Fic: Perspective

[stereolightning.livejournal.com]

Author: stereolightning
Title: Perspective
Rating & Warnings: PG
Word Count: 1360ish
Prompt: gilpin25's prompt #4: Teddy hears tales of his parents from those who knew them.
Summary: Teddy finds out a few unusual details about his parents from a few unusual people - namely Luna Lovegood and Rolf Scamander.
Notes: Okay, this is my last fic for this exchange. But I had one more idea I wanted to explore. :)

Teddy stood in the kitchen at Luna's house, helping her orchestrate a massive dirigible plum jam project, which involved charming knives to slice and pit the fruit, and which was turning out to be quite tricky because the plums kept floating away. Luna did not seem particularly troubled by this; she simply followed the little orange plums around the room and set them back on the cutting board at intervals.

“Anyway,” said Teddy, measuring sugar and tipping it into the boiling jam on the stove, “people say I look like him. I mean, you know, when I'm not doing anything to my face.”

Luna blinked her silvery eyes at him. “You do,” she said.

Her twin sons were sleeping, floating in their enchanted bassinets, a few feet away. They both wore weird knitted hats with purple tentacles. In the living room, a lesser-horned snorkack with a broken ankle chewed on an assortment of cabbages.

“What was he like?” asked Teddy, reaching for a wooden spoon.

Luna smiled airily and caught another escaped plum. “You know, he was the only other person Peeves called Loony. As far as I know. I always felt a sort of kinship with him because of that.”

Teddy frowned. “Peeves doesn't call me Loony.”

“No, I don't see why he would,” said Luna.

“Calls me lots of other things though. Ickle swot, swine-snout – ”

She nodded serenely. "Yes, Peeves does enjoy wordplay. He was a poet in life. Contemporary of Chaucer. Some of his scrolls are up in the library. The Bawdy Bard. Some of his verses were very enlightening to me, as a girl."

Teddy suppressed a smile, thinking of a very young Luna poring over naughty poems in the library with her typical detached interest. He made a mental note to go and look for the Bawdy Bard before he matriculated in a few months' time.

“I did not know your father especially well, Teddy, but I did like him very much. We had many conversations about interesting creatures, when he was a teacher. Sometimes I got the impression he found me amusing or perhaps a bit odd, but most people do. Although a lot of girls in our year fancied him, so, perhaps he was worried that my intentions were something other than pedagogical.”

“Girls fancied him?”

“Oh, yes. I did not see the appeal myself, but I suppose he was attractive, in a quiet, academic sort of way.” She tilted her head slightly to one side, and then said, “He was taken ill rather often. I did wonder whether he might be a gillyweed addict.”

“And, and you knew my Mum a little bit, right?”

Luna nodded again. “I met her a few times.”

“What was she like?”

“Fast.”

Teddy screwed up his face. “What do you mean, fast?”

“Well, most of the times I saw her, she was running very fast and hexing Dark wizards. She was an Auror. But I don't think she was part of the Rotfang conspiracy. I didn't get that impression. I saw her at Bill Weasley's wedding, and she had nice teeth, so probably not.”

Teddy was unsure whether to laugh.

Just then, Luna's husband Rolf appeared in the fireplace, spinning through green flames, balancing a pile of packages precariously in his arms. Teddy had met him before; he was a New Yorker and probably the oddest person Teddy had ever met. Which was saying something, because Teddy knew a lot of odd people.

“Hiya Ted,” said Rolf, levitating his packages onto the kitchen table. “Oh, the little banshees are asleep. Well, jeez, they must really like you, Teddy. They've been on a screaming jag for days.”

“We were just talking about Remus Lupin,” said Luna.

“Oh, right on,” said Rolf, nodding and tearing open one of his packages, which contained a large number of mossy green balls, some of which appeared to have eyes. “I never met him, personally, but I read his research. Really good stuff. Really cracking, as you Brits might say.”

Rolf chuckled to himself; he was an inveterate Anglophile and he seemed perpetually delighted to be married to an Englishwoman.

“You read his research?” asked Teddy.

“Mmm hmm,” said Rolf, conjuring a fishbowl out of thin air and plopping the little balls of moss into it. “He published a lot of papers about magical fauna. His father was a naturalist as well. Lu, didn't Lyall Lupin write that eight-volume study of boggarts?”

“Yes, I think so,” said Luna.

