luna_in_the_sky (luna_in_the_sky) wrote in snark_n_bark, @ 2008-01-25 16:01:00 |
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Entry tags: | complete, luna, neville |
Now that she's back from that soul vacation
Characters: Luna, Neville, G&N, Swash, Laurence, and special guest star
Summary: Just a typical sort of day for the Lovegoods. Really.
Luna heard the whoosh of the Floo and headed into the living room, wiping her hands and forearms with a dishcloth. At least there'd been enough burbling warning that she'd stepped back in time to keep from getting exploding soup on the rest of her. "I had a bit of an accident, and I think dinner's going to be a little late getting on the table, Dad.... " she called out as she was walking, then stopped short as she actually entered the room and saw who he had brought through with him. She swallowed hard, but the sound of it was lost in the tinny rush in her ears. "And Mum. I'll tell Neville to set another place. We weren't expecting you."
"I'm sorry. Pandora just showed up at the office a few hours ago. I didn't think to call until we were about to leave, and it seemed silly to give just a moment's warning," Laurence said. His smile was sheepish, but otherwise undisturbed.
"It took me a while to find the office, since the last time I was alive, The Quibbler was still being printed in our living room. It was a bit of a hassle." Pandora smiled up at Laurence and kissed his cheek. "Not that I'm not proud of you, dear."
Hearing her mum speak so casually about her return to the living calmed Luna's initial surprise. "Right, um. Make yourselves at home while I go let Neville know we have an extra guest. Dad knows where everything is." After a moment's hesitation, she hugged her mother fiercely. "I've missed you," she said before going in search of Neville.
She found him upstairs, getting the twins ready for dinner. "We're going to have to set another place for dinner. Dad brought my mum with him."
"That's nice," Neville murmured absentmindedly. He was preoccupied with coaxing Gawain's stubborn legs into a pair of dungarees, so it took a moment or two for him to realise just who Luna had said would be joining them for dinner. When it sank in, his hands froze.
"Your mum?" he questioned, staring down at Gawain, who had stopped waving his legs about now that there was nothing to resist. His forehead creased, and he turned his head to the side so he could see Luna's face. His eyes widened again. "Your mum? But how - ?"
Luna gave him a wide shrug. "Dad said she showed up at the office a few hours ago, and then she said it took a while to find the office since the paper was still printed in our living room the last time she was alive, and then I came to find you. I don't think the 'how' really matters to either of them. Or me." She wrapped her arms around her chest. "She's not the only formerly-living-impaired person we know."
Neville swiftly moved to her side and wrapped his arms around her. "I guess not. This is good news. It's surprising... but good." He repeated that silently to himself, quietening all of the questions and the doubts. Laurence would know if it was really his wife, and, Godric, Luna was right - Pandora Lovegood would not be the first person thought dead to suddenly return to the wizarding world.
"Good. Good," he muttered, loosening his hold on Luna, and then moving back to where the twins lay on their changing mats. They were quiet and watchful, having picked up on the strange atmosphere in the room. Seeking to reassure both them, and himself, he resumed the battle of the dungarees. "Come on, Sprog. Nanny Lovegood is waiting to meet you." He was rewarded with a defiant kick from Gawain, and a giggle from Nimue.
"Are you sure he wants to wear those?" Luna said dubiously, then shook her head. There wasn't really time to make new wardrobe selections and finish dinner as well. "Here, let me finish dressing him and you get Nimue." Gawain heaved a tiny sigh as Luna took over, gave one last futile kick, then docilely allowed her to finish pulling the dungarees up his legs and over his bottom. At least he'd learned early on that Mummy quickly became inured to sniffling and tragic eyes, and that she could outlast him in stubbornness if needed.
"All right, I'll leave you to bring Nimue down and collect my parents. I've got to finish dinner after I get Gawain in his high chair," Luna said. She lifted Gawain and kissed the top of his head, telling him what a good boy he was for behaving while she dressed him as she headed downstairs.
Neville watched her go, trying to gauge how she was feeling about the strange turn of events. He supposed there was nothing he could do except play along and be there for Luna however this fell out.
He turned back to Nimue. She was fully dressed by dint of the fact Neville had become very good at supplying her with something shiny to examine while he carefully manipulated her limbs. The only problem with that was when he had to slip her arms into anything. However, he had navigated that today by holding the string of a bauble left over from Christmas in his teeth. "Come on, Petal," he said, as he picked her up. "Let's go meet your nan."
