I know I've got the final instalment of If to publish. I promise it's coming soon. But given everything that's happening at the moment, I thought you fabulous readers might appreciate some hopeful fluffiness. Enjoy.
Another Wedding
It is quiet. He likes the quiet. He's lying on his back in the tepee's hessian carpet, concentrating on his breathing. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale. He doesn't feel nervous about later. It's only a few words to perform, and they've planned the day to be fun and informal. Hence the tepee. Nobody will mind if he fluffs his words. They'll probably roar with good-natured laughter.
It isn't as if the commitment's changing either. He's been with Vic for twenty years so the "forever" aspect of getting married, the til death do us part part isn't anything Teddy doesn't feel about her already. The wedding is an excuse for a party and a big family get-together. It won't change who they are.
He wants a cigarette. Just quickly. Just one. Teddy wouldn't call himself a smoker; he has a fag once in a while to relax, and right now he feels relaxed and content and in want of a sneaky cig. Vic, knowing him like she does, might have snuck a packet into their luggage. The girls will throw a fit if they found them, Teddy thinks wryly. "But, Papa, you're a healer!", "Papa, do you know that these kill you?" "Does Auntie Hermione know?!". Teddy chuckles, wondering what the girls would say if he confessed that it was their Uncle Ron who'd given him his first cigarette.
Vic's taken the girls out for a walk before they all get ready. Because it's July and because they didn't want a formal wedding, they're getting married in the orchard a few miles from Harry and Ginny's house. Teddy, Vic and the girls slept in the tepee last night, all bundled together on the same bed. They'll do the same tonight- Teddy and Vic figured that their marriage was about the whole family, not just them as a couple, and Vic insisted that the idea of a traditional wedding night was patriarchal nonsense. Teddy hopes that the girls don't get into a squabble, or get hyper on sweets and keep him and Victoire awake and irritated all night.
His girls. Madeleine and Coco. Maddy is bright, inquisitive and gregarious. Coco is thoughtful, a daydreamer, and obsessed with Briony Broomstick comics. They get on well enough, better than Vic and Domonique got on when they were that age, although after an exciting day and a stomach full of Fizzing Whizbees they might become tetchy and tantrum-y. Teddy used to think of Madeleine and Coco as his little girls, although that's becoming less and less true now, especially for Maddy. She'll be twelve in September and Teddy knows she's going to be tall. She doesn't look much like her Maman in most ways, although she's inherited Vic's height. Teddy's messed about with his height so much that he isn't sure how tall he is naturally, but the height he usually chooses is only a couple inches taller than Vic, who has the longest legs of any woman on the planet. Teddy smirks again, remembering what her legs feel like hooked around his hips, draped over his shoulders, wrapped around his neck. He and Vic used to be crazy in bed together, absolutely crazy. They couldn't get enough of each other. On top of having willowy legs, exquisite features and a killer figure, Victoire was also remarkably flexible. Being a Metamorphmagus means that Teddy can grow or shrink, which can have the same effect as Vic's bendiness. The stuff they used to get up to was insane. They could go whole weekends without leaving their bedroom. Though they weren't confined to the bedroom- Teddy doubts that there's a surface in their old flat in Ealing that they didn't make love against. Sex was thrilling and loud and messy and adventurous. Sometimes it would be a meaningful moment of deep and powerful connection, and sometimes it would be a chance to blow off steam and have fun together. Even angry sex was fun (although Vic's always been better at anger than he has). Their first ten years together was like that; passion and holidays and careers and sex and adventures. The last decade-and-a-bit since Maddy was born have been children and organisation and bills and compromise. Ardour has given way to familiarity. Their love has mutated into something no less warm but rather less hot. The romance is routine. They still make love and it's still fantastic, though it's much less frequent than it used to be. Sometimes Teddy will suddenly realise that they haven't been intimate in over a month, and then he'll remember that he's working late the next two nights, and Vic's visiting her parents the evening after, and Coco's got a cold so will want to sleep in their bed anyway. Sometimes, if they've both been busy with work and the kids and haven't manged to have a proper catch-up, or even much of a chat for a few weeks, they'll squeeze in a hasty twenty minutes of sex. Teddy likes that- it's a quick way of connecting, showing how much they mean to each other, and proving that they're a couple, not just two adults in a child-raising arrangement. Their honeymoon is booked for September (they've delayed it so they can spend as much time with Maddy as they can over the next few weeks before she goes away to school) so they'll have longer to spend together then. Perhaps they can rediscover the insatiability of their twenties, or at least enjoy taking their time together and not having to rush for fear of interruption. Teddy thinks again of Vic's legs over his shoulders, and her breath in his ear, and how it feels when-
"Hello,"
Teddy's eyes snap open. That was Granny's voice.
