Springfic: "My Father Before Me" for midnitemaraud_r

[springmod]

Title: My Father Before Me
Author: jtav
Recipient: midnitemaraud_r
Character(s): Teddy Lupin, Cedric Diggory
Rating: PG
Wordcount: 8,900 words
Warnings (highlight to view): AU
Summary: Teddy and Cedric make a vow to reform the Centaur Liaison Office, but the price may be more than they can bear.
Betas: Bookofsecrets and Mhazie

Comments

[lyras]

Firstly, this is shallow of me, but I have such a crush on your Cedric! *sighs* Stories like this really make me wish he had survived, because you just know that he'd be exactly like this as an adult: brave, kind and determined to do whatever's right, regardless of the effect on his career.

I will not have it said that my grandson failed in the performance of his duties

I love this. Yay for Andromeda!

Firenze calmed with visible effort. "Such arrogance!" he whispered. "You are like all the others of your kind, assuming that every being wants the same things that you do. We are not merely humans with horses' legs. We are centaurs."

I really like the way that you tease out the hints we're given in canon about the centaurs and the fact that they really are so very different. The ancestor aspect was very moving, and it's so typical that modern wizards wouldn't be aware in the slightest of the terrible damage their politics did so long ago.

The ending is beautifully done, too, and I especially liked the last line.

[jtav]

Thank you. I do dearly love Cedric, and I think he would have grown up like this had he lived. The centaurs were really fun to flesh out.

[vegablack62]

I loved your depiction of Cedric. I always believed that the Hufflepuffs didn't often succeed because they cared about other principles more than winning. To me that was shown best in the scene in the third book where Cedric wants to replay a game he won, because he didn't like how he did it. You captured that perfectly in your Cedric. He is a man of principle and he is willing to suffer for his principles. The Centaur history and culture was real and believable. I liked this.

[lyras]

Well, there goes my author guess; I strongly suspected that you had written this. :)

[vegablack62]

No, I wish I had. The vision of the Centaurs and their culture was well thought out and believable. I loved the Cedric; a mellow grown man who didn't have an overblown heroic vision of himself, but lived his principles.

[author_by_night]

I suspected that as well!

[author_by_night]

I love how you had two storylines here - one with Teddy and his father, one with Cedric. I liked reading an older, but not too old, Teddy. It's nice to see that he's mostly content, but still, of course, misses his father. Teddy trying to talk to Moony broke the heart of the fangirl in me.

I also liked your take on the Centaurs.

[jtav]

Thanks so much.

[shiiki]

Oh wow. You've got this fest off to a fantastic start, mystery author. This was a fantastic story! I really enjoyed how you pulled all parts of the plot together and integrated what we know of Cedric, the centaurs, and what we could possibly extrapolate for Teddy's character into something so very plausible.

I enjoyed particularly all the little details you put in - the symptoms of a wizarding malady, centaur history, and especially the way Jakob Goldstein thought he was exempt from sacking simply by being related to Anthony! (It is a little chilling how things seem to have gone the other way a little, but not implausible either.) All very creative and it made this story so rich!

Well done!

[jtav]

Thank you. I was going for a "meet the new boss, same as the old boss" feeling. People used to brag about being pureblooded, now they brag about being related to the DA. I was one of the fans dissatisfied with the epilogue, so this fic was in some ways a response to "all was well." Glad you enjoyed.

[midnitemaraud_r]

YAY!!! Oh, this is WONDERFUL! Thank you so so much!

[jtav]

I'm so relieved that you enjoyed this. When I got my assignment, I was like, "I'm writing for her? But she's good!" I tried to include a few nods to "Rise from the Ashes," even though this Teddy is a died in the wool Gryff. I'm just sorry I couldn't write a Sirius story for you. There may be a sequel, but it would probably be Cedric-centric and not gen.

I confess to shamelessly cribbing from Min's essays on Native Americans when writing the centaurs so I can't take full credit for them. As for Cedric being "middle-aged," Teddy is a teenager. Be grateful he didn't call him old :)