Fic: The Bow That Is Stable for phantompopcorn
Title: The Bow That Is Stable
Author: bitchet
Recipient: phantompopcorn
Summary: Your children are not your children.
Characters: Teddy, Andromeda, Ron, Rose, Luna, Rolf, Angelina, Fred II, Draco, Scorpius, Percy, Molly II, Lucy, Fleur, Dominique, Harry, James Sirius, Albus Severus, and Lily Luna.
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Language, character death (mentioned, off-screen), terminal illness, canon pairings except for one blink-and-you'll-miss-it hint at a next-gen pairing.
Word Count: 6,000+
Author's Notes: phantompopcorn you asked for next-gen, coming of age, and character studies. I hope you like this. Title and text from Kahlil Gibran’s “On Children”.
Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
His mother was twenty-one when she was admitted to the Aurors, twenty-two when she vowed to fight in a war that had started before she was even born, twenty-four when she married, and twenty-five when she had her son and died not long after.
She was two years older than he was now when she was killed. If he made it to fifty he would be twice as old as she had ever been.
He looked off into the distance, trying to ignore the heaviness in his chest. Beside him, his Gran arranged the sunflowers - his mother’s favourite - and whispered to the dirt and grass that blanketed her daughter and son-in-law.
For the first time he allowed himself to think about what it meant for his parents to die so suddenly. Their deaths had always been about him - his loss, his pain, how it had shaped his life. Selfish as it was, it had been easier to think of it from his perspective because any other way reminded him that they had been just as real as he. They had cried and laughed and dreamed and argued and fucked and lived and hoped that they’d have the chance to wake up the next day and do it all again.
In her short moments spent as a widow, did his mother hope for a quick end or did she still fight, clinging to life until it was ripped from her? He wasn’t even sure it mattered beyond wondering what it said about her and who she had been.
“Is something wrong?” It wasn’t until he heard those words from his from his Gran that he realized he had been shaking his head, a deep frown on his face as he looked at the flowers.
“No,” he said quietly, his eyes on the headstone. “No, I just - I don’t understand. Why have a kid in the middle of war? It’s stupid.”
He spat out the last word with a force that surprised even him. Perhaps this was some long-denied moment of adolescent rebellion that had finally broken forth.
Teddy glanced at his grandmother from the corner of his eye, his face hot and an apology on his lips until he saw her expression.
“Do really you think you’re the first one to make that argument?” she drawled, reminding him strangely of McGonagall as she stared him down, the corner of her mouth inching ever-so-slightly upwards.
Of course he hadn’t been the first. From what he had overheard between Harry and Ginny, his own father hadn’t been too keen on the idea of having a child while Voldemort was trying to kill them.
“Then why?”
She brushed the dirt from her silk gloves. “It wasn’t a choice she made lightly, I assure you.”
Nothing more followed and Teddy was certain that was all the response he would receive until she spoke again, her voice softer than before and her eyes staring ahead to where his grandfather was buried.
“It is foolish and mad and I hope you never have cause to understand it but when you think each day might be your last, that desire to live can drive you to do things you never thought you would.” Her smile didn’t quite reach her eyes as she turned to look at him. “And you cling to life however you can.”
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.
Perhaps it spoke poorly of her but when faced with what had to be one of the most normal and ordinary parts of childhood, Luna was struck by how very strange and unnatural it was. Why should her children be taken from her? Why should they spend the next several years away from home only to return as adults? They wouldn’t be strangers to her - not even in her wildest imaginings could she conceive of such a gulf between her and the two little boys she loved and nourished and raised - but there would be so many important moments she would never be there to see.
A cup of hot tea was pressed into her hands and comforting arms closed around her. Rolf pressed a small kiss to her temple as he settled in beside her.
“You are worried,” he said.
“I am.”
She looked at the tent where the two boys slept under a covering charmed to reveal the starry night sky overhead. They had wanted to take one more trip before leaving for Hogwarts but her father had wanted to see them again This was her compromise.
“About them leaving?” This, most tellingly, was a question and not a statement.
Luna looked down at his hands, her forefinger tracing over the knuckles of his right hand. These were hands that tended to the wounded, that could wield a wand as easily as a quill. These hands knew her body as well as her own and had been the first to hold her sons. She loved these hands, every callus and scar.
“Yes. And no. Truthfully, I was thinking about Daddy.”
The night before she had boarded the Hogwarts Express for the first time, she asked her father if she really had to leave. He had told her only if she wanted to. The question still bothered her.
She had been nervous about Hogwarts but even more so about leaving her father. Who would help with The Quibbler? Who would remind him to water the water the Dirigible Plums at noon and dusk? Who would keep him company as he searched for Heliopaths? After her mother’s death, he had been her entire world and she his. What would become of him when she left?
But her taste for adventure and learning, her need for friends and laughter had outweighed her worries. She had left home the next morning with a heavy heart.
“This is natural. Which doesn’t mean it won’t hurt but that it has to happen,” she said softly. Rolf raised a brow at this and she kissed him quickly.
“It’s life.”
You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
He hated to admit it, but sometimes he could see why the hat put his darling Rosie in Slytherin.
No, scratch that. He would never understand why on earth his sweet little girl was put in the same house that spawned You-Know-Who.
But, if he were truly honest with himself - and it would only be with himself as he still couldn’t even admit this much out loud - some days it was less surprising than others.
Hermione had come around to the idea much quicker than he had, pointing out how Slytherin had been diluted and it was no longer filled with pure-blood fanatics just a bunch of little jumped-up twats that would one day be sitting on the Wizengamot.
She hadn’t quite said the last part but it was true.
His wife had also pointed out that he had Slytherin ancestors, like Cedrella Weasley and Lucretia Prewett. In what had to be one of the top ten biggest mistakes he had ever made with Hermione - ranking somewhere below leaving her and above not asking her to the Yule Ball first - he had unthinkingly responded that they didn’t count because they married into the family.
His ears were still ringing from that one.
He wasn’t a complete tosser, no matter what Hermione might have thought at the time. He had written Rosie to tell her how proud he was and that he hoped she tried out for Quidditch because God knows Slytherin could use all the help it could get. He had even bought her a green cloak that Christmas with a curly little silver clasp that kind of looked like a snake but really wasn’t. He couldn’t bring himself to actually buy the one with the snake clasp or the one with the Slytherin crest but it was the thought that mattered, right?
“I don’t know how you did it,” she began, looking at the picture of him during his second year with his too-short robes and broken wand. “I mean, I understand that money isn’t everything.”
But, he mentally prompted, wondering how much this was going to cost him.
