victoire weasley is a pokemon master. (befreckled) wrote in flippedrpg, @ 2012-04-26 04:59:00 |
|
|||
Entry tags: | ! narrative, ch: can: victoire weasley, p: lucy |
WHO: Victoire Weasley.
WHAT: Giving her mama the gift Mr. Gamma gave her.
WHEN: Thursday evening.
WHERE: The makeshift Taken graveyard.
WARNINGS: SAD?
STATUS: Complete narrative.
The last time Victoire had seen her mother had been at the trial. Before that she'd seen her father throwing her mother out to the streets for being a changeling-harlot (Victoire had nearly bitten through her lip when he talked about it sometimes, because hey dad, did you know you're a werewolf?!). She'd only spoken to her mother through the journals from that moment on, had only gotten word from various adults - Remus, whose family she'd been staying with for most of the flip, staying in the house where Teddy and his parents lived. Victoire could barely remember most of the week. Teddy had more or less shoved her through it while she bit her tongue more and more and more - speaking in French was speaking in tongues, speaking up for her mother was proof she could not be saved, and the entire world seemed to be a giant, gaping trap of death, the jaws closing more and more tightly around Fleur even as Victoire tried to believe in the various family members who tried to reassure her.
Teddy had talked about everything and nothing. He never said the words exactly, because Teddy was a terrible, horrible liar - or maybe Victoire had just known him for too long - and so he talked about Star Wars and how grounded Susie would be later, and how he was thinking about maybe trying to get his hands on a pocket watch to get started on that whole clockmaker thing. He'd told Victoire her favourite stories from memory (with obvious enhancements, since not all of her childhood books had jedi knights in them) and he'd tried to get Little Bear to learn to roll over while Victoire sat idly nearby, knees drawn up to her chin, as they didn't quite watch the sheep. Dora and Remus had hugged her, had looked out for her through the various shades of crazy, but Victoire was so far from her normal frame of mind she barely registered everything. It was all just vague, her sense of time muddled, everything piling on further and further. It wasn't just her mother who was on trial.
It wasn't just her mother who had died.
Thursday evening was bittersweet. People were coming back to themselves. Susan had come back to herself, had been crying, and Victoire couldn't even find it in herself to be that upset with Susie, had just wanted her daughter to come and find her so she could hug her, could be certain it was Susan and not some trick. Susan who was smart and strong and adult even though sometimes she'd look at Teddy and Victoire and seem so small, looking for the people they would become (or maybe the people they were). Susan coming to their house was really what made Victoire move, what made her stop clinging to Teddy. She'd screamed at Fleur's trial, but after the verdict she'd just stayed in the household, quiet as a mouse, staying back sick from the horrid school, from church where she'd likely see her father praising the lord about her mama's death-to-be. Normally Victoire talked a mile a minute; normally she was doing something, almost always getting Teddy into nonsense or going along with his ideas for a change, or just - doing things. She hadn't been allowed to go to the hanging, knew her mama hadn't wanted her there, and so she'd stayed back, curled up in bed with Teddy sitting there reading from the bible because they didn't have any other books, Little Bear licking at her ankles.
When the front door opened in the late afternoon, she'd known it was over.
No one was that willing to let Victoire see her mother's lifeless body, and she'd known that would be the case (and she didn't think she could take that, just shook her head and gripped someone's hand, lips in a thin, silent line). But the grave was another matter, and in the early evening after Susan had come to see them, Victoire tugged on Teddy's arm and told him she wanted to go. She'd clung to the bouquet of flowers Mr. Gamma had sent her, the flowers that had appeared on the bed within moments, and eventually she'd gotten to go to see her mother's grave. There were other graves, too. Victoire had pulled out a flower for each, given them to Teddy without a word - except Helena's flower, which they'd put there together - but she'd just sat down at Fleur Delacour's grave with the flowers, had placed them by the headstone very quietly.
Fleur had always liked the scent of lavenders. They'd had them around the cottage sometimes, and Victoire had always preferred sunflowers or daisies with their bright, cheerful yellow.
Victoire had no idea what to say. This Fleur hadn't known her at first, hadn't remembered her. Didn't remember scolding Victoire all those times, or letting her off for swearing when it was done in French. Didn't remember Victoire ruining so many pretty dresses just because she and Teddy seemed to be magnets for mud puddles even on perfectly dry, hot summer days. This Fleur still spoke with a heavy accent, still had to resort to speaking in French at times. This Fleur wasn't yet a Weasley.
Except. Except she'd believed Victoire after they'd met, and she'd apologized for not realizing. She'd pulled Victoire out of the suddenly frozen lake in the Compound when the water world flipped to ice. She'd been scared out of her mind when Victoire couldn't speak after she and Teddy had kind of sort of maybe harassed an Assistant, and had then been irritated after she'd figured out what had happened, catching the guilt in Victoire's words without a second's hesitation. Except this was her mother, regardless of the age, regardless of the memories.
She wasn't angry at her mother. She didn't think she could even cry anymore - except she might have been crying then, Victoire realized. She didn't know what it was she felt. Teddy had asked the force to be with them. She never got to see our play, Victoire thought, and then she felt stupid for thinking it.
Finally Victoire reached out for the flowers again, took one of the remaining stalks, and held it to her, very, very carefully. "I love you, mama," she informed the gravestone, the flowers, the air, a bare whisper in French.
She thought about it some more, but Victoire couldn't find anything else to say. When Teddy circled back around she reached up, and let him pull her to her feet.
Victoire didn't drop his hand until they were back home.