“Yeah. Insightful dudes,” said Rolf. “I always enjoyed reading them. Your Dad had this particular way of writing – like a subtle little amusement all the time, like he was sharing a private joke with you – very English. Love that. I have some of his stuff. Back issues of Magizoology Monthly. You wanna read one?”

Teddy blinked, astounded. No one had ever told him this before. “Yes.”

Rolf flicked his wand in the direction of the library, and a couple of yellowing magazines zoomed into the room. Teddy caught them. There were pictures of bizarre animals on the covers – some kind of ruminant with thick purple fur. Something that looked like an eight-foot-tall tap-dancing ferret.

“Well anywho, yeah, I never met your Dad,” Rolf continued, “but our grandfathers knew each other. Lyall and Newt.”

“They did?” asked Teddy, surprised again.

“Yup. They were pen friends, of a sort. They wrote letters for years and years. Disagreed about some things, obviously.”

“Like what?”

“Like whether werewolves are beasts or beings. Oh, grandpa Newt. Open-minded in many respects, but thoroughly closed in others.” Rolf shook his head. “Anyway. I'm thinking of publishing a new edition of Fantastic Beasts, re-titled as Fantastic Beasts and Beings.”

Teddy set down the magazines on the seat of a nearby chair. “Rolf, did you know my Mum at all?” he asked.

“Can't say that I did,” said Rolf.

“No, I suppose you wouldn't have. She was really young. Younger than my Dad, I mean,” said Teddy. “I guess he was sort of old when I was born. He was like, I dunno, close to forty.”

Rolf looked up from the moss balls, which were now swimming in circles in the fishbowl and making soft gurgling noises. “Well, I just had my first babies, and I'm forty-three,” he said.

“Oh,” said Teddy. “Erm. Sorry?”

Rolf gave his usual weird laugh, which always reminded Teddy of a small, yipping dog. “No worries. I'm not offended. God, you are so polite.”

Luna offered a spoonful of jam to her husband, who swiped a finger through it and tasted it.

“I think it needs something. Rosemary would be good,” she said. “What do you think, Teddy?”

Teddy spooned some of the jam out of the pot, waiting for it to cool before sampling it. “Er. Yeah. That sounds cool,” he said.

Luna's cookery was often very strange, but sometimes strangely brilliant. Hit-or-miss, really.

“Well, he looked very happy when you were born, Teddy. Ecstatic. Not like a gillyweed addict at all,” said Luna.

“How do you know that?” asked Teddy, his mouth full of hot jam.

“I saw him,” she said. “He came to find Harry and I was there. He had rather a lot to drink and said some very kind things about you and your mother.”

Teddy's feet tingled, and he realized he was floating a few inches off the ground. So were Rolf and Luna. He deduced that this must be because of the dirigible plums they had just eaten. He drifted toward the stack of magazines and opened one.

“Anyway,” said Luna, scooping up one of her sons, who had just woken and started to make disagreeable little noises. “It is very sad, of course, that they died, but you can usually find them, when you need them. Or they find you. I suppose that last is a matter of perspective.”

“Yeah,” said Teddy, flipping through the magazine to the page with his father's name on it. “Suppose so.”

He folded his legs, still floating mid-air, and read.

Comments

[author-by-night.livejournal.com]

I liked this very much! Luna had an interesting take on them. And I really like Rolf.

[stereolightning.livejournal.com]

Thanks! I figure Luna remembers Teddy's parents fairly differently than other people do. And I also figure she would marry a pretty quirky guy. :)

[starfishstar]

Oh, Luna's lovely here, you've really got the way she sums up people with simple, odd, yet entirely fitting statements. (Or Tonks summed up in just the word "fast"!! Awesome.) And "You can usually find them, when you need them" – that's so Luna, exactly her perspective on death.

I very much like the concept of Teddy getting little bits and pieces of his parents from unexpected sources (like Rolf, who never even knew them) as well as the obvious ones. And it's great that there's this Teddy-Luna-Remus connection via strange creatures.

"girls fancied [Remus]" – hee, yes, definitely. And I like how you have Rolf turn around the whole "Remus was so old" thing...because he really wasn't.

"Which was saying something, because Teddy knew a lot of odd people." = love.

[stereolightning.livejournal.com]

Hee! Thank you. I adore Luna - she is so wonderfully blunt and strange and sweet. I can totally imagine her talking Lupin's ear off about magical creatures when she was a student, and I can totally imagine him being amused by it.