“But as a kid it must have been hard to be around people with their new robes and trainers and not have the same.” Her shoulders slumped and she looked away, her face the very picture of concern and thoughtfulness. The WADA had a summer course for Hogwarts students interested in acting; he was nearly tempted to suggest it.
“Did you really wear hand-me-down robes to the Yule Ball?”
He should have seen this one coming once it was announced the TriWizard Tournament would once again be held at Hogwarts.
“You know I did,” he answered dryly.
Ducking her head as she smiled, she took the hint. “It’s only a few months away and I haven’t even been asked yet...”
That she would even offer that information told him that she had in fact been asked and was just waiting for the right moment to tell him. He had suspected as much when he has spotted the ring on a chain that she wore around her neck. She had eventually charmed it to look like a simple pendant but it had been too late. Monday morning, he would start looking into the background of every boy in Slytherin.
“But I was at the shops, and I saw this dress...”
“How much?” he asked.
“A hundred Galleons?”
“For a dress? One dress?”
She winced and he bit his tongue.
“It’s a really nice dress. Dominque says it’s by these really famous French designers and I’m sure I could wear it more than once. Or if not I could give it to Lily!”
Ron snorted at that. Last week Lily had declared glamour charms to be a tool of the patriarchy. She was more likely to protest the Yule Ball than to attend it.
“Dad...”
“Rosie, no.”
She hunched down in defeat and despite every logical instinct, for a second he found himself doing the maths. But it wasn’t about the money, it was the principle of the thing. He and Hermione wanted to set clear limits for their children.
“If you had told me sooner, we could have worked something out. You could have helped your Uncle George out at the shop during summer hols to help pay off some of the costs.”
“I know,” she admitted, her voice low and her eyes downcast. She shrugged. “It was a stupid, spur-of-the moment thing. There are other dresses. Gladrags is having a sale on some for thirty.”
He pulled out his chequebook and quill, fully intending to write her a check for thirty-five Galleons but somehow writing one for fifty instead.
His daughter hugged him tightly once he handed it over, giving him a kiss on the cheek and telling him he was the best before practically skipping out the door.
It wasn't until the door closed and Ron thought about how easily his normally-bullheaded daughter had given in that it hit him.
She’d been angling for the fifty Galleons from the start.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
Roxanne laughed, a bright, sharp sound that carried in the wind. From her place in the kitchen, she could see her daughter and husband out the window as he taught her to throw a Quaffle. Everything about her screamed that she was her father’s daughter, her mischievous nature, her freckles, her quicksilver grin, and her love of pranks were all his. Her curly hair even looked red as she basked in the sunlight.
She had been daddy’s girl since the moment she’d been born and they were thick as thieves. Roxanne had spent much of the past summer with her dad at the shop, helping him to test products and asking him how they worked. It was clear even now that Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes would be hers one day.
Freddy looked up from his textbook, frowning as the pair whooped and shouted. He hadn’t even begun his lessons and he appeared to be on his third chapter for Ancient Runes.
“I could cast a charm if you need to revise,” she suggested but he shook his head, pulling off his glasses to wipe them on his shirt.
He had his father’s clear blue eyes. In every other way he looked exactly like her maternal grandfather and Angelina had to smile, remembering the picture of a handsome man with wide grin and perfect dimples wearing a crisp Muggle uniform. Her granny had carried it with her until her dying day. But by all accounts her grandfather had been an easy-going man known for his wit. Nothing like her serious boy.
Angelina could tell he took after her in some respects. Like her, he was what some might call a “poor loser” and like her, he could sometimes become a tad obsessive about things. It was perhaps a good thing he didn’t care much for Quidditch as some parents these days would be very annoyed if their kids had to practice in the rain for hours. Some parents would also mollycoddle their kids to death but she wasn’t one to judge.
From the time he was seven years old and had quite earnestly laid out his academic and career plans, it was clear that he was a bit different from both his parents. George had actually taken her aside after their son described his intentions to earn twelve O.W.L’s before becoming Minister for Magic, and could barely contain his laughter as he asked her exactly how many Weasleys she had slept with.
He was lucky she had an excellent sense of humour.
She sat down across from him, placing a cool butterbeer in front of him while she popped the top from her own bottle. He looked up at her in surprise - they were supposed to have been out, but she had found some while cleaning the cupboard.
Angelina winked and he rewarded her with one of his rare smiles.
He didn’t offer information freely. It pained her to admit it but he always gave short answers as if he was afraid of boring them if he said much more.
She turned the book over, looking at the cover as she said, “This is a good book but I think Worthington’s companion to it is better.”
“You studied Runes?” And she wondered if he had forgotten she had been a Hogwarts student once.
“It was my favourite subject.” But only because Quidditch didn’t count.
A broad grin split his face, complete with two perfect dimples.
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
They hadn’t told the girls.
For the first several weeks only he, Audrey, and the healers had known. Percy had convinced himself that he was only doing the sensible thing. They did not have all the facts first, treatments hadn’t even been started, and they didn’t know enough to worry anyone.
That had been a lie.
Once the diagnosis had been made, there was nothing more to know. Derwent-Gamp Disease was as predictable as it was vicious. It ran in families, most notoriously the Blacks. Age of onset was usually between the ages of fifty-to-fifty-five but patients as young as thirty had been documented. The most common symptoms were shaky hands, slurred or unintelligible speech, and displays of uncontrollable magic. The disease would turn the body against itself, growing worse until finally, the patient lapsed into a coma and died.
Three years was the average life expectancy after diagnosis.
Percy had known all this but still he had kept quiet as if it was a spell that would only gain potency if someone said the words. But fear of the name only increases fear of the thing itself.
Still, he denied it, throwing himself into treatments that took away the symptoms but also took his magic as well, leaving him so drained he couldn’t get out of bed some days. He tried different other treatments as well, traditional Chinese practices that Audrey’s zēng zǔ mǔ had sworn by. Those had helped him feel better, helped him sleep better, but were helpless against the disease. In a moment of desperation, he had even bought some home-brewed potion from a hag standing near the entrance to Knockturn Alley that had energized him but left his hands too shaky to even hold a quill. He had destroyed that bottle before Audrey could see it.
They hadn’t known it, but he’d had the girls tested for the disease. He had smiled for the first time in months when the results had come back.
His brothers and sister were also free of the disease. Percy had waited for their results before telling his parents. He’s not sure what difference it made in the scheme of things but, at the time, it seemed important to do things in that order.
Sitting back in his chair, he listened to them talk over each other. It had taken him years to realize that, at least to each other, they weren’t being rude, that they could understand perfectly while they held two different conversations. Molly went on about the TriWizard Tournament, intent on putting her name in the cup even though the thought left him a bit queasy. Meanwhile, Lucy made her case against no one that The Withered Snales was the best band ever or at least was until her band got off the ground.