Not sure what to expect when he entered the living room, Neville hesitated on the threshold. It seemed that Luna had gone straight through to put Gawain in his chair and deal with the dinner, but Laurence and Pandora were still in the living room. They turned towards him as he stepped forward, and Neville's eyes widened as he clapped eyes for the first time on the woman who, without a shadow of a doubt, was Luna's mother.
"Er, hello," he greeted inadequately, shifting Nimue higher in his grasp. He was slightly comforted by the fact his daughter took the opportunity to examine his face through the medium of hand patting.
"So you would be this Neville I hear got my daughter to marry him. After getting her pregnant," Pandora said, ignoring such niceties as greetings as she looked Neville up and down shrewdly, her fists on her hips.
"Pandora.... " Laurence began, but was interrupted.
"Don't you 'Pandora' me. I know how much of a pushover you are," she said, her tone much softer than the stern look she had fixed upon Neville.
Neville was beginning to think that he had been most unfair back when he had worried about meeting Laurence. It seemed that Pandora was the one to worry about. He let Nimue tug on his hair in exchange for the protection he thought holding Pandora's granddaughter might afford him. "It's, er, it's good to finally meet you," he managed to stammer.
Pandora raised both of her pale eyebrows. "I shall assume that was a most Gryffindorish attempt to be polite and not an outright lie. Since you don't seem to have any defense for the first two, I'll have to discuss them with Luna. Her answers had best be more satisfactory." She left what would happen if they weren't to his imagination, hoping that worked better than the boy's tongue. "Now, Laurence says that you're an Herbologist. Last time I was around, gardening wasn't a terribly prestigious profession. Are you sure you're capable of supporting a family?"
"You married the editor, writer, and photographer of The Quibbler back when it was one sheet of parchment and had a subscription base of my family," Laurence pointed out helpfully, tossing Neville a wink for good measure. He knew Pandora was just on a bit of a protective streak, but Neville now looked even more terrified than the first time the two of them had met.
"Yes, well." Pandora cleared her throat. "Perhaps I don't want Luna to have to go without until she come into her inheritance like I did. Though, I suppose she already has, sometime while I was dead. I don't remember anything from then." She could hear the wistful note in her voice at the end and re-schooled her features to stamp out any softness that might have crept into her expression.
Neville carefully disentangled Nimue's fingers from his hair, her grip having become a little too enthusiastic. His hair and face no longer of interest, she began patting at his chest over the area where she knew the moth tattoo was. "I mostly supply ingredients to apothecaries and potions makers," he told his mother-in-law quietly. "It's steady business with large contracts involved. I'm very good at supplying plants that are difficult to grow in this country. I'd say that Luna and the twins are comfortable on my income. Of course, Luna doesn't have to rely on that," he added. "She has her own career, after all."
"So, you're capable of stringing together more than one sentence after all." Out of the corner of her eye, Pandora saw Laurence rubbing his hands over his face, but she ignored his theatrics. "I trust you're fully capable of taking care of the children when Luna's working? I understand she's consulting for the paper now, so she still travels a good bit." This time the sarcasm in her voice wasn't directed at Neville, and Laurence blushed guiltily when she briefly turned to him, just as she'd suspected. They'd have more words on that later, but she didn't really want to row with her husband on her first day back from the dead. "Well, I suppose it's good that she has someone providing a stable place for the children if she's going to follow in her father's footsteps. At least you made buying a house a priority." At one point, as Pandora recalled, living out of tents and suitcases had been exciting. That had been before Luna, however.
"Well, to be honest, it was Luna who bought the house, but it's important to both of us that the twins have a stable environment to grow up in." Neville wasn't sure if having grandmothers suddenly return from the dead constituted a stable environment, but if no explanation about that was going to be offered, he certainly wasn't going to pursue it. Wondering if the same tactics he used on his Gran could work on Pandora, Neville stepped forward and offered his child as a sacrifice. "This is our daughter, Nimue Luna Pandorea Longbottom," he introduced, hoping that Pandora would approve of the middle names. "She's technically the big sister, aren't you, Petal." Nimue giggled on cue, and Neville chanced a smile at his mother-in-law.
