Author's Notes - Goodnight, Moon - V of Pentacles, X of Swords, VIII of Cups
Author's Notes for Goodnight, Moon - V of Pentacles, X of Swords, VIII of Cups
If you've been here for other hp_tarot fics, you know the drill! This is mainly a re-cap for me, to get perspective on my writing style and try to improve, so it's probably more than a little ridiculous to the outside reader, but if you're interested, please feel free to browse! It is highly recommended that you read the story first.
THE CHARACTERS:
Harry - He finally got his shot at being the focus of an hp_tarot fic of mine, lol. For some reason, I had a lot of trouble writing him here. The tarot fics, for me, have always been more about introspection and internal conflict than external conflict, and I think it was harder to portray that in this story because I don't feel it's in Harry's character to do a whole lot of introspection. He does things without considering all the consequences, which is how things got so out of hand with Teddy. This story, like the others, is supposed to take the main character and play the story out through his eyes only - what he feels about something, what he thinks about something, even if it's not happening to him. This was hard to do for Harry because my mindset is so different than his, even though I love his character and understand his motivations.
ANYway, Harry's conflict in this story is simple - parenting. As Snape remarks (rather viciously) Harry didn't grow up understanding how real, loving parents were supposed to act towards their children. In a way, he doesn't even understand how "normal" childrens' minds function because he never had a chance to be a normal child. For him, suffering is bad, end of story. He doesn't want Teddy, his child for all intents and purposes, to have to suffer through life being a werewolf and he is willing to do anything to ensure that doesn't happen. What he doesn't understand is that there are many different kinds of abuse and suffering, and for Teddy, the emotional and psychological hurts he suffered were worse than the physical. Finally at the end, we see Harry mature enough to where he has learned to completely, unselfishly be Teddy's father, doing what's really best for him instead of what he thinks is best for him.
Teddy - I have been told I write children well, but I always feel like my children don't come out nearly the way they should. In any case, Teddy was fun to write because he's a canon character that we know almost nothing about, especially personality-wise. Of course, my love for Remus always makes me picture them to be very alike in personality (even though a lot of Remus's personality is his Pisces nature and Teds is an Aries), but I wanted to bring that out especially in this story. Teddy is going through that phase in his childhood where he is obsessed with his role models. With Harry telling him stories about his dad, a man who Harry himself obviously admired, I can only see Teddy practically hero-worshiping Remus and trying to set up some sort of relationship with him, even if it is one-sided - thus the letter. The story never tells us whether this is the first letter Teddy has written to Remus or not, and that was done on purpose. In my mind, Teddy has more letters scattered about, and he'll tell Harry about them in time, but for now they're a secret between he and his dad.
Severus - He was probably the easiest character to write in this story, which is why I don't think I got him quite right, lol. In any post-DH universe of mine, Severus is always way more chilled out than he has ever been in canon (with good reason, I think). I really didn't want to dwell on his and Harry's relationship, which is why you don't get any backstory about how/why/when they got together, just that they obviously did. In many ways, Severus is a sort of foil for Harry in this story. As Harry points out, he didn't have very good childhood role models either, but like Severus counters, he has raised many children in his time at Hogwarts. I just don't get the feel from him that he would neglect his duties as Head of Slytherin and not care a whit about the kids or try to help them grow up. After all, the Hogwarts kids are there a majority of the year, and the adults that they have teaching them, disciplining them, and watching out for them are their pseudo-parents. Anyway, Severus really doesn't have much development to do in the way of parenting, like Harry does. Yes, he's strict, and yes, he can be mean, but he still makes it clear that he cares through his actions. One can only guess why he's so sweet on 'lil Teds, 'cause he seems to be nicer to him than to most other kids, but I think it's because Teddy's grown up with him from the time he was small, and I'm sure he knows exactly how to squirm his little way into the man's heart by now (just like Harry).
THE CARDS:
With a new set of rules this round, I got the fun of having three cards instead of one. I've seen lots of creative ways of doing this in other fics in this fest, but for me I chose to have them represent the movement of the story.