They had named the twins for their grandmothers though they couldn’t be more dislike them if they tried.
Well, no, that wasn’t entirely true.
Lucy liked to knit like her Grandma. She was rather skilled at it too, able to do patterns like the little skulls with pink hair bows that adorned the black socks she wore. The colour of the bow even matched the charmed pink of her asymmetrical bob so she clearly shared her Grandma’s eye for decorations and colours, he thought with a small smile.
And Molly loved all sport as evidenced by the “Quidditch Is Life” t-shirt and pyjama bottoms adorned with tiny exploding Quods. She even loved the Muggle sport hockey, joining her Nana to root for the Canucks whenever they visited Audrey’s parents. She was like his brother Charlie in a way, a natural at any sport she tried her hand at. He could easily imagine her standing on the TwiWizard Tournament platform or playing for a club like his sister had and representing England in the next Quidditch World Cup.
As for Lucy, he knew she was a good singer and could play any string instrumen set in front of her. She had kept at her violin lessons long after her sister had grown tired of them. And even if he didn’t understand it, other kids seemed to like the music she and her band made. It wouldn’t be long before she was on the Wireless.
They would set the world on fire, the two of them.
Or maybe they wouldn’t.
Maybe Molly would meet some nice wizard, a sensible lad who would look at her adoringly when she enters the chapel dressed in white. They would move into a charming country cottage and raise their own little Quidditch team. Maybe Lucy would open her own little shop of knitted goods in Diagon Alley, content to spend her days there and her nights with her friends at the local pub as they talked about anything and nothing.
Maybe they would do all that and more, living lives he couldn’t have imagined even if he’d been given a million years. They would have heartaches and triumphs that he would never share. They would grow into women that he would never meet. They would live and, if there was any mercy in the universe, be happy and grow old.
And if he could just be certain of that, it would be so much easier to let go.
You may strive to be like them,
He was a good man.
Strange to think of him as a man but at sixteen on the cusp of adulthood, that’s what he was. He was tall and broad-shouldered, peach fuzz on his chin that he was trying to turn into something a little less ridiculous-looking. There was something more than the physical changes, there was this air of surety that he already had that had taken Draco decades to achieve. He had always kept his own counsel, even as a boy, but it hadn't always been apparent.
The other day, a colleague had seen the photo he’d had on his desk of Scorpius and had mistaken it for him. Draco had scoffed, asking exactly how narcissistic she thought he was to have a photo of himself on his own desk.
The comments had stayed with him, buzzing around his head like an annoying gnat.
Not for the first time, he wished his son had the dark colouring of the Greengrasses. Having the Malfoy name was bad enough, but his fair hair and pale skin were as obvious as having a bull’s eye painted on his back.
His Sorting had only made it worse. Once he’d heard the news, it had been Scorpius’ safety he had worried about, not the Malfoy tradition. That addled hat that surely still remembered the Dark Lord trying to dispose of it had sent his son, his only child, straight into the lion’s den as a form of revenge and nothing would convince him otherwise.
Several times over the years he’d been tempted to pull his son out of school, to send him to Durmstrang or Beauxbatons or America if that had been necessary to keep him in one piece. There’d been many trips to Pomfrey over the first two years, many visits to the Headmistress where his son refused to say who exactly had been duelling with him, and many “concerned” letters from that daft sod Longbottom who couldn’t - or wouldn’t - control his own house.
Then it had stopped.
At first he had assumed that all the time practising hexes at home as well as his son becoming President of the Duelling club were the reasons. While they likely explained part of it, it didn’t explain all the new friends he had. He had barely seen Scorpius at all this summer, he'd been constantly visiting this friend or that. Those rare moments at home were spent firecalling them or waiting for their owls. Judging from what he had seen at King's Cross a few weeks ago, some of Scorpius' entourage were children of those he had gone to school with, children who had surely heard about every misdeed connected with the Malfoys - Boots and Macmillians, Potters and Weasleys.
He even had a girlfriend. Scorpius hadn't mentioned it but Draco had noticed that some letters his son received were quickly hidden away and remembered the odd look on his face when he offered up the news that he had “lost” his signet ring.
It would seem Scorpius hadn't merely beaten his tormentors - he had won them over. The very idea of it made Draco bristle but it was quite obvious that some of those little shits who had once made his son's life miserable were the ones now hanging on his every word.
Scorpius could do that. He made friends and admirers easily and not just among his peers. His teachers and tutors adored him, the Daily Prophet article he wrote about Muggles had earned him praising letters from all over the country, and after spending some of his free time this summer ladling soup and rolling bandages, half the staff at St. Mungo's were enthralled with him.
All this proved something he had always known - Scorpius was his mother's son in every way. With his intelligent olive green eyes and easy smile, Draco saw Astoria every time he looked at him. His compassion, his open nature, his stubborn independence and his quiet courage - they were all hers. It was so apparent to Draco that he didn’t know how so many people could miss it.
“I was thinking about taking some classes at a Muggle school next year,” Scorpius said suddenly, squinting into the sun as he glanced over at him.
Draco wasn't surprised. His son had asked for tutors so he could learn more about science and maths. He had just hoped it was for a particularly ambitious Muggle Studies project.
“Muggles have made some amazing advances in medicine, and Healer Chang thinks it's a great idea and that it would really give me an edge before I start my training.”
What Muggles could offer him, he couldn't imagine but he knew his son and he knew that he wasn't really being asked his permission. Though Scorpius was kind enough to make it seem so.
If he stood still long enough, he could almost feel the tremors from generations of Malfoys turning in their graves at the very idea of a Malfoy going to live among Muggles. Blood-traitor. While he'd never said those words, Lucius had made it clear while he was alive that by being so lax with Scorpius, that would be end result. Draco knew that if his father were here now, he'd point out that even Arthur Weasley hadn't gone so far in his fondness for Muggles to temporarily become one of them. If he were here, he'd insist Draco do some damage control and fast before his son ran off with his mixed-blooded girlfriend to wallow in the mud and bring down the Malfoy name with him.
If he were here.
“If your mother has no objection to it,” he began, giving his son a pointed look as he knew this was something the two had already discussed, “then I don't see a problem.”
but seek not to make them like you.
If Victoire had been half as much trouble as her sister, they would have stopped at one.
Fleur marched into the cottage, the small beaded bag tightly in her grasp as she stood at the base of the stairs. Taking a deep breath, willing herself not to yell, she called up to her daughter in French, “We need to talk, Dominique!”
From his seat on the couch, Bill looked over at her in surprise. He knew just as their children did, that when she started speaking in French, it was never a good sign.