Pandora held in a laugh as she accepted her granddaughter, noting the use of Nimue's full name and the tremulous, hopeful smile that followed. He was either very, very brave to try to put one over on a Slytherin, or very, very stupid. Pandora didn't think that Luna would sleep with someone very stupid, let alone marry him, so apparently the former, despite his initial reaction to her. "You are a pretty little thing, aren't you," Pandora cooed at Nimue, swinging her earrings just out of reach as Nimue chased them with her hands, giggling all the while. Luna used to do the same thing, when she was this age. She turned her focus back on Neville. "Though I doubt she would have married you just because you make pretty babies."
"No, I married him because I love him, and he loves me, and he smells like life and tastes like light and feels like home," Luna said, reappearing from the kitchen. "Dinner is ready."
If Luna had made some grand declaration, Pandora might have been less than convinced, but she thought she knew her daughter well enough to take the calm statement as simple fact. This Neville boy would do. He would do nicely. She smiled at him and pulled him into a one-armed hug. "That's that, then." Nimue clutched at her daddy, and Pandora handed her back, taking no offense to Nimue's rapid tiring of being held by her. It was obvious who that one took after, and if Pandora had a sickle for every time she and Laurence had handed Luna back and forth, they would have been rich.
"Of course, that still doesn't answer the most important question for a young couple like yourselves." Pandora turned to Luna this time. "How is your sex life? And don't just tell me it's fine, I need details to make a proper assessment of that for myself. Goodness knows that your father couldn't have made much of a job of telling you anything about it."
"Right we'll just be leaving now, very important things to do in the dining room, very important plates and silverware or something very important!" Laurence blurted, pushing Neville along ahead of him. When they reached their destination safe from embarrassing information, he heaved a sigh of relief. "I told you she didn't get that from me," he said, a trifle smug, despite his red face, at having it clearly demonstrated.
Neville had been carefully sliding Nimue into her high chair next to Gawain's, but as soon as he had finished this task he solemnly turned to Laurence and wrapped his arms around the man. "I will never doubt you again, Laurence," Neville said, with a helpless chuckle as he drew back from the hug.
"Here, take a seat," he offered, pouring out some of the wine that was ready and waiting on the table. "Yes, yes," he added to Gawain, who had picked up his spoon and was banging it on his highchair's tray while enthusiastically chanting 'Nana nana'. "Although, I don't think Mummy's fixed you 'nana this time. I'm sure it'll be yummy, whatever it is. Have you said hello to Grandad?" Gawain briefly waved his spoon in the air before resuming the banging. Neville sat down and waited for the accompaniment to start. Sure enough, Nimue's interest in just about everything extended to the pursuit of music with her brother. Neville wondered if he should attempt to stop the noise, but he always found them too entertaining to do so.
When Luna and Pandora finally entered the dining room, they were greeted by a raucous concert, complete with Laurence conducting with a fork and Neville keeping the beat by tapping his foot and drumming on the table. The two women shared a long look. "I'll start dishing out our dinner while you get the children's food, and we shall forget this ever happened," Pandora decided, turning toward the kitchen briskly.
Luna lingered for a moment, the corners of her mouth twitching, before her expression smoothed out. "Yes, it sounds like I need to mash bananas after all," she said before following her mother.
Neville smiled as his eyes followed Luna - he had caught her look of amusement just before she had turned towards the kitchen. Deciding that there should probably be some semblance of order when she and Pandora returned with dinner, he gently hushed the twins. "I think we need to be quiet for dinner now," he told them, and was totally ignored. Giving Laurence an embarrassed smile, he tried again. He was still struggling with getting the balance right between loving them to death and needing to instill a bit of discipline. He awkwardly grabbed hold of their right hands, stopping the spoons from banging down again. "Come on, it's dinner time. You can play drums again after we've finished eating." He kissed the back of their hands before releasing them, and was relieved and pleased when the banging didn't resume.
He settled back in his chair, beside Nimue. "Godric knows what I'm going to do when they start running about," he commented to Laurence.
Laurence was too busy perfecting his innocent expression after replacing the fork to pay Neville's efforts at shushing the twins much mind. "Don't worry, putting breakables out of reach becomes second nature after a few irreplaceable artifacts get smashed," he said absently as Pandora returned, balancing two dishes.
"I do wish that whomever decided to plop me back here had remembered my wand. I really wasn't cut out to be a Mug -- ouch!" Pandora barely managed to get the dishes onto the table instead of dropping them on the floor. The source of the sudden pain in her ankle was apparent as soon as she glanced down -- one hissing, spitting ball of white fur. She picked it up, figuring that her limbs were in danger either way, and held it up to get a better look. "Well, aren't you a horrible little creature," she said mildly as it attempted to claw at her nose, which she wisely kept out of its reach. She stared it down for a moment, before ruining the whole effect by sneezing in its face.
