WELCOME TO THE OCCUPATION
Title; Welcome to the Occupation.
Rating/warnings; G
Word count; 1460
Characters; Louis Weasley.
Notes; I should be writing the several pieces for the exchanges I've signed up for, instead, I did this. This is basically me playing around with a character I don't see a lot of.
Summary; "He lives his life, of course, but he watches others’ with a transfixed fascination."
01. Birth:
“Love? - It’s going to be ok Fleur. I promise,” and Bill Weasley should be used to this by now, after two others, and he’s not. He’s utterly terrified, ecstatic and has only been this highly strung a handful of times within his life: all those things, all at once.
Fleur murmurs uncontrollably in French, her hair plastered in wet strands around her face and a look in her eye that clearly screams It better be alright William Weasley, because if it’s not, I’m going to arrange your castration.
Bill has seen this look in his wife’s face twice - twice - before and it doesn’t scare him any less the third time ‘round.
“Excuse me Sir, we’re going to start the push,” and two and a half hours later, he’s holding the goddamn ugliest boy he’s ever seen in his arms.
He’s grinning like a mad man though, as he breathes Louis and ghosts a finger over his son’s clenched hand.
02. World:
The world holds more stories in its core than anything else in the galaxy.
Louis knows this at a young age - a very young age: when his Grandfather tells him stories of King Arthur. A man who’s a knight and if he’s a muggle granddad, how come he can use magic?
Stories, for Louis, are history. History of common day, somewhat mundane occurrences - In Louis’ mind, they’re still history. In fact, Louis leaves a degree in history - a muggle degree at that (and on top of a Wizarding historic one of course) - believing that it’s little, tiny, youngest daughters of youngest daughters that make better history than kings and queens (and powerful wizards and one-eyed witches with hearts of gold).
When he’s younger, Louis’ world revolves around history books stuffed at the back of bookshelves, facts notated by Hogwarts history teachers and stories he constructs with more than an average understanding of once-upon-a-time events.
When Louis is older, his world doesn’t change that much. There’s a team of six historians he calls him own, there’s stories and half truths he chases into the night, there’s facts he claims and a world full of stories knocking on his door.
03. Family:
Louis grows up believing that all families are huge, loud and obnoxious. They all have stories and hidden messages that a new generation isn’t allowed to learn.
He also thinks, at least for a few years, that every family owns a cat with a French name he can’t pronounce.
It’s not all families, he figures out with analytical skills beyond his six years of age, but it is his.
There’s Weasleys and Potters and Lupins and Blacks and other maybe-relatives and although he’s not sure how that many last names work, Louis knows that they’re all his family and he’s always going to treat them as such.
(By the end of things, there’s also Malfoys, Scamanders and Andersons; there’s people that he only addresses by first name, because in a generic Weasley family, you can never be quite sure.)
04. Friend:
Louis is newborn babe the first time he meets Teddy, he’s four during his earliest memory of the boy, he’s twelve the first time they kiss, fourteen and sixteen the next (he’s fifteen though, when he realises he’s not in love with him but he does love him). He’s sixteen when Teddy teaches him to drive, twenty when he goes to Teddy’s first art show, he’s years too young when he watches him slowly kill himself - but that’s a different story, and not one that really belongs here.
The truth of the matter though, is that Teddy is in Louis’ life from the beginning.
When he’s eleven, Louis mutters, I’m scared and Teddy tweaks his nose: You’ll make plenty of friends.
Louis doesn’t make many friends: he makes one. A Ravenclaw boy and they sit next to each other in the history section of the library, silent, for most of first year before they ever utter a conversation.
Louis doesn’t make plenty of friends, but he does have Teddy.
05. School:
“Gryffindor,” and that, is that.
06. Romance:
Romance is something Louis watches. He doesn’t participate, but he smiles when his sister is engaged (despite the fact he isn’t all that sure about John), laughs when Hugo goes to kiss Scorpius and ends up face first in the back-yard pond and he watches romance in the faces of his aunts and uncles, his grandparents, his own mum and dad.
Then he turns eighteen, and he’s half in love with everyone.
“Can I help you?” Louis’ arms are filled with books and maps and hand-written journals from the eighteenth century, he’s also reaching to the top shelve of the library bookshelf with his left and trying not to lose his balance with his feet. He considers nodding, but decides on shaking his head, his thoughts somewhere else entirely and not completely sure, by this point, what the girl had asked him in the first place.
He’s then pushed out the way with a bump to his hip and he’s too busy trying to keep everything bundled in his hands.
“There you go love,” the book he’s been trying to reach waving in front of his face and a gravel voice as dark as the girl’s skin is entering his ear.
Thank-you’s are given with a smile, and Louis finds he does romance a little differently than the rest of them.