"Teddy?"
"I'm here," he calls back, pushing himself off the floor.
"May I enter?"
That's one of Granny expressions. Teddy isn't sure if avoiding the usual can I come in? is because she's trying to sound dramatic or because she's trying to sound posh.
"Yes,"
Andromeda Tonks walks into the tepee. At eighty-six she is angular, hard of hearing and twisted with arthritis. She carries an air of grand authority and Teddy's younger nephews and nieces are scared of her.
"And will you be wearing your pyjamas to your wedding?" Granny smiles, looking down at him. Teddy hasn't got dressed yet and is still wearing his green cheque pyjama bottoms, and the matching shirt unbuttoned to his waist.
"I'll get changed in a bit," he explains, "Vic's taken the girls out for a run round,"
"How did they sleep?"
"Coco was out like a light, Maddy said she was too excited,"
He lifts his head off the hessian, noting Granny glance disapprovingly at the tattoos on his torso. Teddy isn't sure when the last time she saw him shirtless was- perhaps she hasn't seen the most recent ones. He got his latest tattoo when he turned forty a couple of years ago. It's a pair of incisors to represent getting long in the tooth. Teddy considered getting one to represent their wedding, although he doesn't have any ideas at the moment. Contrary to what Granny and Mrs Weasley say, he doesn't just get them for the sake of it (when Teddy was twenty he got a tattoo of the Andromeda galaxy on his bicep. It was his way of showing Granny how much he loved her and how grateful he was for everything she'd done for him. When he'd shown it to her, Granny said it was the silliest thing she had ever seen).
"Bless them," she smiles, then draws herself up to her full height (barely five foot nowadays) and announces, "Once again I come as an envoy from your parents,"
Teddy sits up.
"As you know, neither they nor I had the preparation you've had for today, so forgive me if I am flying my broom blindfolded," she says. Granny and Grandad eloped, and Mum and Dad had a tiny shotwand wedding.
"Some people might consider it too much preparation. It seems we go one way or the other in our family," Granny continues. Teddy and Vic get a few raised eyebrows about having children without being married. It happens more in the wizarding world than when with Teddy's Muggle side of the family. Wizards are more old-fashioned in that way, and it frustrates the girls when somebody asks, "If your parents aren't married, are they divorced?" or, "So is he your real father?". Most people who know Vic and Teddy don't care, or if they did it's been long enough for them to be over it by now. Teddy's sure that Mum and Dad would have understood. There didn't seem any need for him and Vic to get married when they were younger, and perhaps there was some intentional rebelliousness in that decision, too. Then they got busy with work, and then the girls came along and neither Teddy nor Victoire wanted to have a wedding with a tiny baby or a bawling toddler in tow. They've waited until their girls are old enough to understand and appreciate today.
Granny isn't finished. "I've told you many times that your mother didn't have a lot of time for Fleur Weasley. I imagine she'd be relieved that you've managed to keep her from interfering too much," she says, then reconsiders, "Although knowing Nymphadora she'd have some sort of ridiculous idea for this wedding. Well. Perhaps she'd have grown out of that by now,"
One of the hard parts about having parents who died when you were a baby was that they were stuck being the age they died. Dad's only ever thirty-eight, Mum's twenty-five at most. Teddy's forty-two now, way older than Mum was when she died. But in everybody's memories, the oldest Mum is is twenty-five, and she's exuberant and excitable and nervous about being a parent, stuff she probably wouldn't be now. When Teddy looks back now at himself at twenty-five he sees an irritating, self-doubting man. He wouldn't want to be remembered that way, so he feels sorry for Mum that she is.
"I didn't know you father as well, of course, although I suspect he would either be outside playing with the girls or here attempting to give you a better pep talk than I am. You keep saying your wedding is to celebrate your family, and that would have touched Remus greatly. As you know, he didn't expect he would ever have a family,"
People say that to Teddy a lot. He supposes that they mean it to be kind, although in reality it makes him feel disconnected from his father. That used to upset him, although it doesn't anymore- he's accepted that it's a comment people will keep making. One fact Teddy knows for sure is that grief grows and ages with you and your relationship with it changes. It's like having an invisible and very depressing twin.
