The first time Victoire meets Teddy, he’s two and she’s just been born. She doesn’t remember any of it, but later, much later, her parents would tell her that she’d gurgled at the sight of him like she’d known he was going to end up being her best friend. And then—this part is always accompanied by a knowing smirk—when they brought Teddy up to the new mother and daughter (“Das a bay-bee?” he’s later quoted as saying. “Weird.”), his hair changed from Weasley-red to the same shade of blonde as hers.
“Zis ees Victoire,” her maman had said, smiling down at Teddy. “Do you want to say ‘ello, Teddy?”
And Teddy had cocked his head to the side, nodded in the sort of pompous, overly-excited fashion that only a two-year-old could get away with, and said, “Wotcha, Vic.”
//
By the time Victoire can talk and walk (and thus cause all sorts of trouble), she and Teddy are inseparable. Literally—Victoire throws tantrums that pay hefty tribute to her Veela heritage whenever she goes more than a few days without seeing her best friend. Sometimes, they hang out at Auntie And-rah-meh-da’s house, but most of the time, it’s either at the Burrow or Shell Cottage or sometimes even Uncle Harry’s house. Her maman frowns when Victoire comes home with her hair a mess and her dress splattered with mud, but because Victoire’s cheeks are always flushed and her grin is set to devour her whole face, she doesn’t say anything.
After all, there’s always Cleaning Charms (and thank Merlin for them). And besides, as Victoire’s daddy likes to say when he thinks Victoire isn’t listening, “at least she’s still young enough that the only trouble she gets into with boys is a spot of mud.”
//
When Victoire turns two, her maman and daddy sit her on the couch between them and tell her that she’s going to have a sister. Victoire doesn’t care much. A sister would be nice, she thinks. Teddy is nice, but he’s four now. He’s old and sometimes he doesn’t want to hang out with her because she’s too young. Plus, he’s a boy. And boys are gross, even if they’re crazy-haired Metamorphmagus boys named Teddy. (Especially if.)
“My maman’s gonna have a baby,” she tells Teddy a few days later, lying down on the grass beside him.
Teddy doesn’t say anything for a long moment, just continues pulling up grass with stubby fingers. “Good,” he says suddenly, and she’s so surprised that she turns to face him. His hair is black like Uncle Harry’s. “You’ll have someone else to play with.”
Victoire’s face screws up. “Why’re you so mean tuh me?” she demands shrilly, sitting up and glaring at him.
Teddy turns away from her, his hair briefly taking on the same shade of green as the grass around them before returning to jet black. “Because I’m older,” he answers angrily, throwing his handful of grass at her. Most of it lands on her dress, but she can feel pieces of it in her hair. “I don’t want to play with babies like you all the time.”
Victoire starts crying. She pushes herself off the ground and runs back to the safety of her home, wishing she’d never met Teddy Lupin. That Muggle girl from the nearby village was right—boys are meanies. But she never thought Teddy could be like them. He’d taught her how to colour and he played in the mud with her and brought her Chocolate Frogs when she was sad. He was nice… wasn’t he?
Or not. Beyond furious and more than a little sad, she stomps into the cottage and slams the door behind her with as much force as she can muster. One of the panes of glass breaks, and her maman comes running into the room at the noise, one hand cradling her tummy, eyes wide. Her daddy is only a few steps behind her, his forehead all scrunched up, wand in hand.
“What ees eet, ma chérie?” her maman asks, crouching down and cradling Victoire’s face in her hands. Her beautiful features—her mother really is beautiful, the most beautiful woman in the whole world—are twisted with worry. “What ‘appened? Are you okay? Are you ‘urt? Where ees Teddy?”
When she hears Teddy’s name, Victoire starts to sob even harder. “He—he called me a baby,” she bawls, throwing her arms around her mother. “He said he was glad you’re havin’ a baby ‘cause then he doesn’t have tuh play with me anymore!”
Her mother pulls her onto her lap and starts to rock her back and forth, singing an old French lullaby under her breath. Victoire’s daddy looks angry, but he crouches next to her too, stroking her hair. “I don’t care if the kid’s four and basically family,” he mutters lowly to his wife. “I’m going to kill him.”
Victoire’s maman giggles quietly as she continues to rock Victoire back and forth. “Beell,” she says in the same tone of voice she uses on Victoire when she’s done something bad, “you cannot ‘urt every boy who ‘urts Veeky.”
“But I want to,” Victoire’s daddy mumbles, sounding every bit like his daughter in her most petulant moments.