Five of Pentacles, meaning "Drained resources; exhaustion; struggling to stay afloat while searching for relief; fighting to keep morale and energy levels up; temporary hardship." - This card represents most of the plot for obvious reasons. Harry is trying to cure Teddy, but he isn't really prepared for the emotional burden of doing so.
Ten of Swords, meaning "Sudden and unexpected failure or disaster; learning from past mistakes; a power beyond your control that humbles you without warning or mercy." - This card portrays the climax of the story - Teddy's running away. Harry realizes that what he's done to Teddy has driven the boy away, that he's abused him, and possibly lost him forever. He's been so lost in this pipe dream of finding a cure that he hasn't paid any attention to Teddy the child, only Teddy the werewolf. This time in a child's life (he turns seven over the course of the story) is so important for development of self-esteem, and Harry, inadvertently of course, is slicing away at Teddy's self-esteem very badly. I feel like this happens to many parents, especially parents whose children have physical disabilities, medical problems, or some "flaw" that they believe needs to be fixed. Children that age only understand one thing about parents trying to fix them - they're somehow broken, not good enough, too much trouble. So this, I feel, would be a very realistic occurrence even outside the Wizarding world, for us poor little Muggles who mess up our kids, lol.
Eight of Cups, meaning "Turning away; giving up; abandoning a dream; choosing to sacrifice in order to make a clean break and start afresh elsewhere" - This one is obviously the last segment of the story. It's not exactly a happy card, and it's not exactly a happy ending either. After all, Teddy is still a werewolf, and both he and Harry have to deal with that fact, but it represents a sort of maturity in Harry, whereas before he believed he could conquer anything and didn't have to necessarily adapt to new situations. Now, however, he learns that sometimes it is just best to accept that you can't change something and instead make the situation the best it can be. Originally, I wanted the reunion between he and Severus to occur much later, like when Teddy is in his last year of Hogwarts, and have him literally abandon everything to go back to Severus, but that wasn't very realistic, and I liked the idea of Severus having a part in raising Teddy too much to let that happen.
THE REST:
- This fic went awhile without a title. I looked to poems for inspiration, but couldn't really find anything that jumped out and screamed at me. Tentatively, I chose a part of the poem below that I thought fit - Spared the Darkness. Later that same day, I was writing the scene where Harry is finding the letter and I thought it would be way too simple for him to just find it laying on the desk or little table in Teddy's room, so I needed a place for Teddy to hide it. I immediately had the idea of hiding it in a book, but I couldn't figure out which book he would have chosen. I asked my roommate, kittehkat, where Teddy would hide a letter to Remus, and it took about a second for her to suggest Goodnight Moon. Of course, I "awwed" and told her how beautifully sad that was, lol, and I wanted to put it in the running for the title. Obviously, Goodnight Moon won (but I added a comma, lol).
What I Believe
I believe there is no justice,
but that cottongrass and bunchberry
grow on the mountain.
I believe that a scorpion's sting
will kill a man,
but that his wife will remarry.
I believe that, the older we get,
the weaker the body,
but the stronger the soul.
I believe that if you roll over at night
in an empty bed,
the air consoles you.
I believe that no one is spared
the darkness,
and no one gets all of it.
I believe we all drown eventually
in a sea of our making,
but that the land belongs to someone else.
I believe in destiny.
And I believe in free will.
I believe that, when all
the clocks break,
time goes on without them.
And I believe that whatever
pulls us under,
will do so gently,
so as not to disturb anyone,
so as not to interfere
with what we believe in.
-- Michael Blumenthal
- "There are more important things."