She shook her head, doing her daughter that small favour, and began up the stairs. Entering the bedroom without knocking on the door, she snorted at the scene.
Still pretending that she was going to revise with her friends, her daughter was placing her books and parchment in a knapsack. She even had the audacity to look up at her, face a picture of innocence, and announce, “I have to get going, I don't want to be late.”
“And I'm sure you don't want to forget this either,” Fleur snapped, throwing the beaded bag on the bed.
Rather than looking ashamed, Dominique sighed as if the whole thing was very tedious. “Fine, I wasn't going to revise with Lucy.”
“And where were you going dressed like that?” she asked, pointing to the bag that held a very short dress, heels, perfume, make-up, and a what looked to be a white gold bracelet studded with gems. “And 'o is the jewellery from?”
This prompts a smile. “Sebastian Zabini gave it to me. Pink sapphires. Isn't it stunning?”
“Sebastian? What 'appened to the Smith boy you were dating?” And why did her daughter have such horrible taste in men?
Dominique gave a shrug. “Nothing. He's with his family in Switzerland which seems rather dull if you ask me. I'll probably see him when the term starts. He promised he'll get me a watch.”
“You're dating both of them?”
“It's not serious,” Dominique scoffed, twiddling the ends of her silvery-blonde hair between her fingers. “Boys just like to give me things.”
Molly Weasley's voice came to mind, muttering about “scarlet women” and Fleur felt as if she could spit fire. “In exchange for what?”
“Mother!” At this, Dominique had the good grace to look offended. “I'm not some slag, I don't sleep with them so they'll buy me things.”
Fleur's sense of relief was short-lived.
“I don't have to,” Dominique continued, looking quite pleased with herself. “They buy me things just to be seen with me.”
She was no Molly Weasley. She knew her children would date, would have their romances, and she had no expectations that they keep themselves chaste before marriage. What she had expected, however, was that they'd be a bit less cynical about it. She had raised her children to be romantics, to appreciate love as a gift in and of itself, one of the few truly beautiful things life had to offer.
Instead, her two youngest seemed to think of it as a game to be won and her eldest approached it with all the solemness of a funeral, choosing a partner as sombre and moody as she.
Fleur blamed English culture. As she had told Gabrielle, they were all quite prudish and it gave them warped attitudes about sex and romance.
“I don't promise them anything either if that's what you're thinking,” Dominique added churlishly.
She raised a brow at this. “I don't like your tone.”
“Why are you angry with me? It's not like I asked to be part-Veela. Why shouldn't I have fun with it?”
“This is your idea of fun?”she asked, unthinkingly switching back to her native tongue. “Gilding the rose--”
“Lily.”
“So you can toy with the emotions of boys and get trinkets from them?” She was as bad as some of her cousins - they had joined the Bulgarian dancing squad for the expressed purpose of meeting some rich Quidditch player who would buy them anything they wanted.
Dominique folded her arms with a huff. “It's not as if I'm lying to them. They want someone pretty and fun, and I like going places. Besides, I'm an adult now.”
It was Fleur's turn to scoff.
“And I can do as I please,” she finished, her arms crossed in front of her and her nose in the air.
“Not under my 'ouse. You're not going anywhere tonight.” Tomorrow she would leave to return to Hogwarts and Fleur would have to hope for the best, but for tonight she was still in control.
“Mother!”
“And I will be taking this,” she added, grabbing the beaded bag. “You can focus on your revising.”
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.
Seventeen years later, he could finally say that Hermione had been wrong.
He had told her so then, but even at the time, he had known it was more out of his own stubborn belief than anything else. It had felt so right to name his children after his parents and Ginny had so readily agreed that when Hermione had voiced her objection, it had felt like a rebuke. Harry knew now that he shouldn't have taken it as personally as he did, that, as always, Hermione meant the best.
At the time, however, hearing that he was possibly hurting his children, forcing them to live up to people made larger than life by two wars, hurt. He didn't care what they had meant to the wizarding world, they had been his parents and he wanted his children to be named for them and the only person who could tell him otherwise was Ginny. After everything that he'd given and everything that had been taken from him, why couldn't he have that?
In a move that was equal parts love and defiance, Harry had named his first child James Sirius. He had reasoned at the time that even with that name, it wasn't as if he had to be like his namesakes. Maybe he would take after his Grandfather Arthur and be someone more mild-mannered.
“Hufflepuff doesn't stand a chance.” James said, releasing the Snitch he carried with him and watching it buzz around his head. “Better luck next year, Lils.”
Sometime around his third birthday it became evident that James most definitely was not “mild-mannered” or anything else that could be confused for it. His son didn't have that same raw anger that Sirius had, and both he and Ginny had worked hard to make him less arrogant than the first James Potter had been. Yet, like both men, James was cocky and reckless and loved to laugh and be the centre of a crowd.
Plucking the Snitch out of the air, Lily flashed her brother a grin. “Don't count us out just yet.”
His youngest had all the fire of her mother and both her grandmothers. And like both her namesakes, she had an intrinsic sense of fairness.
Despite knowing that he wanted his daughter to be named for his mum, he had told Ginny a few weeks before she was born that perhaps they should think about other names. The comments surrounding the choice of name for their middle child were still too fresh, and he became convinced that Hermione was right and he had made the sort of mistake that would result in years of therapy for his two boys.
Ginny had been equal parts confused and annoyed as she had believed they had long settled on the first name and it was only the middle name they had to decide. When he told her the reason behind his change of mind, she had only sighed and said, “Oh, Harry. That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard.”
She had then spent the following thirty minutes pointing out that half the wizarding world had no problem naming their sons after Harry, that Albus was going to be one of several boys in his year with that name, and that - if anything - it would be their last name that people noticed.
“We could be utter prats and name her Orange Quaffle Potter, it doesn't matter. She's still going to be our kid, Harry.”
That last sentence was more of a warning than a reassurance. No matter what their names, they'd still be measured against their mum, their famous aunts and uncles, and yes, their father. Unless they were willing to join the Grangers in Australia or go Muggle, there weren't any other options for them. The realisation was both freeing and crushing.
But, thankfully, more so for him than his children.
“What do you say, Al?” Lily dropped down beside her brother, pulling his book from his lap.
“He thinks you're mental but is too nice to say so,” James offered while Al rolled his eyes at once again being caught in the middle of one of their spats.
His children had never known neglect nor want. The war for them was something they'd learn in class along with Arithmancy or Potions. They weren't shackled to the past like he was. There would be no prophecies laying out their lives for them.
They would make their own paths in the world.
You are the bows from which your children
as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite,
and He bends you with His might
that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies,
so He loves also the bow that is stable.