"Which was saying something, because Teddy knew a lot of odd people." = love.

I really think he must know a lot of interesting people! He's kind of the meeting point for everybody - Slytherins, Gryffindors, Muggles, everybody Harry knows, everybody Andromeda knows...

[huldrejenta.livejournal.com]

Luna is one of my absolute favourite characters in the HP world, and now you've made Rolf one of my favourites too :) (Love how he's all anglophile!)

This is a wonderful moment, and it makes me want to give all of them a big hug.

I love how Luna gives Teddy a different perspective on his parents than other people do, like this, which I really love:
“Well, most of the times I saw her, she was running very fast and hexing Dark wizards. She was an Auror. But I don't think she was part of the Rotfang conspiracy. I didn't get that impression. I saw her at Bill Weasley's wedding, and she had nice teeth, so probably not.”
♥

Remus having published research papers makes me so happy; I really hope he did.

And I love the thought of Luna's twins wearing knitted hats with purple tentacles :D

The ending is lovely, and very much something Luna would say:
“It is very sad, of course, that they died, but you can usually find them, when you need them. Or they find you. I suppose that last is a matter of perspective.”

All in all a really lovely read!

[stereolightning.livejournal.com]

Luna is one of my absolute favourite characters in the HP world, and now you've made Rolf one of my favourites too :) (Love how he's all anglophile!)

Thanks! The only thing I know about this upcoming "Fantastic Beasts" movie is that it starts in New York, so I figured why not have Newt Scamander's offspring end up staying there and being Americans. It gives me an excuse to write in my own dialect, and to express my own Anglophilia. :) Plus, whoever marries Luna has to be a real interesting cat. I kind of picture him as Gale Boetticher from Breaking Bad, only more manic.

Remus having published research papers makes me so happy; I really hope he did.

Me, too. I've seen this idea expressed in other fics - shimotsuki has a bit of that in All Will Be In Order (http://shimotsuki.livejournal.com/5240.html).

[gilpin25.livejournal.com]

you can usually find them, when you need them. Or they find you

How apt that they do exactly that in this fic! I love Luna's observations - perhaps he was worried that my intentions were something other than pedagogical - and you've captured exactly how she comes out with these off-the-wall and yet astute statements. Tonks would probably be rather chuffed with Luna's summing up of her, and I bet no one else thought to tell Teddy his mother had good teeth. Such things are important, lol.

I like Rolf scoffing at the Remus-being-old theory, too, and he's lots of fun, as is their household. Someone should draw the twins in enchanted bassinets and tentacle hats. Most of all, I like how Teddy ends up floating and reading in mid-air, which probably is down to the plums, but also leaves me thinking what he's found out has done him good.

Lovely read. A lovely Luna. :)

[stereolightning.livejournal.com]

Thank you! I love Luna to pieces. I also cherish the idea of her being one of Teddy's many, many unofficial aunties who he can go hang out with and get affection from. And, ha, yes, I was thinking Luna probably only saw Tonks a couple of times - the Ministry in OotP, Bill's wedding, Dumbledore's funeral? So she'd have an especially odd take. And I feel like there's an affinity between Remus' perpetual calmness and Luna's perpetual Zen mildness, so she's kind of a nice stand-in for that to Teddy.

:)

[shimotsuki.livejournal.com]

The whimsy here is so much fun. I love your Luna (which reminds me, there's a fic I've been wanting to read!), and Rolf the Anglophile New Yorker is a blast. And the details -- like what happens when you eat dirigible-plum jam!

I really like the idea of Luna and Rolf giving Teddy new insights into his parents, knowing things about them that the Potter-Weasley gang might not know. It makes me smile to think of Teddy reading his father's published articles, and learning to know that voice with its dry subtle wit.

This story just has such a sweet, gentle feel to it -- especially with Teddy's affection for Luna and appreciation for Rolf, and the way he takes all their little oddities in stride.

[stereolightning.livejournal.com]

Thank you! It's fun to write the odd American witch or wizard. I think they sound WAY different when they cast spells, though, with those hard r's. Well, you're the linguistics expert. :)

especially with Teddy's affection for Luna and appreciation for Rolf, and the way he takes all their little oddities in stride.

Yes, I think of him as a person extremely tolerant of difference, maybe because he's at the intersection of so many social groups. Plus, with parents like that, he's gotta be a sweet kid. ;)