20 Random Facts about Xanthia Aisling Lovegood, née Yaxley

[iulia_linnea]

Title: 20 Random Facts about Xanthia Aisling Lovegood, née Yaxley
Author: iulia_linnea
Rating: G
Word Count: 881
Disclaimer: This piece is based on characters and situations created by J. K. Rowling, and owned by J. K. Rowling and various publishers, including but not limited to: Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books, Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended by the posting of this fic.
Author's Note: Written for the Harry Potter Random Facts Fest. Thank you, fodirteg, for beta'ing.

1. It always irritates her that Xeno cannot pronounce her middle name, no matter how many times she has told him that it is "ASH lin," not "ACE ling."
   
   
2. Xanthia has not employed contractions in speaking or writing since she was ten-years-old because her Grandmother Yaxley, who owned more books than shelves to hold them, refused to respond to her when she did, explaining, "I shall not waste my time communicating with anyone in so great a rush. Impatience is a sign of recklessness, child, and recklessness is a dangerous quality."
   
   
3. Xanthia has a horror of frogs. One of her earliest memories is happening upon a half-eaten frog in the garden; she often has nightmares in which she is looking as if through a glass at her own, mutilated torso.
   
   
4. One of her mother's books bit Xanthia when she was four-years-old; she almost died from the wound and was whipped by her nanny at her mother's direction after she had recovered.
   
   
5. Xeno's first Christmas gift to Xanthia was a collection of romantic verse; he had written one poem for every day that they had known one another, and many of them concerned the moon.
   
   
6. When the Aurors came to question Grandmother Yaxley about her "special books" one evening, Xanthia lost no time in removing them from the house. She slept in the boughs of the tree in which she had sealed them that night, her wand in hand, but no one ever came to look for her.
   
   
7. Xanthia first manifested magical ability at seven-years-old by turning the hem of her third nanny's robes into frog guts. Her father was proud of her, much to her mother's annoyance, and called her "precocious." This irritated Xanthia because she had been working on that spell since she was four-years-old-and it was supposed to have altered her nanny's skin.
   
   
8. The letter inviting her to apprentice herself at the Spellcraftres' Guild meant more to Xanthia than her Hogwarts' letter.
   
   
9. Luna means more to Xanthia than Xeno ever has, but she has never told him; it is obvious to her that he feels similarly, and that makes her love him more.
   
   
10. Xanthia's first kiss was given to her behind her left knee while she was studying in the Ravenclaw dormitory that she shared with three other girls; the kiss tickled and made Xanthia feel hot in a way that she never had before, but she did not turn to see who had favoured her with such attention because the paragraph she was translating was fascinating.
    
    
11. Although she would never admit it, Xanthia does not believe that she is as clever as her father always believed her to be; how difficult is it to read and remember things, truly? Observation is everything.
    
    
12. Xanthia insists that Luna be put to bed before the sun sets.
    
    
13. It was at a garden party hosted by the Ollivanders that Xanthia first heard of the Spellcraftres' Guild; she was so delighted to learn that there was a place for girls like her that she incautiously asked her mother in front of the company if she might leave for the Guild from the party. What happened in the Ollivanders' library between Xanthia and her fifth nanny immediately following this question is why the Yaxleys were never able to employ a sixth one.
    
    
14. The faeries in their back garden transform at twilight, growing larger and "dancing" in rings of light. She has never told Xeno about them because she prefers him to believe that her lovemaking rituals are of her own devisement.
    
    
15. Xanthia remembers Flora Parkinson from school; they shared a dormitory and fought over the silliest things. She continues to dislike Flora and dreads running into her at parties because the other witch does stare at her in the oddest manner-and Flora has never been civil to Xeno.
    
    
16. It should not be possible for transformed faeries to be able to fly with such insubstantial wings, and Xanthia, who for years has been collecting the delicate structures, has isolated from them several fascinating, yet surprisingly volatile compounds. She is developing a spell to help her understand how these substances aid the wings' function.
    
    
17. Xanthia has maintained her laboratory at home since Luna was born and has always enjoyed watching her daughter's "experiments" as she has conducted her own. Luna's latest fascination is art, and Xanthia could not be more proud to know that Luna, at barely nine-years-old and without formal training, is attempting to animate her paintings.
    
    
18. When she finds Luna crying over a Nargle-eaten canvas, Xanthia feels terribly guilty for having brought the mistletoe into the laboratory and hastily contains the infestation before the Nargles can get into anything else.
    
    
19. Before submitting her work to journals, Xanthia reads it aloud to Xeno; she would swear to anyone that her husband can hear misspellings. Of course, she has yet to share her faerie-related research with him because she knows that he would want to publish it in the Quibbler: accepting disownment from her family for having married Xeno was one thing; allowing her professional reputation to become compromised is quite another.
    
    
20. There is a cache of ancient scholarly tomes buried under the Dirigible Plums; when Luna is old enough to understand how not to incautiously handle such books, Xanthia is going to tell her about them.