Author: bitchet
Recipient: phantompopcorn
Summary: Your children are not your children.
Characters: Teddy, Andromeda, Ron, Rose, Luna, Rolf, Angelina, Fred II, Draco, Scorpius, Percy, Molly II, Lucy, Fleur, Dominique, Harry, James Sirius, Albus Severus, and Lily Luna.
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Language, character death (mentioned, off-screen), terminal illness, canon pairings except for one blink-and-you'll-miss-it hint at a next-gen pairing.
Word Count: 6,000+
Author's Notes: phantompopcorn you asked for next-gen, coming of age, and character studies. I hope you like this. Title and text from Kahlil Gibran’s “On Children”.
Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
His mother was twenty-one when she was admitted to the Aurors, twenty-two when she vowed to fight in a war that had started before she was even born, twenty-four when she married, and twenty-five when she had her son and died not long after.
She was two years older than he was now when she was killed. If he made it to fifty he would be twice as old as she had ever been.
He looked off into the distance, trying to ignore the heaviness in his chest. Beside him, his Gran arranged the sunflowers - his mother’s favourite - and whispered to the dirt and grass that blanketed her daughter and son-in-law.
For the first time he allowed himself to think about what it meant for his parents to die so suddenly. Their deaths had always been about him - his loss, his pain, how it had shaped his life. Selfish as it was, it had been easier to think of it from his perspective because any other way reminded him that they had been just as real as he. They had cried and laughed and dreamed and argued and fucked and lived and hoped that they’d have the chance to wake up the next day and do it all again.
In her short moments spent as a widow, did his mother hope for a quick end or did she still fight, clinging to life until it was ripped from her? He wasn’t even sure it mattered beyond wondering what it said about her and who she had been.
“Is something wrong?” It wasn’t until he heard those words from his from his Gran that he realized he had been shaking his head, a deep frown on his face as he looked at the flowers.
“No,” he said quietly, his eyes on the headstone. “No, I just - I don’t understand. Why have a kid in the middle of war? It’s stupid.”
He spat out the last word with a force that surprised even him. Perhaps this was some long-denied moment of adolescent rebellion that had finally broken forth.
Teddy glanced at his grandmother from the corner of his eye, his face hot and an apology on his lips until he saw her expression.
“Do really you think you’re the first one to make that argument?” she drawled, reminding him strangely of McGonagall as she stared him down, the corner of her mouth inching ever-so-slightly upwards.
Of course he hadn’t been the first. From what he had overheard between Harry and Ginny, his own father hadn’t been too keen on the idea of having a child while Voldemort was trying to kill them.
“Then why?”
She brushed the dirt from her silk gloves. “It wasn’t a choice she made lightly, I assure you.”
Nothing more followed and Teddy was certain that was all the response he would receive until she spoke again, her voice softer than before and her eyes staring ahead to where his grandfather was buried.
“It is foolish and mad and I hope you never have cause to understand it but when you think each day might be your last, that desire to live can drive you to do things you never thought you would.” Her smile didn’t quite reach her eyes as she turned to look at him. “And you cling to life however you can.”
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.
Perhaps it spoke poorly of her but when faced with what had to be one of the most normal and ordinary parts of childhood, Luna was struck by how very strange and unnatural it was. Why should her children be taken from her? Why should they spend the next several years away from home only to return as adults? They wouldn’t be strangers to her - not even in her wildest imaginings could she conceive of such a gulf between her and the two little boys she loved and nourished and raised - but there would be so many important moments she would never be there to see.
A cup of hot tea was pressed into her hands and comforting arms closed around her. Rolf pressed a small kiss to her temple as he settled in beside her.
“You are worried,” he said.
“I am.”
She looked at the tent where the two boys slept under a covering charmed to reveal the starry night sky overhead. They had wanted to take one more trip before leaving for Hogwarts but her father had wanted to see them again This was her compromise.
“About them leaving?” This, most tellingly, was a question and not a statement.
Luna looked down at his hands, her forefinger tracing over the knuckles of his right hand. These were hands that tended to the wounded, that could wield a wand as easily as a quill. These hands knew her body as well as her own and had been the first to hold her sons. She loved these hands, every callus and scar.
“Yes. And no. Truthfully, I was thinking about Daddy.”
The night before she had boarded the Hogwarts Express for the first time, she asked her father if she really had to leave. He had told her only if she wanted to. The question still bothered her.
She had been nervous about Hogwarts but even more so about leaving her father. Who would help with The Quibbler? Who would remind him to water the water the Dirigible Plums at noon and dusk? Who would keep him company as he searched for Heliopaths? After her mother’s death, he had been her entire world and she his. What would become of him when she left?
But her taste for adventure and learning, her need for friends and laughter had outweighed her worries. She had left home the next morning with a heavy heart.
“This is natural. Which doesn’t mean it won’t hurt but that it has to happen,” she said softly. Rolf raised a brow at this and she kissed him quickly.
“It’s life.”
You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
He hated to admit it, but sometimes he could see why the hat put his darling Rosie in Slytherin.
No, scratch that. He would never understand why on earth his sweet little girl was put in the same house that spawned You-Know-Who.
But, if he were truly honest with himself - and it would only be with himself as he still couldn’t even admit this much out loud - some days it was less surprising than others.
Hermione had come around to the idea much quicker than he had, pointing out how Slytherin had been diluted and it was no longer filled with pure-blood fanatics just a bunch of little jumped-up twats that would one day be sitting on the Wizengamot.
She hadn’t quite said the last part but it was true.
His wife had also pointed out that he had Slytherin ancestors, like Cedrella Weasley and Lucretia Prewett. In what had to be one of the top ten biggest mistakes he had ever made with Hermione - ranking somewhere below leaving her and above not asking her to the Yule Ball first - he had unthinkingly responded that they didn’t count because they married into the family.
His ears were still ringing from that one.
He wasn’t a complete tosser, no matter what Hermione might have thought at the time. He had written Rosie to tell her how proud he was and that he hoped she tried out for Quidditch because God knows Slytherin could use all the help it could get. He had even bought her a green cloak that Christmas with a curly little silver clasp that kind of looked like a snake but really wasn’t. He couldn’t bring himself to actually buy the one with the snake clasp or the one with the Slytherin crest but it was the thought that mattered, right?
“I don’t know how you did it,” she began, looking at the picture of him during his second year with his too-short robes and broken wand. “I mean, I understand that money isn’t everything.”
But, he mentally prompted, wondering how much this was going to cost him.