There's usually a phrase or something that I don't intend to be a recurring theme but becomes one anyway, and in this story, it was the phrase "There are more important things". It really embodies the story in a simple way; the important things for Harry change throughout, which is how we can judge the level to which he has matured. In the beginning, Harry's priorities are in the right place, but they're fairly naive - he wants them to be a family and love each other, because if they do that everything will turn out right. As the story progresses, Harry becomes so obsessed with curing Teddy that he forgets that Teddy is a child, a person, and cannot be defined by one factor of his life. In those days, childrens' lives change on a daily basis, and perhaps the least of their worries are their medical problems - it's not what's important to them. So for Harry to be so obsessed with this side of Teddy...well, it didn't do the child any good. Andromeda's accusation, that Harry sees him as the world will see him - as just another Dark Creature - is accurate; he doesn't bother with Teddy the Child, only with Teddy the Werewolf, and that can have very damaging effects on a child's psyche. In the end, however, we see that Harry has his focus back on family and love, but he's not obsessed with having a perfect, pain-free family, he just wants to build one that can work through pain together through love and come out strong.
- I originally intended for there to be a drug-addiction side-plot in this story, and it was going to be the basis for Harry & Severus's break-up. In this version of the story, Harry is "friends" with Draco, if in a slightly antagonistic way. Once Teddy had been diagnosed, Harry needed a way to forget about everything that was going on, and Draco gave him that escape in the form of a drug/potion/whatever. Harry's time is either spent wasted or frantically researching trying to make up for time he's lost while being wasted. This is the reason he loses his job and his other friends, and the reason he has so little time for Teddy, and Severus finally finds out and calls him out on it. The line "'Sorry, Harry. You may have killed the darkest wizard of our time, but I will always be more afraid of Severus than I am of you.'" was originally intended to be used when Harry goes to Draco after his break-up to get another fix, and Draco refuses him because Severus has threatened him.
Unfortunately, I ended up feeling like I couldn't really give that plot the attention it needed in this story, so I cut it. The whole concept of addiction sometimes taking hold of a parent/guardian when they are dealing with a child's chronic disease is a fascinating and incredibly complex topic, and I already had enough I wanted to touch on. In other words, I couldn't force it to be a side-plot - it would have to become the main focus, and that wasn't something I wanted to happen with this story. I'm planning another substance abuse story though, and I Love Hate Fuck You already deals with that (though in the larger context of a dysfunctional relationship).
If you've been here for other hp_tarot fics, you know the drill! This is mainly a re-cap for me, to get perspective on my writing style and try to improve, so it's probably more than a little ridiculous to the outside reader, but if you're interested, please feel free to browse! It is highly recommended that you read the story first.
THE CHARACTERS:
Harry - He finally got his shot at being the focus of an hp_tarot fic of mine, lol. For some reason, I had a lot of trouble writing him here. The tarot fics, for me, have always been more about introspection and internal conflict than external conflict, and I think it was harder to portray that in this story because I don't feel it's in Harry's character to do a whole lot of introspection. He does things without considering all the consequences, which is how things got so out of hand with Teddy. This story, like the others, is supposed to take the main character and play the story out through his eyes only - what he feels about something, what he thinks about something, even if it's not happening to him. This was hard to do for Harry because my mindset is so different than his, even though I love his character and understand his motivations.
ANYway, Harry's conflict in this story is simple - parenting. As Snape remarks (rather viciously) Harry didn't grow up understanding how real, loving parents were supposed to act towards their children. In a way, he doesn't even understand how "normal" childrens' minds function because he never had a chance to be a normal child. For him, suffering is bad, end of story. He doesn't want Teddy, his child for all intents and purposes, to have to suffer through life being a werewolf and he is willing to do anything to ensure that doesn't happen. What he doesn't understand is that there are many different kinds of abuse and suffering, and for Teddy, the emotional and psychological hurts he suffered were worse than the physical. Finally at the end, we see Harry mature enough to where he has learned to completely, unselfishly be Teddy's father, doing what's really best for him instead of what he thinks is best for him.