Victoire’s maman huffs, but there’s a small smile playing out across her lips. “‘e is young,” she says firmly. “And ‘e will make mistakes. Watch—’e will be back to apologize. ‘E cannot stay away.”
And sure enough, fifteen minutes later, there’s a timid knock on the door, and it’s Teddy, looking small and lost. “I—uh…” he trails off, his eyes flickering between his scuffed trainers and where Victoire stands behind her father, hands on her hips like Aunt Ginny when she wants to look intimidating. “I’m sorry, Vicky. I was being mean.”
Victoire’s already forgiven him—she forgave him five minutes ago. But she still darts out from being her father and plants a kick square on Teddy’s shin. It gets her a time-out from her mother and an irritated look from Teddy, but her father’s smiling into his palm, so it’s worth it.
//
Her sister is born four months before Victoire’s third birthday. Victoire’s in St. Mungo’s waiting room with Teddy and Andromeda—she only learned how to properly say the older woman’s name a few weeks ago—because there’s too much screaming in room where her mother and it smells too much like the Burrow after one of Grandma Weasley’s cleaning days.
Finally, a Healer finds them and tells them the baby has been born and would you please come this way, ma’ams and sir. Victoire, scared and nervous and excited all at the same time, grabs Teddy’s hand as they follow behind the adults. Teddy’s hair turns bright red—brighter than her daddy’s—but he doesn’t pull away.
When they reach the room, the rest of her family is already there, crowded around a bed, but they smile and make room for her once they spot her. Victoire catches sight of her mother with a bundle of blankets in her arms, hair dark with sweat, cheeks flushed. But both she and Victoire’s daddy, who’s hovering beside her and looking pale, are smiling widely.
Her mother motions for Victoire come closer. Victoire hasn’t let go of Teddy’s hand yet, so he just follows behind her shyly as she gets closer to the bed. “This ees your new sister, Veeky,” her maman whispers hoarsely, holding the blankets out to Victoire.
Victoire looks down at the blankets, shocked to see a pair of blue eyes staring back at her somberly. It’s so small. Hesitantly, she reaches out a finger and touches one of the baby’s tiny fingers. The baby makes a noise that sounds a little like a laugh, and Victoire’s maman smiles even wider. “‘Er name ees Dominique.”
Victoire doesn’t really understand what’s going on, but she hugs her mom anyways, and when Teddy whispers, “are all babies this ugly?” into her ear, she stomps on his foot even though she kind of agrees with him.
//
Victoire’s brother Louis arrives when Victoire is four and a half, and Shell Cottage becomes a warzone. Luckily, though Teddy is almost seven now—way older than her—he still hangs out with her when he’s not seeing his other friends.
One day, when everyone’s at the Burrow for Sunday Brunch, he tells her that he’s going to teach Louis all his tricks. Victoire looks at him in her best Aunt Ginny impression—hands on her hips, upturned eyebrows, pursed lips, eyes blazing—and says, “what tricks, Teddy Lupin?” She’s just lost her childish lisp, and it makes her sound older. Teddy blanches.
“Blimey, Ted,” Uncle Ron laughs, clapping an affronted Teddy on the back. “You’d better watch out.”
Keep reading
John Murphy:
Echo:
Bellamy Blake:
Clarke Griffin:
Emori:
Raven Reyes:
King Roan:
The Fandom Effect: a piece of information about Harry Potter that everyone thinks it’s canon after tons of fanfictions/fanarts but when they read the books again it’s actually not.
What are the best examples?
Hunger Games Relevance
(Please read/boost if you’ve ever read/watched the hunger games or you care about what’s going on)
I don’t know if other people feel the same way but especially with the new hunger games film coming out I’ve been absolutely floored by some of the parallels between the world in the series and the current conflict in Palestine.
Firstly, Suzanne Collins did say that she partially got the idea from flicking between channels showing reality TV interspersed with footage from the Iraq war so I guess there’s a good reason for me to be seeing similarities now.
But the fact it’s being live-streamed - the carnage - the propaganda - the fact that lots of us have been following the same few (often very young) journalists who have become the ‘face’ of Palestinian resistance (because right now journalism IS resistance being actively targeted by Israel) - it’s all crazy familiar.
I saw a clip of Israeli’s sitting on a hill watching and laughing at the bombs dropping on Gaza today as though they were fireworks just minutes before Israel bombed the 3rd floor of a paediatric hospital. The same ‘Sderot Cinema’ where Israeli’s bought deck chairs and snacks to ‘watch the spectacle’ of the 2014 bombing campaign on Gaza.