07. Hatred:
“I hate you,” he screeches, it’s not a bellow: his voice hasn’t broken yet and all because Dom is holding the King Arthur book he’s gotten - the first King Arthur book he’s ever gotten - over her head and smirking at him.
His mother stalks into the room with a billowing French grace and he turns to whine, ma dying on his lips when she shakes him by the shoulders and there’s a look in her eye that Louis never forgets.
“Faire vous ne dites jamais que le mot, Louis. Jamais.” Don’t you ever say that word, Louis. Never.
So he doesn’t.
08. Grief:
Grief is uncontrollably loud.
09. Death:
The first death in Louis life isn’t his own. He receives a phone call at three in the morning, a sobbing Lily on the phone (whoever gave her the duty, he wants to hurt within every inch of their life) and a story that renders him completely awake and wanting to sleep like he has never before in his life. It’s just turned Wednesday morning and the first thing he knows that day is the death of Rose Weasley.
She’s seventeen years old and dies in a muggle car crash. She is dead before all four of her grandparents and out strips the rest of them by years.
Rose’s death isn’t the last one he experiences, but it’s the one that leaves him dreading late-night phone calls. Rosie’s funeral leaves him scared for Albus’ own life for a while, but it’s when Victoire rings him up late one night, that he feels electrifying nerves shoot through his body and mind, when he thinks please, please, not again and let’s out pent-up-breath when his sister calmly informs him she’s gone into labor.
It’s this moment that Louis thinks that maybe death is a little more scaring then he’s ever given it credit for.
10. Life:
Life, Louis decides, is quite unlike anything he has ever experienced before. And that scares him a little.
He doesn’t know much about his own life, in a ‘round about kind of way, he doesn’t really care for it either. He doesn’t want to die, sure, but it’s his life and he’s always been more interested in that of others.
He lives his life, of course, but he watches others’ with a transfixed fascination.
He makes his living out of studying people’s lives but he’s more than inclined to do it because he loves it. Louis watches people in the street, teeming with movement, breath and thoughts converting their emotions. He knows, with very startling clarity, that he wont see these people again but that gives it a little bit of excitement. It’s his one chance to capture these people, and he gives his soul to it every time. Watching the life of someone he knows is different - but it’s the difference between tea and coffee: neither is bad, but one is coffee and the other is tea: there’s not much point in trying to change that. His family, Louis finds, are some of the most interesting to watch. Some of them fall into patterns he can devise, the others, they dodge holds and foot holes like they’re allergic to them.
Louis watches the lives of his family, because to the day he dies, they will always be the interesting ones.
Rating/warnings; G
Word count; 1460
Characters; Louis Weasley.
Notes; I should be writing the several pieces for the exchanges I've signed up for, instead, I did this. This is basically me playing around with a character I don't see a lot of.
Summary; "He lives his life, of course, but he watches others’ with a transfixed fascination."
01. Birth:
“Love? - It’s going to be ok Fleur. I promise,” and Bill Weasley should be used to this by now, after two others, and he’s not. He’s utterly terrified, ecstatic and has only been this highly strung a handful of times within his life: all those things, all at once.
Fleur murmurs uncontrollably in French, her hair plastered in wet strands around her face and a look in her eye that clearly screams It better be alright William Weasley, because if it’s not, I’m going to arrange your castration.
Bill has seen this look in his wife’s face twice - twice - before and it doesn’t scare him any less the third time ‘round.
“Excuse me Sir, we’re going to start the push,” and two and a half hours later, he’s holding the goddamn ugliest boy he’s ever seen in his arms.
He’s grinning like a mad man though, as he breathes Louis and ghosts a finger over his son’s clenched hand.
02. World:
The world holds more stories in its core than anything else in the galaxy.
Louis knows this at a young age - a very young age: when his Grandfather tells him stories of King Arthur. A man who’s a knight and if he’s a muggle granddad, how come he can use magic?
Stories, for Louis, are history. History of common day, somewhat mundane occurrences - In Louis’ mind, they’re still history. In fact, Louis leaves a degree in history - a muggle degree at that (and on top of a Wizarding historic one of course) - believing that it’s little, tiny, youngest daughters of youngest daughters that make better history than kings and queens (and powerful wizards and one-eyed witches with hearts of gold).
When he’s younger, Louis’ world revolves around history books stuffed at the back of bookshelves, facts notated by Hogwarts history teachers and stories he constructs with more than an average understanding of once-upon-a-time events.
When Louis is older, his world doesn’t change that much. There’s a team of six historians he calls him own, there’s stories and half truths he chases into the night, there’s facts he claims and a world full of stories knocking on his door.
03. Family:
Louis grows up believing that all families are huge, loud and obnoxious. They all have stories and hidden messages that a new generation isn’t allowed to learn.
He also thinks, at least for a few years, that every family owns a cat with a French name he can’t pronounce.
It’s not all families, he figures out with analytical skills beyond his six years of age, but it is his.