Teddy - I have been told I write children well, but I always feel like my children don't come out nearly the way they should. In any case, Teddy was fun to write because he's a canon character that we know almost nothing about, especially personality-wise. Of course, my love for Remus always makes me picture them to be very alike in personality (even though a lot of Remus's personality is his Pisces nature and Teds is an Aries), but I wanted to bring that out especially in this story. Teddy is going through that phase in his childhood where he is obsessed with his role models. With Harry telling him stories about his dad, a man who Harry himself obviously admired, I can only see Teddy practically hero-worshiping Remus and trying to set up some sort of relationship with him, even if it is one-sided - thus the letter. The story never tells us whether this is the first letter Teddy has written to Remus or not, and that was done on purpose. In my mind, Teddy has more letters scattered about, and he'll tell Harry about them in time, but for now they're a secret between he and his dad.
Severus - He was probably the easiest character to write in this story, which is why I don't think I got him quite right, lol. In any post-DH universe of mine, Severus is always way more chilled out than he has ever been in canon (with good reason, I think). I really didn't want to dwell on his and Harry's relationship, which is why you don't get any backstory about how/why/when they got together, just that they obviously did. In many ways, Severus is a sort of foil for Harry in this story. As Harry points out, he didn't have very good childhood role models either, but like Severus counters, he has raised many children in his time at Hogwarts. I just don't get the feel from him that he would neglect his duties as Head of Slytherin and not care a whit about the kids or try to help them grow up. After all, the Hogwarts kids are there a majority of the year, and the adults that they have teaching them, disciplining them, and watching out for them are their pseudo-parents. Anyway, Severus really doesn't have much development to do in the way of parenting, like Harry does. Yes, he's strict, and yes, he can be mean, but he still makes it clear that he cares through his actions. One can only guess why he's so sweet on 'lil Teds, 'cause he seems to be nicer to him than to most other kids, but I think it's because Teddy's grown up with him from the time he was small, and I'm sure he knows exactly how to squirm his little way into the man's heart by now (just like Harry).
THE CARDS:
With a new set of rules this round, I got the fun of having three cards instead of one. I've seen lots of creative ways of doing this in other fics in this fest, but for me I chose to have them represent the movement of the story.
Five of Pentacles, meaning "Drained resources; exhaustion; struggling to stay afloat while searching for relief; fighting to keep morale and energy levels up; temporary hardship." - This card represents most of the plot for obvious reasons. Harry is trying to cure Teddy, but he isn't really prepared for the emotional burden of doing so.
Ten of Swords, meaning "Sudden and unexpected failure or disaster; learning from past mistakes; a power beyond your control that humbles you without warning or mercy." - This card portrays the climax of the story - Teddy's running away. Harry realizes that what he's done to Teddy has driven the boy away, that he's abused him, and possibly lost him forever. He's been so lost in this pipe dream of finding a cure that he hasn't paid any attention to Teddy the child, only Teddy the werewolf. This time in a child's life (he turns seven over the course of the story) is so important for development of self-esteem, and Harry, inadvertently of course, is slicing away at Teddy's self-esteem very badly. I feel like this happens to many parents, especially parents whose children have physical disabilities, medical problems, or some "flaw" that they believe needs to be fixed. Children that age only understand one thing about parents trying to fix them - they're somehow broken, not good enough, too much trouble. So this, I feel, would be a very realistic occurrence even outside the Wizarding world, for us poor little Muggles who mess up our kids, lol.
Eight of Cups, meaning "Turning away; giving up; abandoning a dream; choosing to sacrifice in order to make a clean break and start afresh elsewhere" - This one is obviously the last segment of the story. It's not exactly a happy card, and it's not exactly a happy ending either. After all, Teddy is still a werewolf, and both he and Harry have to deal with that fact, but it represents a sort of maturity in Harry, whereas before he believed he could conquer anything and didn't have to necessarily adapt to new situations. Now, however, he learns that sometimes it is just best to accept that you can't change something and instead make the situation the best it can be. Originally, I wanted the reunion between he and Severus to occur much later, like when Teddy is in his last year of Hogwarts, and have him literally abandon everything to go back to Severus, but that wasn't very realistic, and I liked the idea of Severus having a part in raising Teddy too much to let that happen.