The way not everyone in the capitol was evil or bad and some people actively supported the districts but realistically they were still complicit in the exploitation - even if just through ignorance.
The incredible amount of children dying - the bombing of hospitals and withholding of resources (like in District 8 in Mockingjay), the taking of people not involved in Hamas into administrative detention (hundreds arrested in the West Bank - like how the victors were taken in Catching Fire even the ones who weren’t involved in the rebellion), the collective punishment of Gaza (the firebombing of District 12).
The way Israel dropped pamphlets from the sky to tell Gazans to evacuate south and then bombed the route (literally straight out of the games I swear - the video of the pamphlets falling was like the scene with the parachutes in Mockingjay which represent hope and then detonate).
It’s so eerily similar and I just wonder how so many watched those films and read those books and are silent now - why could they identify resistance and oppression and desperation and exploitation in fiction and not reality?
And I wonder if maybe it’s because we have to remind ourselves that we aren’t Katniss in this situation - we aren’t the heroes - we are the Capitol and District citizens watching it all happen on our screens - and that’s an unfortunate and uncomfortable concept to grapple with.
Why every single emotion and outburst Harry James Potter had during Order Of The Phoenix was justified: A 400 page essay by me
hi Cassie! idk if you’ve noticed, but I think you’ve invoked a small (and quite entertaining) url revolution. — hornyjem
I did. I am very proud. :)
This is the full story of After the Bridge, a tale for those who might have wondered what Tessa and Jem did after they met on Blackfriars Bridge in the epilogue of Clockwork Princess. If you’ve been waiting to read it until it was done, it is now done.
Those who do not like Tessa&Jem together or Jessa sexytimes probably should skip this. (You will not miss anything that will affect your understanding of later books.) Those who like that sort of thing will find this the sort of thing they like.
After the Bridge alternates POV between Jem and Tessa. This is Part Five, the full story. As this is one short story and not chaptered, each post will contain the whole story from the beginning up to the point where that part ends so that new readers or readers who don’t remember what happened won’t have to hunt down the previous post(s.)
AFTER THE BRIDGE : Now with (sexy) art by Cassandra Jean!
Keep reading
A song for a heart so big, God wouldn’t let it live.
The Falling In Love Montage - Ciara Smyth
Not My Problem - Ciara Smyth
Here The Whole Time - Vitor Martins
Cemetery Boys - Aiden Thomas
Some Girls Do - Jennifer Dugan
The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo - Taylor Jenkins Reid
I Kissed Shara Wheeler - Casey McQuiston
Hani and Ishu's Guide to Fake Dating - Adiba Jaigirdar
Gender Queer: A Memoir - Maia Kobabe (graphic novel)
The Prince and the Dressmaker - Jen Wang (graphic novel)
On A Sunbeam - Tillie Walden (graphic novel)
The Black Flamingo - Dean Atta
Only On The Weekends - Dean Atta
Nimona - ND Stevenson (graphic novel)
If You Still Recognise Me - Cynthia So
Sasha Masha - Agnes Borinsky
The Tea Dragon Society - Katie O'Neill (graphic novel)
Darius the Great is Not Okay - Adib Khorram
Red White and Royal Blue - Casey McQuiston
One Last Stop - Casey McQuiston
The Passing Playbook - Isaac Fitzgerald
The Prom - Saundra Mitchell (watch the musical first!!)
I Think I Love You - Auriane Desombre
The Song Of Achilles - Madeline Miller
Felix Ever After - Kacen Callendar
I Was Born For This - Alice Oseman
Radio Silence - Alice Oseman
Solitaire - Alice Oseman
Heartstopper - Alice Oseman (graphic novel)
Loveless - Alice Oseman
The Perks of Being a Wallflower - Stephen Chbosky
This Is How You Lose the Time War - Amal El-Mohtar, Max Gladstone
Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe - Benjamin Alire Sáenz
They Both Die At The End - Adam Silvera
History is All You Left Me - Adam Silvera
Girls of Paper and Fire - Natasha Ngan
On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous - Ocean Vuong
Mooncakes - Suzanne Walker (graphic novel)
Simon Vs The Homosapiens Agenda - Becky Albertalli
The Avant-Guards - Carly Usdin (graphic novel)
Fence - C.S. Pacat (graphic novel)
The Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater (book 3&4)
Feel free to add your own recommendations! I'll update the list as I read more LGBTQ+ books!!!
