Little Victory
It was an hour after dawn on the second anniversary of the Battle of Hogwarts. I had already missed the remembrance service, which began as the sun rose. Fred, I knew, would forgive me.
‘Merde,’ my wife swore, sweating with the effort.
‘Well done, Fleur. Here she is, you have a daughter,’ the Healer told us as she deftly cut the cord.
‘A girl?’ I asked, astonished. ‘Are you sure?’
‘I’ve been delivering babies for ten years, Bill. I can tell the difference, trust me,’ she said, smiling. She held up the mewling baby, my daughter, for both my wife and I to see.
‘Une fille?’ my wife asked tearfully. ‘Une petite victoire en ce jour de la grande victoire?’
‘Yes,’ I told her. ‘You win again, ma chérie. We have a little Victoire. I like the name, what do you think?’
‘Très bon, it is good,’ Fleur said. She smiled weakly as the Healer passed the squealing, pink-skinned bundle to her. ‘Hush now little one. Sois tranquille, petite Victoire. Are you hungry?’ She bared her breast. Instead of looking at my wife, I found myself staring at the dimples at the bottom of my daughter’s back.
As I watched my two girls, my mind began to drift. Fleur and Ginny had won the bet. I had a daughter. She was, as Fleur had said, a little victory born on the day of the great victory. Victoire was a good name for her.
‘It will be a boy,’ said Charlie when I told him the news. ‘Weasleys always have boys.,’
‘Oi! What about me?’ Ginny asked.
‘A mere technicality,’ Charlie told her. ‘Let’s face it, Ginny; you’ve got more balls than the rest of us.’
‘Maman had only girls,’ Fleur reminded Charlie, while Ginny and Harry laughed.
‘Ten Galleons says it’s a boy,’ said Charlie confidently.
‘You’re on,’ said Ginny. They shook on it.
‘Girl,’ Fleur agreed. ‘Une petite fille.’ She, too, shook hands with my brother.
As I remembered, I watched mother and child. Our daughter was a chubby little thing. She was pot-bellied, with sturdy thighs and fat little sausage-fingers. She was also pink and freckled and, but for a few fine wisps of white down on the back of her skull, she was completely bald. As she lay cradled in my wife’s arms, suddenly silent, Fleur, tired but contented, gave me a radiant smile.
‘Isn’t she beautiful?’ my wife asked.
‘Yes,’ I told her. Because she was.
‘All boyth are howwid,’ my daughter told me, lisping through her missing front teeth. ‘Thpecially Teddy…’ she paused in thought. ‘A’ nuncle Charlie,’ she added.
‘Why?’ I asked. Charlie was rarely in the country, but when he was, he made up for it by being –the bestest nuncle inna world!†I wondered what he’d done to annoy her.’
‘Because they are!’ she declared. She folded her arms and stared into my face, daring me to contradict her.
‘Even me?’ I asked.
‘You’re not a boy, Papa,’ she told me. ‘You are my Papa.’
‘I’m not a girl, Victoire,’ I reminded her. ‘So I must be a boy.’
‘No, not a boy, ‘coth all boyth are howwid.’ Victoire spoke with that passionate and absolute certainty which only an annoyed five-year-old can muster. She scowled, letting me know that she’d won the argument with that simple explanation. I knew better than to press her, so I decided to return to her original statement. The horrid boys who had forced her to reach this conclusion had obviously done something to annoy her.
‘What did Teddy do this time?’ I asked.
‘He hadda fwog,’ she said. ‘An’ he showed it to me. An’ it jumped!’
‘I see…’ I said slowly, even though I didn’t. ‘And?’
‘A’ nit made me jump, a’ nuncle Charlie laughed at me,’ Victoire said. ‘He said wasn’t nothing to be fwighted of, was only little fwog.’
I finally understood the reason she was so unhappy. ‘Uncle Charlie laughed at you?’ I asked, scandalised. ‘That’s unforgiveable, Victoire. I think I’d better go and tell him off. Where are they?’
‘Atta pond,’ she said, waving vaguely into the distance, beyond the orchard.
I looked down at my daughter. ‘Are you going to stay with Grandma?’ I asked. ‘Or, would you like to come with me?’
Victoire put on her serious face. My firstborn was pondering my inquiry as if it was the most important question in the world. Realising that it was, I waited patiently for her answer.
She stared across at the yard at what Harry called –the clan gatheringâ€. The family was all at the Burrow. My little girl’s Weasley uncles and aunt, and their various wives - and a solitary husband - chattered and laughed. Mum was fussing over the babies, James, Louis, and Fred. Dad was pulling faces at the toddlers, little Moll and Dominique. The first three Weasleys of the next generation had all been girls, something which both Mum and Dad found astonishing. But the balance had been rapidly redressed by the arrival of three baby boys in a little over six months.
‘Oui,’ she said decisively.
She raised her hand, it slipped inside mine like it was made to be there, and we set off. Walking through the sun-dappled orchard, we slowly made our way to the muddy little pond beyond. As we approached, I heard a splash. It was followed by Charlie’s deep bass laugh, reverberated through the trees.
‘At least you’ve got some frogspawn, Teddy,’ Charlie said as we entered the clearing.
‘Teddy’s wet an’ muddy,’ Victoire declared happily. ‘Should not have laughed at me.’
Teddy was. He was standing in the pond soaked to the skin and covered in slime, but he had a triumphant look on his face.
‘So, Princess Victoire, you went off to tell tales to your daddy, did you?’ Charlie asked, winking at me. ‘I wondered where you’d gone. Teddy and I managed to recapture the frog. We found a newt, too, but by the time we’d caught it, you’d gone.’ He lifted up a conjured jar and showed it to my daughter. The creature scuttling around inside it was no more than three inches long.
