fic: "Winged Nike" (Harry Potter, Teddy/Victoire) for starrika
Title: "Winged Nike"
Fandom: Harry Potter
Pairing: Teddy Lupin/Victoire Weasley
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: JKR owns the characters; I am just borrowing them.
Spoilers/Timeline: The entire series.
Notes: For starrika in the axial_tilt 2008 exchange. Happy springtime!
Summary: They are, both, painted beauties.
Wordcount: 550



Winged Nike


A thing half like a cousin, but without the messiness of blood and breeding, something like a Veela, not so's you'd notice, naturally, not so she stunned men or turned heads in anything but the natural sense -- not like her mum, even, not so -- aloof, really, is the word for Tante Fleur, a little affected, a little too mannered, a little unnatural in front of the mirror. She never fattened like Aunt Ginny; her temper never flattened like Aunt Hermione's.

Teddy Lupin has nothing -- nothing -- but aunties and uncles. They aren't by rights his -- they belong to Potters and Longbottoms and the whole Weasley connection -- but he's been allowed to share them, all his life, and flowed between families as he did between appearances, hair bright red or messy and black, eyes flashing green or softly blue, skin freckled and pale or ruddy and sunburnt.

It'd be hard not to be a little obsessed by the appearances of things, of people especially -- and not just because of his mum. Mum was like him, could shift and shape herself into any form she wanted, wear any face, do wicked impressions Aunt Ginny tells him this kindly, too soft, all cuddles and coddling. "She'd do a pig snout, that was the best, really, but she could do Lupin -- that's your dad, of course -- too, and not just the looks. She could wrinkle her nose just like him, make her voice like his, all gravelly and...." That's Mum (and Dad, too), but it's the Black heritage, sometimes, that feels stronger. Gran's obsessive about housekeeping, appearances, forcefully reminding the rest of their world that she was the Black sister who didn't go bad. He doesn't like it, exactly, but that's the world as it is, the gospel according to Gran. Keep up appearances. Keep your nose clean and your chin up, your folks were war heroes so don't you dare go pretending they weren't and your ancestry is as clean as anyone's and your Granddad was Muggleborn. Teddy wouldn't mind having a family really at all, Mum and Dad and brothers and sisters, but he'd be quite content with half as many ancestors as he has. Gran, who's gone in for Muggle religion (gone a bit funny has she, schoolmates ask without tact), calls them a cloud of witnesses. Teddy calls them a raincloud, and he can't see past them to the face that's his.

Victoire, sometime, became his sunbeam. Because she has Veela blood it's easy to excuse recycled phrases and claim they're fresh, to see her some morning and forget his own eyes in the mistiness of hers. Easy but not right, because the Veela blood's so faint that Tante Fleur, even Tante Fleur, who will claim with a swish that looks are not only unimportant, they are deceptive, snares of men, is worried that Victoire dates too little, is fancied by too few.

Whether he sees past the Veela skin into the witchy soul or the other way around, through ordinary flesh into the Veela's enchantment, Teddy doesn't know. His own face can tell so many lies he doesn't dare trust hers, but she's wary, too, and the dance between them is too little like recognition, too much like subterfuge, and they're looking past each other into a world that only mirrors springtime.