“But as a kid it must have been hard to be around people with their new robes and trainers and not have the same.” Her shoulders slumped and she looked away, her face the very picture of concern and thoughtfulness. The WADA had a summer course for Hogwarts students interested in acting; he was nearly tempted to suggest it.
“Did you really wear hand-me-down robes to the Yule Ball?”
He should have seen this one coming once it was announced the TriWizard Tournament would once again be held at Hogwarts.
“You know I did,” he answered dryly.
Ducking her head as she smiled, she took the hint. “It’s only a few months away and I haven’t even been asked yet...”
That she would even offer that information told him that she had in fact been asked and was just waiting for the right moment to tell him. He had suspected as much when he has spotted the ring on a chain that she wore around her neck. She had eventually charmed it to look like a simple pendant but it had been too late. Monday morning, he would start looking into the background of every boy in Slytherin.
“But I was at the shops, and I saw this dress...”
“How much?” he asked.
“A hundred Galleons?”
“For a dress? One dress?”
She winced and he bit his tongue.
“It’s a really nice dress. Dominque says it’s by these really famous French designers and I’m sure I could wear it more than once. Or if not I could give it to Lily!”
Ron snorted at that. Last week Lily had declared glamour charms to be a tool of the patriarchy. She was more likely to protest the Yule Ball than to attend it.
“Dad...”
“Rosie, no.”
She hunched down in defeat and despite every logical instinct, for a second he found himself doing the maths. But it wasn’t about the money, it was the principle of the thing. He and Hermione wanted to set clear limits for their children.
“If you had told me sooner, we could have worked something out. You could have helped your Uncle George out at the shop during summer hols to help pay off some of the costs.”
“I know,” she admitted, her voice low and her eyes downcast. She shrugged. “It was a stupid, spur-of-the moment thing. There are other dresses. Gladrags is having a sale on some for thirty.”
He pulled out his chequebook and quill, fully intending to write her a check for thirty-five Galleons but somehow writing one for fifty instead.
His daughter hugged him tightly once he handed it over, giving him a kiss on the cheek and telling him he was the best before practically skipping out the door.
It wasn't until the door closed and Ron thought about how easily his normally-bullheaded daughter had given in that it hit him.
She’d been angling for the fifty Galleons from the start.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
Roxanne laughed, a bright, sharp sound that carried in the wind. From her place in the kitchen, she could see her daughter and husband out the window as he taught her to throw a Quaffle. Everything about her screamed that she was her father’s daughter, her mischievous nature, her freckles, her quicksilver grin, and her love of pranks were all his. Her curly hair even looked red as she basked in the sunlight.
She had been daddy’s girl since the moment she’d been born and they were thick as thieves. Roxanne had spent much of the past summer with her dad at the shop, helping him to test products and asking him how they worked. It was clear even now that Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes would be hers one day.
Freddy looked up from his textbook, frowning as the pair whooped and shouted. He hadn’t even begun his lessons and he appeared to be on his third chapter for Ancient Runes.
“I could cast a charm if you need to revise,” she suggested but he shook his head, pulling off his glasses to wipe them on his shirt.
He had his father’s clear blue eyes. In every other way he looked exactly like her maternal grandfather and Angelina had to smile, remembering the picture of a handsome man with wide grin and perfect dimples wearing a crisp Muggle uniform. Her granny had carried it with her until her dying day. But by all accounts her grandfather had been an easy-going man known for his wit. Nothing like her serious boy.
Angelina could tell he took after her in some respects. Like her, he was what some might call a “poor loser” and like her, he could sometimes become a tad obsessive about things. It was perhaps a good thing he didn’t care much for Quidditch as some parents these days would be very annoyed if their kids had to practice in the rain for hours. Some parents would also mollycoddle their kids to death but she wasn’t one to judge.
From the time he was seven years old and had quite earnestly laid out his academic and career plans, it was clear that he was a bit different from both his parents. George had actually taken her aside after their son described his intentions to earn twelve O.W.L’s before becoming Minister for Magic, and could barely contain his laughter as he asked her exactly how many Weasleys she had slept with.
He was lucky she had an excellent sense of humour.
She sat down across from him, placing a cool butterbeer in front of him while she popped the top from her own bottle. He looked up at her in surprise - they were supposed to have been out, but she had found some while cleaning the cupboard.
Angelina winked and he rewarded her with one of his rare smiles.
He didn’t offer information freely. It pained her to admit it but he always gave short answers as if he was afraid of boring them if he said much more.
She turned the book over, looking at the cover as she said, “This is a good book but I think Worthington’s companion to it is better.”
“You studied Runes?” And she wondered if he had forgotten she had been a Hogwarts student once.
“It was my favourite subject.” But only because Quidditch didn’t count.
A broad grin split his face, complete with two perfect dimples.
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
They hadn’t told the girls.
For the first several weeks only he, Audrey, and the healers had known. Percy had convinced himself that he was only doing the sensible thing. They did not have all the facts first, treatments hadn’t even been started, and they didn’t know enough to worry anyone.
That had been a lie.
Once the diagnosis had been made, there was nothing more to know. Derwent-Gamp Disease was as predictable as it was vicious. It ran in families, most notoriously the Blacks. Age of onset was usually between the ages of fifty-to-fifty-five but patients as young as thirty had been documented. The most common symptoms were shaky hands, slurred or unintelligible speech, and displays of uncontrollable magic. The disease would turn the body against itself, growing worse until finally, the patient lapsed into a coma and died.
Three years was the average life expectancy after diagnosis.
Percy had known all this but still he had kept quiet as if it was a spell that would only gain potency if someone said the words. But fear of the name only increases fear of the thing itself.
Still, he denied it, throwing himself into treatments that took away the symptoms but also took his magic as well, leaving him so drained he couldn’t get out of bed some days. He tried different other treatments as well, traditional Chinese practices that Audrey’s zēng zǔ mǔ had sworn by. Those had helped him feel better, helped him sleep better, but were helpless against the disease. In a moment of desperation, he had even bought some home-brewed potion from a hag standing near the entrance to Knockturn Alley that had energized him but left his hands too shaky to even hold a quill. He had destroyed that bottle before Audrey could see it.
They hadn’t known it, but he’d had the girls tested for the disease. He had smiled for the first time in months when the results had come back.
His brothers and sister were also free of the disease. Percy had waited for their results before telling his parents. He’s not sure what difference it made in the scheme of things but, at the time, it seemed important to do things in that order.
Sitting back in his chair, he listened to them talk over each other. It had taken him years to realize that, at least to each other, they weren’t being rude, that they could understand perfectly while they held two different conversations. Molly went on about the TriWizard Tournament, intent on putting her name in the cup even though the thought left him a bit queasy. Meanwhile, Lucy made her case against no one that The Withered Snales was the best band ever or at least was until her band got off the ground.