‘What is it, Nuncle Charlie?’ she asked. I instantly knew that the minor hurt her feelings had suffered had been elbowed aside by her curiosity.
‘This is a palmate newt, a female,’ Charlie said proudly. He held up a second jar. ‘And this, Victoire, is the common frog. He made you jump when he jumped.’
‘They’re ectotherms, like lizards and snakes, and dragons,’ said Teddy proudly as he squelched out from the pond, triumphantly carrying a handful of frogspawn.
I recognised the delight with which Harry’s godson pronounced the word, and the gleam in his eyes as he said it. It was a look I’d seen in Charlie’s when he’d been that age. My brother’s enthusiasm for all living creatures remains undimmed, and Charlie was looking almost paternally proud as he gazed contentedly at Teddy.
‘Did you know that Teddy can make himself look like a frog, almost?’ asked Charlie.
Teddy obliged. He held his breath, puffed out his cheeks, and began to change his features. His nose flattened, his lips broadened, his eyes bulged, and his skin and hair took on a greenish tinge.
Victoire squealed, and then laughed. ‘Teddy is an ugly frog,’ said Victoire.
‘According to the Muggle stories, ugly frogs can be turned into handsome princes by a kiss from a beautiful princess,’ said Charlie, as he picked up my gap-toothed daughter. ‘And you are beautiful, my little princess.’
‘She is,’ I agreed, because she was.
He picked up my daughter and held her forwards, so that she could kiss Teddy’s cheek.
I walked into my kitchen to find Charlie drinking tea, and my younger daughter sipping café noir. Dominique was still in her night clothes, boxers and t-shirt, and she appeared to be making no effort to get ready.
‘Looks like they’ll have a nice day for it,’ observed Charlie.
‘I still blame you, Charlie,’ I said. ‘If Uncle Charlie ever suggests you kiss someone, Dom, ignore him.’
‘What on earth are you talking about, Dad?’ my younger daughter asked.
‘Your father blames me for getting Teddy and Victoire together,’ Charlie said.
‘That happened at Hogwarts, when she was fifteen. When she was made Quidditch Captain,’ Dominique said, snorting. She sipped her café noir, and ran her fingers through her short-cropped red hair.
‘Their first kiss was when she was five - you’ll have to listen to my speech,’ I said. ‘It’s definitely Charlie’s fault. But, shouldn’t you be getting ready, Dom? Your sister and mother started about an hour ago.’
‘You’re still in your pyjamas, too, Dad,’ she told me.
‘Your mother sent me down to get her a coffee, and Victoire a tea. And also to send you upstairs to join them,’ I told her. ‘It’s a special day, Dom, you need to make an effort.’
‘I’ve agreed to wear a frock, what more do you want?’ she grumbled.
I sighed, not wanting to lose my temper with her, and then noticed the twinkle in her eyes.
‘Don’t worry, mon cher papa, I was on my way, honest. I didn’t want them to think I was too keen. Can I wake Lou, too?’ she asked.
‘Is he still in bed?’
She nodded.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘We only have four hours.’
‘Great,’ she grinned impishly and took a final sip from her café noir. Picking up the percolateur, she poured a demi-tasse for her mother and poured a large mug of milky tea for her sister.
‘See you later, Charlie,’ she said as she strolled upstairs.
‘Is Victoire still refusing to conform, too?’ Charlie asked me, nodding towards the tea pot.
‘Victoire is her mother’s daughter in every way but one. You know that,’ I told him. ‘She has a true Weasley thirst for tea and will not, under any circumstances drink coffee. It drives Fleur crazy, but not as crazy as Dom’s hair, and clothes.’
Charlie chuckled, ‘Did Fleur really think that Dom would suddenly turn feminine when she left school?’ He looked at me seriously. ‘Are you going to be okay today, Bill? No one ever thinks about you, but you’ve got a big speech to make, and a daughter to give away.’ He gave me a thoughtful look. ‘Teddy’s a good lad, you know.’
‘You’re only saying that because he works in a dragon sanctuary.’ There was more venom in my voice than I’d intended.
Charlie looked shocked.
‘She’s still very young,’ I said.
‘She’s twenty-one. Fleur was twenty when you married her,’ Charlie reminded me.
‘So everyone tells me. Even Fleur,’ I told him.
‘Have you spoken to Teddy? Man to man?’
‘Yes. I plied him with Firewhisky too. I wish I hadn’t. He loves her, and he wants to make her happy. They’ve been together for six years. I know all that.’ I shook my head and stared into Charlie’s face. ‘He told me that he –loves every inch of her, from the fine freckles on her face and legs to the dimples at the bottom of her spine.†I wish he hadn’t told me that.’
‘I bet he does, too,’ said Charlie, chuckling. ‘But, bloody hell, Bill, I was your best man, remember. They haven’t done anything you and Fleur hadn’t done. They remind me of you two, you know. Snogging at every opportunity, sneaking off and hoping that no one will…
He got no further, because Dom had woken her brother, and she’d used the Aguamenti Charm to do it.
We stood at the entrance to the tent, her arm was linked through mine, and she was trembling. She looked beautiful, outshining even her mother. Charlie caught my eye and winked. He made a signal, and the wedding march rang out. I started to move, but Victoire held me back. I looked at her worriedly. Surely she wasn’t going to back out now.
‘Count to twenty,’ she said quietly. ‘I don’t want him to think I’m too keen.’
Her sister, equally as radiant in her bridesmaid’s dress, burst out laughing.
I was still smiling as I walked arm in arm down the aisle with my very beautiful daughter.