Granny pauses, then concludes, "I am proud of you for many reasons, although this is not one of them. All you're doing is signing a paper and having a party. It's hardly an accomplishment. Though I can tell you with absolute conviction that your parents could not have been prouder than they would have been today,"
She nods grandly to show that she's finished. Teddy digests Granny's words for a moment, then gets to his feet. He goes over to where his wedding suit is hanging up, reaches into the jacket pocket and pulls out a folded sheet of parchment.
"Coco drew me this," he explains. Granny purses her lips the way she always does when anybody calls Teddy's younger daughter by her nickname. Coco is Claudette by birth, but Victoire started calling her Coco when she was a toddler and it's stuck. Granny says the nickname is silly and childish, and it doesn't sound like Claudette anyway. When Granny barks, "Claudette!" at the girls when they're fighting or giggling, Teddy can understand why his nephews find her frightening.
The paper Teddy withdraws from his jacket has a picture drawn on it in childish hand. Two small figures with long brown hair, one in a dress and one wearing trousers and a t-shirt. On one side of the girls, Coco has drawn a woman with long streaks of yellow-crayoned hair and wearing a long white dress- Victoire. On the other side she's drawn a figure with short turquoise hair. To Teddy's left, she's drawn a figure, coloured in with both brown and peach pencil, with a scribble of pink on her head. On the other side of the picture is a man. He is smiling and waving and wearing professor's robes and a mortarboard. Coco had drawn her family.
"I'm going to keep it in my chest pocket," Teddy explains. His girls have drawn pictures of their grandparents before, although Teddy reckons that this is the first time Madeleine or Coco has drawn the six of them together. The experience of teaching his children about his parents has been fascinating. Talking to Maddy and Coco about Mum and Dad feels natural, because they're his parents and of course he wants the girls to know them. But it also feels strange because Teddy only had Mum and Dad for a month, and Vic was born two years after they died. It's made Teddy revisit his own childhood and compare it to his daughters' upbringing. The joy the girls bring him makes him sad that Mum and Dad didn't get to experience this, although that makes him more grateful for the fact that he does have this. He knows what a lucky man he is. Teddy's got a good career and he works hard, but he doesn't stay at St Mungo's a second longer than he has to, because he wants to be home with his girls. Teddy knows that when Harry's kids were teenagers, Harry would sometimes stay late his work to avoid facing them. They're over that now and have been for years, although since Maddy was born Teddy's found it troubling. Harry found parenting harder than Teddy has- he once told Teddy that being a father when you didn't have parents yourself was like operating without wires. Teddy's never felt that way. He does have parents. Mum and Dad and Granny and Harry and Ginny, Mum's friends and the Weasleys are all his parents in different ways. Most of them could be here today, but he's keeping Coco's drawing of the ones who couldn't close to his heart.
"I think your Dad would like that," Granny says softly. Dad liked drawing. Teddy enjoys it too, although he isn't as good as Dad was. He has all of Dad's sketchbooks and drawings at home. Sometimes he considers putting them up on the wall (well, Vic would have to do that. She's the practical one) but he doesn't want the pencilwork will fade in the light.
"Hope so," he says, looking at the paper for a moment before folding it carefully back into his jacket pocket.
"That's all I have to say," Granny declares.
"Right. Thank you, Granny. I'll see you out there,"
She nods nobly and leans up and forward, wobbling, to kiss his cheek. Teddy holds her wrist and shoulder to steady her.
"You," says Granny accusingly, when she steps away, "Have been one of the greatest joys of my life,"
She's hardly ever said anything like that before. It's not a particularly Andromeda Tonks thing to say. From the way she smirks at him, Teddy knows that Granny's aware of that, and she's pleased by off-footing him. It takes a while for her to shuffle out of the room, though neither of them say anything while she does. Teddy smiles to himself as Granny disappears out of the tepee. She really is one-of-a-kind.
Mum and Dad were too. Teddy has mixed feelings about the idea of an afterlife so he isn't sure if they're looking down on him or anything like that. He doesn't much mind either, because Mum and Dad are with him. Through his Granny and his godparents and all his uncles and aunts. Through the stories Teddy knows about them. Through their two beautiful grand-daughters.
Teddy's Mum and Dad couldn't make it in person, but they're here anyway.
Thank you reading. Please remember to review.
The next few weeks will be tough for me and I'm sure for many of you. Let's remember that common sense, kindness, and lots of Potter will help us through it. "Keep each other safe, keep faith".