They had named the twins for their grandmothers though they couldn’t be more dislike them if they tried.
Well, no, that wasn’t entirely true.
Lucy liked to knit like her Grandma. She was rather skilled at it too, able to do patterns like the little skulls with pink hair bows that adorned the black socks she wore. The colour of the bow even matched the charmed pink of her asymmetrical bob so she clearly shared her Grandma’s eye for decorations and colours, he thought with a small smile.
And Molly loved all sport as evidenced by the “Quidditch Is Life” t-shirt and pyjama bottoms adorned with tiny exploding Quods. She even loved the Muggle sport hockey, joining her Nana to root for the Canucks whenever they visited Audrey’s parents. She was like his brother Charlie in a way, a natural at any sport she tried her hand at. He could easily imagine her standing on the TwiWizard Tournament platform or playing for a club like his sister had and representing England in the next Quidditch World Cup.
As for Lucy, he knew she was a good singer and could play any string instrumen set in front of her. She had kept at her violin lessons long after her sister had grown tired of them. And even if he didn’t understand it, other kids seemed to like the music she and her band made. It wouldn’t be long before she was on the Wireless.
They would set the world on fire, the two of them.
Or maybe they wouldn’t.
Maybe Molly would meet some nice wizard, a sensible lad who would look at her adoringly when she enters the chapel dressed in white. They would move into a charming country cottage and raise their own little Quidditch team. Maybe Lucy would open her own little shop of knitted goods in Diagon Alley, content to spend her days there and her nights with her friends at the local pub as they talked about anything and nothing.
Maybe they would do all that and more, living lives he couldn’t have imagined even if he’d been given a million years. They would have heartaches and triumphs that he would never share. They would grow into women that he would never meet. They would live and, if there was any mercy in the universe, be happy and grow old.
And if he could just be certain of that, it would be so much easier to let go.
You may strive to be like them,
He was a good man.
Strange to think of him as a man but at sixteen on the cusp of adulthood, that’s what he was. He was tall and broad-shouldered, peach fuzz on his chin that he was trying to turn into something a little less ridiculous-looking. There was something more than the physical changes, there was this air of surety that he already had that had taken Draco decades to achieve. He had always kept his own counsel, even as a boy, but it hadn't always been apparent.
The other day, a colleague had seen the photo he’d had on his desk of Scorpius and had mistaken it for him. Draco had scoffed, asking exactly how narcissistic she thought he was to have a photo of himself on his own desk.
The comments had stayed with him, buzzing around his head like an annoying gnat.
Not for the first time, he wished his son had the dark colouring of the Greengrasses. Having the Malfoy name was bad enough, but his fair hair and pale skin were as obvious as having a bull’s eye painted on his back.
His Sorting had only made it worse. Once he’d heard the news, it had been Scorpius’ safety he had worried about, not the Malfoy tradition. That addled hat that surely still remembered the Dark Lord trying to dispose of it had sent his son, his only child, straight into the lion’s den as a form of revenge and nothing would convince him otherwise.
Several times over the years he’d been tempted to pull his son out of school, to send him to Durmstrang or Beauxbatons or America if that had been necessary to keep him in one piece. There’d been many trips to Pomfrey over the first two years, many visits to the Headmistress where his son refused to say who exactly had been duelling with him, and many “concerned” letters from that daft sod Longbottom who couldn’t - or wouldn’t - control his own house.
Then it had stopped.
At first he had assumed that all the time practising hexes at home as well as his son becoming President of the Duelling club were the reasons. While they likely explained part of it, it didn’t explain all the new friends he had. He had barely seen Scorpius at all this summer, he'd been constantly visiting this friend or that. Those rare moments at home were spent firecalling them or waiting for their owls. Judging from what he had seen at King's Cross a few weeks ago, some of Scorpius' entourage were children of those he had gone to school with, children who had surely heard about every misdeed connected with the Malfoys - Boots and Macmillians, Potters and Weasleys.
He even had a girlfriend. Scorpius hadn't mentioned it but Draco had noticed that some letters his son received were quickly hidden away and remembered the odd look on his face when he offered up the news that he had “lost” his signet ring.
It would seem Scorpius hadn't merely beaten his tormentors - he had won them over. The very idea of it made Draco bristle but it was quite obvious that some of those little shits who had once made his son's life miserable were the ones now hanging on his every word.
Scorpius could do that. He made friends and admirers easily and not just among his peers. His teachers and tutors adored him, the Daily Prophet article he wrote about Muggles had earned him praising letters from all over the country, and after spending some of his free time this summer ladling soup and rolling bandages, half the staff at St. Mungo's were enthralled with him.
All this proved something he had always known - Scorpius was his mother's son in every way. With his intelligent olive green eyes and easy smile, Draco saw Astoria every time he looked at him. His compassion, his open nature, his stubborn independence and his quiet courage - they were all hers. It was so apparent to Draco that he didn’t know how so many people could miss it.
“I was thinking about taking some classes at a Muggle school next year,” Scorpius said suddenly, squinting into the sun as he glanced over at him.
Draco wasn't surprised. His son had asked for tutors so he could learn more about science and maths. He had just hoped it was for a particularly ambitious Muggle Studies project.
“Muggles have made some amazing advances in medicine, and Healer Chang thinks it's a great idea and that it would really give me an edge before I start my training.”
What Muggles could offer him, he couldn't imagine but he knew his son and he knew that he wasn't really being asked his permission. Though Scorpius was kind enough to make it seem so.
If he stood still long enough, he could almost feel the tremors from generations of Malfoys turning in their graves at the very idea of a Malfoy going to live among Muggles. Blood-traitor. While he'd never said those words, Lucius had made it clear while he was alive that by being so lax with Scorpius, that would be end result. Draco knew that if his father were here now, he'd point out that even Arthur Weasley hadn't gone so far in his fondness for Muggles to temporarily become one of them. If he were here, he'd insist Draco do some damage control and fast before his son ran off with his mixed-blooded girlfriend to wallow in the mud and bring down the Malfoy name with him.
If he were here.
“If your mother has no objection to it,” he began, giving his son a pointed look as he knew this was something the two had already discussed, “then I don't see a problem.”
but seek not to make them like you.
If Victoire had been half as much trouble as her sister, they would have stopped at one.
Fleur marched into the cottage, the small beaded bag tightly in her grasp as she stood at the base of the stairs. Taking a deep breath, willing herself not to yell, she called up to her daughter in French, “We need to talk, Dominique!”
From his seat on the couch, Bill looked over at her in surprise. He knew just as their children did, that when she started speaking in French, it was never a good sign.