That feeling tho when you find that fic writer that just absolutely fucking
understands the characters to their core
writes so well they–just so–they just—their writing is—-THEY WRITE GOOD
shatters your bad mood with a new update
writes a fic that you can read over again and still clutch at your heart like HOLY SHIT I FUCKING LOVE–I LOVE THIS FIC
writes a scene that has you all giddy in public and that one random stranger asks you like “ooo you are smiling :) :) is that a boy :) you are talking to :)” and you’re like “no I’m reading a Everybody Lives/Nobody Dies AU, please leave”
understands and portrays the characters better than the people who make MOVIES with those characters
amazing. just amazing. fic writers are awesome
Imagine if Lily Potter had become the Potions professor at Hogwarts. If Voldemort had killed James, but she and Harry had survived, both shielded by the power of her love.
Imagine how Lily Potter would encourage the Weasley twins in the things they were good at, instead of scolding them like everyone else in their lives, because she remembers what it was like growing up with the Marauders. Imagine how seriously they would have taken their studies with just a little bit of praise for the things they were doing right, because they were clearly smart boys. Imagine how much smarter they could be if only somebody realized their intelligence and encouraged it—somebody like Lily Potter.
Imagine how gently Lily Potter would correct little Neville Longbottom, whose face looked just like his mother’s and whose eyes were filled with fear. Imagine how many of her lessons she would try to relate back to Herbology to help him understand, how patient she would be if he was having trouble. Imagine how she would praise him and boost his confidence, how she would help him with his other studies as well because, after all, Alice and Frank were practically family.
Imagine Lily Potter teaching Nymphadora Tonks. One powerful ex-auror teaching an outspoken, quirky, auror-to-be. Imagine how much respect those two women would have had for each other, especially when Lily heard Tonks’ aspirations and Tonks heard of Lily’s time in the Order.
Imagine how Lily Potter would have protected Harry whenever he was in danger, like nobody else in the school could. Imagine her specifically forbidding Harry from going anywhere near the Philosopher’s Stone, but knowing that he won’t listen because he’s his father’s son. Imagine her finding out that Harry had gone missing in the middle of the night, and rushing past all of the spells to get to where he’s battling with Quirrel. Imagine the fury that would have erupted from her wand. Imagine how safe and loved Harry would have felt.
Imagine how nurturing Lily Potter would have been to little Ginny, who she recognizes as a little lost and scared. Imagine her keeping a very close eye on the only Weasley girl and becoming rather concerned, deciding to send Molly and Arthur an owl. Imagine how quickly she would have found out about the diary, because little Ginny finally has someone to confide in other than the dark lord, and shutting it down completely in the name of keeping her honorary neice safe.
Imagine how proud Lily Potter would have been of Hermione, another muggle-born girl facing prejudice, yet rising to the top of her class. Imagine her appreciating the disadvantage that Hermione had, having not come from a wizarding family, and admiring every answer the girl could provide. Imagine how encouraging she would have been of Hermione’s intelligence rather than dismissive, how often she would assure her that blood status had nothing to do with a person’s character.
Imagine how fond Lily Potter would have been of Luna. Luna may not look like much but she was a free spirit and a kind soul, the kind of person that a woman like Lily could appreciate in the dark ages they were living through. Imagine Lily giving Luna a fond smile every time their eyes met, and glaring down anyone who made fun of her differences. Imagine how protective she would have been of little Luna Lovegood, who had few friends and reminded her of herself before she had met Severus.
Imagine how fond Lily Potter would be of the pranksters, but not too fond to keep them in check while they were in her class.
Imagine the points Lily Potter would deduct from students she caught saying the word ‘mudblood.’ Imagine the detentions she would give, the long conversations she would have with the offended and offensive students, the letters she would send home to both parties’ parents. Imagine how proactive she would be in spreading tolerance throughout the younger students and stopping intolerance in the older ones.
Imagine how much Lily Potter would have helped Ron Weasley, who was forever copying off of Hermione’s notes and essays. Imagine how thoroughly she would explain the things he wasn’t understsanding, how hard she would work to keep his attention on the lesson during class.
Imagine how many different styles of teaching she would explore in an attempt to reach each and every one of her students, something Snape never attempted. Imagine how many great potions masters were just waiting for an opportunity to discover their talent and were provided that opportunity by Professor Lily Potter.