Neville blinked in amazement. He couldn't believe that Luna's mum - Luna's mum - had just described Swash as a horrible little creature. And she had allergies by the looks of it. (He frowned as he thought that Luna might have told him that before.) Quickly conjuring some tissues, he held them out to her. "Do you want me to take him? I don't really like cats myself, but Luna and Gawain overruled me with their sad looks at the pet shop."
He took Swash carefully from Pandora, wondering whether the kitten had sensed Pandora was allergic, because she was the only person that Swash had taken exception to up till now. He rolled his eyes when the kitten went docile in his grip, rubbing its head against his hand. "I'll take him up to the nursery," he said, walking out of the room and ignoring Gawain's outstretched arms and pathetic noises.
Luna hesitated in the doorway, unable to think of anything to say until Neville had already left the room. She'd thought he was getting along with Swash better, but it must have been wishful thinking. "I did tell him that we didn't have to get Swash if it would make him unhappy," she said softly, then turned to her mum. "Sorry, I didn't think about the fact we have a cat now and you're allergic."
Pandora waved the apology off with her used tissue. "It's no trouble. As you said, you weren't expecting me." She gingerly inspected the long gash along her ankle and pressed one of the unused tissues to it. "Though, I hope you don't let it around the children."
Brow furrowed slightly, Luna looked up from mixing Nimue's choice of rice cereal with the bananas both of the twins had demanded. "Of course we do. Swash is really good with Nimue and Gawain. He's never so much as unsheathed his claws around them, and considering that Gawain drags him around like a blanket, I wouldn't blame him if he did."
Pandora paused, then shrugged and chuckled. "Ah, I suppose he just doesn't like me then."
Come back into the dining room, having relegated Swash to his fluffly rug in the nursery, Neville snorted. "Yes, well, I'm sure he's only pretending to like me. I told you he wasn't as cute as you thought he was," he added to Luna. "I don't think he would ever go for the kids, but he's just proved that he's not as harmless as he likes to make out." Neville didn't think that the gentle way he had spoken to Swash as he had carried the kitten upstairs, explaining why it had to stay with its rug, would add anything to the conversation.
Luna frowned as she moved on to mixing Gawain's cereal. Very slowly, she said, "Neville, he is a kitten. Even if he were capable of making up nefarious schemes, I'm sure it would take too much of his valuable time for sunning himself to bother with them."
"I wouldn't be so sure about that," Pandora cut in as she brought two more dishes from the kitchen. "Did he go to Neville or the children when he came into the room? No, he went straight after the person who has allergies. Cats know these things."
Neville nodded enthusiastically, glad to have somebody around who understood. "I thought that was probably why he went for you," he agreed. "He may be a kitten, but that's just a small cat waiting to be a big cat." He nodded again as he sat down, totally convinced by his own argument.
Laurence coughed. "Or perhaps because she's the only stranger in the room?" He scratched above his ear, not wanting to squash anyone's exploration of the possibilities of the unknown, especially not his wife's and his son-in-law's, but really, there was no sense in following leads that could be proven wrong. It was those that couldn't be proven wrong that were important, because however else would you prove them right? "Now, I've spent a bit of time around Swash, and I can verify that he is indeed simply a specimen of Felis silvestris catus. Not a Thrice-hooded Dwibblebun in disguise, not a Fur-plated Logglesnut, not even a kneazle mix. And while a great deal of testing has shown they do sometimes pick up on things we humans don't, cats, ah, don't generally, generally speaking mind you, engage in schemes to harm random humans. At least not tame cats, and Swash is very tame."
"Very tame," Luna echoed, taking her own seat beside Gawain and spooning up some of his cereal.
If Laurence was arguing against the conspiracy, Neville decided it wasn't worth the fight. Instead of arguing further, he looked to his dinner, turning his body slightly sideways so he could attend to Nimue between spoonfuls of his soup - while she and her brother were getting very good at banging their spoons, they still thought hands were better for dealing with food if left to their own devices.
At least, he thought, as he spooned up cereal, he knew the truth about cats - and maybe Pandora did, too. He gave her a considering look, and decided that despite the woman's alarming forthrightness - and the little matter of her having until recently been dead - he liked her. While he had never thought he would have to deal with a 'mother-in-law', he found Pandora not as scary as he had imagined such creatures to be - in the end.