She shook her head, doing her daughter that small favour, and began up the stairs. Entering the bedroom without knocking on the door, she snorted at the scene.
Still pretending that she was going to revise with her friends, her daughter was placing her books and parchment in a knapsack. She even had the audacity to look up at her, face a picture of innocence, and announce, “I have to get going, I don't want to be late.”
“And I'm sure you don't want to forget this either,” Fleur snapped, throwing the beaded bag on the bed.
Rather than looking ashamed, Dominique sighed as if the whole thing was very tedious. “Fine, I wasn't going to revise with Lucy.”
“And where were you going dressed like that?” she asked, pointing to the bag that held a very short dress, heels, perfume, make-up, and a what looked to be a white gold bracelet studded with gems. “And 'o is the jewellery from?”
This prompts a smile. “Sebastian Zabini gave it to me. Pink sapphires. Isn't it stunning?”
“Sebastian? What 'appened to the Smith boy you were dating?” And why did her daughter have such horrible taste in men?
Dominique gave a shrug. “Nothing. He's with his family in Switzerland which seems rather dull if you ask me. I'll probably see him when the term starts. He promised he'll get me a watch.”
“You're dating both of them?”
“It's not serious,” Dominique scoffed, twiddling the ends of her silvery-blonde hair between her fingers. “Boys just like to give me things.”
Molly Weasley's voice came to mind, muttering about “scarlet women” and Fleur felt as if she could spit fire. “In exchange for what?”
“Mother!” At this, Dominique had the good grace to look offended. “I'm not some slag, I don't sleep with them so they'll buy me things.”
Fleur's sense of relief was short-lived.
“I don't have to,” Dominique continued, looking quite pleased with herself. “They buy me things just to be seen with me.”
She was no Molly Weasley. She knew her children would date, would have their romances, and she had no expectations that they keep themselves chaste before marriage. What she had expected, however, was that they'd be a bit less cynical about it. She had raised her children to be romantics, to appreciate love as a gift in and of itself, one of the few truly beautiful things life had to offer.
Instead, her two youngest seemed to think of it as a game to be won and her eldest approached it with all the solemness of a funeral, choosing a partner as sombre and moody as she.
Fleur blamed English culture. As she had told Gabrielle, they were all quite prudish and it gave them warped attitudes about sex and romance.
“I don't promise them anything either if that's what you're thinking,” Dominique added churlishly.
She raised a brow at this. “I don't like your tone.”
“Why are you angry with me? It's not like I asked to be part-Veela. Why shouldn't I have fun with it?”
“This is your idea of fun?”she asked, unthinkingly switching back to her native tongue. “Gilding the rose--”
“Lily.”
“So you can toy with the emotions of boys and get trinkets from them?” She was as bad as some of her cousins - they had joined the Bulgarian dancing squad for the expressed purpose of meeting some rich Quidditch player who would buy them anything they wanted.
Dominique folded her arms with a huff. “It's not as if I'm lying to them. They want someone pretty and fun, and I like going places. Besides, I'm an adult now.”
It was Fleur's turn to scoff.
“And I can do as I please,” she finished, her arms crossed in front of her and her nose in the air.
“Not under my 'ouse. You're not going anywhere tonight.” Tomorrow she would leave to return to Hogwarts and Fleur would have to hope for the best, but for tonight she was still in control.
“Mother!”
“And I will be taking this,” she added, grabbing the beaded bag. “You can focus on your revising.”
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.
Seventeen years later, he could finally say that Hermione had been wrong.
He had told her so then, but even at the time, he had known it was more out of his own stubborn belief than anything else. It had felt so right to name his children after his parents and Ginny had so readily agreed that when Hermione had voiced her objection, it had felt like a rebuke. Harry knew now that he shouldn't have taken it as personally as he did, that, as always, Hermione meant the best.
At the time, however, hearing that he was possibly hurting his children, forcing them to live up to people made larger than life by two wars, hurt. He didn't care what they had meant to the wizarding world, they had been his parents and he wanted his children to be named for them and the only person who could tell him otherwise was Ginny. After everything that he'd given and everything that had been taken from him, why couldn't he have that?
In a move that was equal parts love and defiance, Harry had named his first child James Sirius. He had reasoned at the time that even with that name, it wasn't as if he had to be like his namesakes. Maybe he would take after his Grandfather Arthur and be someone more mild-mannered.
“Hufflepuff doesn't stand a chance.” James said, releasing the Snitch he carried with him and watching it buzz around his head. “Better luck next year, Lils.”
Sometime around his third birthday it became evident that James most definitely was not “mild-mannered” or anything else that could be confused for it. His son didn't have that same raw anger that Sirius had, and both he and Ginny had worked hard to make him less arrogant than the first James Potter had been. Yet, like both men, James was cocky and reckless and loved to laugh and be the centre of a crowd.
Plucking the Snitch out of the air, Lily flashed her brother a grin. “Don't count us out just yet.”
His youngest had all the fire of her mother and both her grandmothers. And like both her namesakes, she had an intrinsic sense of fairness.
Despite knowing that he wanted his daughter to be named for his mum, he had told Ginny a few weeks before she was born that perhaps they should think about other names. The comments surrounding the choice of name for their middle child were still too fresh, and he became convinced that Hermione was right and he had made the sort of mistake that would result in years of therapy for his two boys.
Ginny had been equal parts confused and annoyed as she had believed they had long settled on the first name and it was only the middle name they had to decide. When he told her the reason behind his change of mind, she had only sighed and said, “Oh, Harry. That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard.”
She had then spent the following thirty minutes pointing out that half the wizarding world had no problem naming their sons after Harry, that Albus was going to be one of several boys in his year with that name, and that - if anything - it would be their last name that people noticed.
“We could be utter prats and name her Orange Quaffle Potter, it doesn't matter. She's still going to be our kid, Harry.”
That last sentence was more of a warning than a reassurance. No matter what their names, they'd still be measured against their mum, their famous aunts and uncles, and yes, their father. Unless they were willing to join the Grangers in Australia or go Muggle, there weren't any other options for them. The realisation was both freeing and crushing.
But, thankfully, more so for him than his children.
“What do you say, Al?” Lily dropped down beside her brother, pulling his book from his lap.
“He thinks you're mental but is too nice to say so,” James offered while Al rolled his eyes at once again being caught in the middle of one of their spats.
His children had never known neglect nor want. The war for them was something they'd learn in class along with Arithmancy or Potions. They weren't shackled to the past like he was. There would be no prophecies laying out their lives for them.
They would make their own paths in the world.
You are the bows from which your children
as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite,
and He bends you with His might
that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies,
so He loves also the bow that is stable.