THE REST:
- This fic went awhile without a title. I looked to poems for inspiration, but couldn't really find anything that jumped out and screamed at me. Tentatively, I chose a part of the poem below that I thought fit - Spared the Darkness. Later that same day, I was writing the scene where Harry is finding the letter and I thought it would be way too simple for him to just find it laying on the desk or little table in Teddy's room, so I needed a place for Teddy to hide it. I immediately had the idea of hiding it in a book, but I couldn't figure out which book he would have chosen. I asked my roommate, kittehkat, where Teddy would hide a letter to Remus, and it took about a second for her to suggest Goodnight Moon. Of course, I "awwed" and told her how beautifully sad that was, lol, and I wanted to put it in the running for the title. Obviously, Goodnight Moon won (but I added a comma, lol).
What I Believe
I believe there is no justice,
but that cottongrass and bunchberry
grow on the mountain.
I believe that a scorpion's sting
will kill a man,
but that his wife will remarry.
I believe that, the older we get,
the weaker the body,
but the stronger the soul.
I believe that if you roll over at night
in an empty bed,
the air consoles you.
I believe that no one is spared
the darkness,
and no one gets all of it.
I believe we all drown eventually
in a sea of our making,
but that the land belongs to someone else.
I believe in destiny.
And I believe in free will.
I believe that, when all
the clocks break,
time goes on without them.
And I believe that whatever
pulls us under,
will do so gently,
so as not to disturb anyone,
so as not to interfere
with what we believe in.
-- Michael Blumenthal
- "There are more important things."
There's usually a phrase or something that I don't intend to be a recurring theme but becomes one anyway, and in this story, it was the phrase "There are more important things". It really embodies the story in a simple way; the important things for Harry change throughout, which is how we can judge the level to which he has matured. In the beginning, Harry's priorities are in the right place, but they're fairly naive - he wants them to be a family and love each other, because if they do that everything will turn out right. As the story progresses, Harry becomes so obsessed with curing Teddy that he forgets that Teddy is a child, a person, and cannot be defined by one factor of his life. In those days, childrens' lives change on a daily basis, and perhaps the least of their worries are their medical problems - it's not what's important to them. So for Harry to be so obsessed with this side of Teddy...well, it didn't do the child any good. Andromeda's accusation, that Harry sees him as the world will see him - as just another Dark Creature - is accurate; he doesn't bother with Teddy the Child, only with Teddy the Werewolf, and that can have very damaging effects on a child's psyche. In the end, however, we see that Harry has his focus back on family and love, but he's not obsessed with having a perfect, pain-free family, he just wants to build one that can work through pain together through love and come out strong.
- I originally intended for there to be a drug-addiction side-plot in this story, and it was going to be the basis for Harry & Severus's break-up. In this version of the story, Harry is "friends" with Draco, if in a slightly antagonistic way. Once Teddy had been diagnosed, Harry needed a way to forget about everything that was going on, and Draco gave him that escape in the form of a drug/potion/whatever. Harry's time is either spent wasted or frantically researching trying to make up for time he's lost while being wasted. This is the reason he loses his job and his other friends, and the reason he has so little time for Teddy, and Severus finally finds out and calls him out on it. The line "'Sorry, Harry. You may have killed the darkest wizard of our time, but I will always be more afraid of Severus than I am of you.'" was originally intended to be used when Harry goes to Draco after his break-up to get another fix, and Draco refuses him because Severus has threatened him.
Unfortunately, I ended up feeling like I couldn't really give that plot the attention it needed in this story, so I cut it. The whole concept of addiction sometimes taking hold of a parent/guardian when they are dealing with a child's chronic disease is a fascinating and incredibly complex topic, and I already had enough I wanted to touch on. In other words, I couldn't force it to be a side-plot - it would have to become the main focus, and that wasn't something I wanted to happen with this story. I'm planning another substance abuse story though, and I Love Hate Fuck You already deals with that (though in the larger context of a dysfunctional relationship).