There’s Weasleys and Potters and Lupins and Blacks and other maybe-relatives and although he’s not sure how that many last names work, Louis knows that they’re all his family and he’s always going to treat them as such.
(By the end of things, there’s also Malfoys, Scamanders and Andersons; there’s people that he only addresses by first name, because in a generic Weasley family, you can never be quite sure.)
04. Friend:
Louis is newborn babe the first time he meets Teddy, he’s four during his earliest memory of the boy, he’s twelve the first time they kiss, fourteen and sixteen the next (he’s fifteen though, when he realises he’s not in love with him but he does love him). He’s sixteen when Teddy teaches him to drive, twenty when he goes to Teddy’s first art show, he’s years too young when he watches him slowly kill himself - but that’s a different story, and not one that really belongs here.
The truth of the matter though, is that Teddy is in Louis’ life from the beginning.
When he’s eleven, Louis mutters, I’m scared and Teddy tweaks his nose: You’ll make plenty of friends.
Louis doesn’t make many friends: he makes one. A Ravenclaw boy and they sit next to each other in the history section of the library, silent, for most of first year before they ever utter a conversation.
Louis doesn’t make plenty of friends, but he does have Teddy.
05. School:
“Gryffindor,” and that, is that.
06. Romance:
Romance is something Louis watches. He doesn’t participate, but he smiles when his sister is engaged (despite the fact he isn’t all that sure about John), laughs when Hugo goes to kiss Scorpius and ends up face first in the back-yard pond and he watches romance in the faces of his aunts and uncles, his grandparents, his own mum and dad.
Then he turns eighteen, and he’s half in love with everyone.
“Can I help you?” Louis’ arms are filled with books and maps and hand-written journals from the eighteenth century, he’s also reaching to the top shelve of the library bookshelf with his left and trying not to lose his balance with his feet. He considers nodding, but decides on shaking his head, his thoughts somewhere else entirely and not completely sure, by this point, what the girl had asked him in the first place.
He’s then pushed out the way with a bump to his hip and he’s too busy trying to keep everything bundled in his hands.
“There you go love,” the book he’s been trying to reach waving in front of his face and a gravel voice as dark as the girl’s skin is entering his ear.
Thank-you’s are given with a smile, and Louis finds he does romance a little differently than the rest of them.
07. Hatred:
“I hate you,” he screeches, it’s not a bellow: his voice hasn’t broken yet and all because Dom is holding the King Arthur book he’s gotten - the first King Arthur book he’s ever gotten - over her head and smirking at him.
His mother stalks into the room with a billowing French grace and he turns to whine, ma dying on his lips when she shakes him by the shoulders and there’s a look in her eye that Louis never forgets.
“Faire vous ne dites jamais que le mot, Louis. Jamais.” Don’t you ever say that word, Louis. Never.
So he doesn’t.
08. Grief:
Grief is uncontrollably loud.
09. Death:
The first death in Louis life isn’t his own. He receives a phone call at three in the morning, a sobbing Lily on the phone (whoever gave her the duty, he wants to hurt within every inch of their life) and a story that renders him completely awake and wanting to sleep like he has never before in his life. It’s just turned Wednesday morning and the first thing he knows that day is the death of Rose Weasley.
She’s seventeen years old and dies in a muggle car crash. She is dead before all four of her grandparents and out strips the rest of them by years.
Rose’s death isn’t the last one he experiences, but it’s the one that leaves him dreading late-night phone calls. Rosie’s funeral leaves him scared for Albus’ own life for a while, but it’s when Victoire rings him up late one night, that he feels electrifying nerves shoot through his body and mind, when he thinks please, please, not again and let’s out pent-up-breath when his sister calmly informs him she’s gone into labor.
It’s this moment that Louis thinks that maybe death is a little more scaring then he’s ever given it credit for.
10. Life:
Life, Louis decides, is quite unlike anything he has ever experienced before. And that scares him a little.
He doesn’t know much about his own life, in a ‘round about kind of way, he doesn’t really care for it either. He doesn’t want to die, sure, but it’s his life and he’s always been more interested in that of others.
He lives his life, of course, but he watches others’ with a transfixed fascination.
He makes his living out of studying people’s lives but he’s more than inclined to do it because he loves it. Louis watches people in the street, teeming with movement, breath and thoughts converting their emotions. He knows, with very startling clarity, that he wont see these people again but that gives it a little bit of excitement. It’s his one chance to capture these people, and he gives his soul to it every time. Watching the life of someone he knows is different - but it’s the difference between tea and coffee: neither is bad, but one is coffee and the other is tea: there’s not much point in trying to change that. His family, Louis finds, are some of the most interesting to watch. Some of them fall into patterns he can devise, the others, they dodge holds and foot holes like they’re allergic to them.
Louis watches the lives of his family, because to the day he dies, they will always be the interesting ones.