really," Uncle George's eyes twinkled. "Is it the delicious smell of swamp or the charming red-headed troll?"
Victoire giggled. "Both."
Uncle George shook his head, chuckling under his breath, before reaching under his desk to withdraw a cardboard box of little plastic packets. One by one, he began laying them out on the worktable in rows and, immediately, Victoire caught on. Reaching into the box and grabbing her own handful of plastic packets, she mirrored his rhythm, positioning the packets in neat sequences.
"Wow," her uncle observed, checking her work. "I take back what I said. You can be my assistant any day."
Victoire beamed at him, then squinted down at the table in concentration, continuing to expertly arrange the little packets in rows. Drawing his wand, Uncle George began siphoning tiny portions of the greenish-brown potion into each of the packets. Victoire paused to watch him in amazement, and her uncle glanced at her, smiling.
"Can't let you help with this part until you've got your own wand, I'm afraid," he said, and Victoire nodded. "Speaking of which," Uncle George looked up at her again, grinning broadly, "I heard a rumor that a certain pygmy puff is turning eleven next week. What d'you reckon she wants?"
Victoire's stomach gave a familiar little lurch, and she felt her heart sink. Shifting her weight on the stool she was perched on, she swallowed. "I don't…really want anything."
Uncle George arched an eyebrow at her.
"Don't worry, that's what I'll tell your maman you said," he promised, sounding amused. "Now, what do you really want?"
Victoire looked up and met her uncle's bright brown eyes. And suddenly, much to her horror, she felt her own eyes smart and her throat swell painfully. Blinking quickly, she shook her head.
"I don't want anything," she said again, her voice sticking. "I really—I…I don't even think I want a big party this year."
Uncle George went quiet. After several moments had passed and his silence began to unnerve her, Victoire peered at him through strands of her long blond hair. He was still busily separating the swampy green potion into the little packets with his wand, his gaze focused on the tabletop.
Then, suddenly—
"Have I ever told you about the day you were born?" he asked in a mild voice, without looking up.
Victoire blinked several times, taken aback.
"No," she said warily.
A slow grin melted across Uncle George's face. "Well, there I was, fast asleep in bed at three in the morning, when all of a sudden I wake up to your dad's bloody owl trying to peck a hole through my bedroom window. You see, every time your mum had a sproglet, your dad seemed to forget that most people are, you know, sleeping in the middle of the night."
A corner of Victoire's lips twitched.
"So, now, I'm wide awake, and I know there's no way I'm getting back to sleep without your dad showing up at my flat and blasting my door down," Uncle George sighed, reaching up and scratching the side of his head where Victoire knew he was missing his ear. "I was…in a really foul mood that night—your aunt Angelina and I weren't speaking to each other—so…well, you can imagine that the last place in the world I wanted to be in that moment was in a crowded hospital with my entire barmy family."
Victoire frowned at him. "Why weren't you speaking to Aunt Angelina?"
Uncle George waved a hand. "I probably did something stupid—you know, like turn her sitting room into a swamp." Victoire had the distinct impression that he wasn't being entirely truthful, but she didn't think it was her place to pry. "Anyway, I finally get to St. Mungo's around three-thirty—and your gran and grandad are already there, and so are Uncle Ron and Auntie Ginny, all gathered around your mum, who's holding this little white bundle in her arms, looking happier than I've ever seen her. And so, I go up to the bed to get a look—" he paused dramatically, and Victoire held her breath, gazing up at him, "—and there, in your mum's arms, is this tiny, pink, shriveled-up mandrake."
Victoire gasped, mouth falling open. "Uncle George!" she reprimanded.
"What? It's true," Uncle George insisted, his eyes gleaming, and Victoire let out a loud huff. "What did you think you looked like when you were born?"
"I—I don't know," Victoire spluttered. "Beautiful? Precious?"
"All right, hang on, hang on, I'm getting there," Uncle George assured her, and Victoire rolled her eyes. "So, there in your mum's arms is this little pink thing, all wrinkly, and tiny, and mushy—" Victoire threw her uncle another glare, "—and everyone in the room is looking at her—can't stop looking at her, in fact—and I remember standing there, thinking to myself, 'Merlin's pants…I don't think a wrinkly little thing like this has ever been—so loved…by so many people.'"
Victoire stared at her uncle, and something inside her seemed to twist into a knot.
"Now," Uncle George said in a low voice, leaning across the desk toward her, "I'm not telling you this story so that you think you have to celebrate your birthday. That's your choice, Vic, and no one else's. All I'm saying is…if you're worried that you don't have anyone to celebrate it with…you might want to think again."
Her uncle's tone was very gentle, much gentler than Victoire was used to hearing it—and for a second time that afternoon, she suddenly felt something large and awkward swell in her throat. Pressing her lips together tightly, she looked up at him.
"I just thought…" she paused, swallowing hard. "I thought that since everyone has to go to the memorial after—and—well—everything else…" Victoire felt the backs of her eyes sting. "It would just be…easier." Against her will, two hot tears escaped the corners of her eyes, and Victoire immediately swept them away, feeling foolish.
A strange expression appeared on Uncle George's face and, to Victoire's surprise, he closed his own eyes for a long moment. Then, unexpectedly, her uncle climbed out of his chair and came around the worktable to kneel down in front of Victoire's stool.
There were a few beats of silence before he spoke.
"Kiddo…I'm no good at this comfort thing," he said quietly. "I mean, ask your aunt Ange—I'm rubbish at it, actually." In spite of herself, Victoire let out a watery laugh. "But Victoire…your birthday is all about you. Only about you. And I know it probably hasn't felt like that most years, but believe me…if your uncle Fred ever—ever—found out that his niece didn't want to celebrate her birthday because of him…" Uncle George paused, his voice tight. "Well, I don't think he'd forgive the rest of us."
And suddenly, before she could do a single thing to prevent it, Victoire's eyes filled with fresh tears—and the words were tumbling out of her faster than she could hold them back. "I just wanted to help," she whispered, and Uncle George gave her a sad smile. "I didn't want my birthday to be…" she trailed off, her voice shaking.
"I know," Uncle George told her softly. "But you're a kid. A very loving, very thoughtful kid, mind you. But every kid gets one day each year to be as selfish as they want—and next week, I'm going to personally make sure that you get to be as selfish as they come."
Victoire gave him a tremulous smile. Then, she clambered out of her stool and flung her arms around her uncle's neck, and her uncle George was squeezing her in a hug so tight that Victoire felt safe letting a few more tears roll down her cheeks before wiping them away.