Gens Lupina
Cross-posting to my journal, since a whole lot of people on my f-list helped me with Latin. :) (EDIT: OOOPS! I didn't see the "don't archive elsewhere.") I won't do that again.)
Title: Gens Lupina
Author: FernWithy
Format & Word Count: Ficlet, 2116
Rating: PG
Prompt: February 6
Warning: All Lupinlets, all the time.
Summary: Tonks and Remus's children prepare for their twenty-fifth anniversary party.
Author's Note (if desired): I don't know why, but I saw the picture and interpreted it as a sister annoying her brother. Thanks to volandum, minoukatze, dipsas and terrathree for help with Latin.
Orion Lupin had a vicious headache from too many hours spent hunched over his books. He concentrated and morphed his hair out long enough to tug on, which usually helped for some reason. This time, the morph itself balanced out any relief. He lay down with his face in his book, eyes closed, rubbing the back of his neck and wishing the world would just quiet down for a bit.
Particularly the part of it where someone was slamming his door open and thudding rapidly across the room.
The mattress bounced. "All right, Orry?"
"You know," he said, "when I envision girls leaping onto my bed, they aren't, as a rule, my sisters."
"Please don't qualify that with 'as a rule.' Let's just say it's an absolute. For my piece of mind." Carina tilted her head and ran her finger over the pages of his book. "History of Magic? I can't believe you're taking a N.E.W.T. with Binns."
"After a year of it, I'd think you'd be starting to come around."
She stuck her tongue out. "I had a letter from Mira. She and the baby can definitely come, and she's trying to convince Daniel to let her bring him through the Floo Network. I guess the airplanes out of Kinshasa are a little slow."
Orry looked at her blankly.
"Mum and Dad's anniversary!" she punched his shoulder. "Honestly, Orry. Do you ever listen to me?"
"You generally repeat yourself, anyway."
"Saturday. Mum and Dad's twenty-fifth wedding anniversary. The reason we're all here? I've got half the wizarding world coming, I worked all summer at Weasleys' to get the fireworks, Granny's got a larder full of food, the whole Auror division is involved with a cover-up to keep the surprise, but their own son has his nose stuck in goblin wars."
"I didn't forget the party," Orry said. "I was just wondering why Daniel would be taking an airplane at all. Mira can bring the baby through the Floo, then go back and drag him along Apparating if he doesn't like the ash."
Carina shrugged. "Last time they were here, I heard him muttering something about being pulled along like luggage. Feels like an outsider or something." She rolled her eyes at the very thought of their Muggle brother-in-law having any discomfort at the thought of being transported the same way one might transport a heavy cauldron or a pile of laundry. "Dad's wild about him, though. He should come. Did you get them anything yet?"
"What?"
"A present, Orry. It's traditional among civilized people."
"Someday, you'll stay on one topic for a whole sentence. They'll declare it a bank holiday. I have a headache. Go away."
She shook her head and waved her wand in a complicated motion she'd learned from Granny Tonks and wasn't supposed to use outside of school for another year, not that she'd ever paid attention to that. Orry thought about complaining, but his headache did, in fact, disappear entirely. She raised an eyebrow at him. "Did you buy a present for Mum and Dad's anniversary?"
"No."
"Orry!"
The indignation in her voice was amusing enough to push away the last weariness from the headache. He laughed and leaned over the side of his bed, pulling out a round storage tube. "Will you calm down? I made one. I've been working on it for a year." He unrolled the tapestry and sent it to the far wall, holding it there with a mild sticking charm and marveling that he could finally do so without worrying that someone would accuse him of underage magic. "I swear I used half the books in the library to find what old Auntie burnt off. The woman should be posthumously charged with being a pain the arse."
Carina rolled off the bed, then went to the unfurled tapestry and traced the complicated lines with her eyes. She was finally forced to follow some with her fingers. Orry grinned.
The whole thing looked like the top half of an hourglass, hundreds of names funneling down to Mum and Dad, alone in the middle, bound by a double line. He'd carefully traced down some lateral lines to show people like Sirius Black and James Potter (and naturally, Harry Potter), but even when he'd simply listed ancestors, the pureblood lines on Granny Tonks's and Grandfather Lupin's sides looked tangled and dense from stitching dotted lines, connecting up to common ancestors. Granddad's line and Grandmother Lupin's looked neat and clean, tall, narrow trees rising between wild brambles.
"Mum's wanted to fix that tree for years."
"The one at Number Twelve is gone. I mean, it's there, of course, but I couldn't do anything with it. Aunt Ginny tried as well, but... well, you know. I got Phineas to help me with some of it, but he didn't have the thing memorized. I've just been digging through books at Hogwarts. Not to mention half the hamlets in Muggle Britain." He got off the bed and went to stand beside her. "Working on a History N.E.W.T. has its perks."
"How come you crowded it all up at the top? The whole bottom half is blank."
"Not entirely."
"I mean, except for us, and Daniel and Mira."
"And little Al."
"Well, yes, of course."
"Follow the bouncing logic, Car."
"Oh! Oh, you mean... it's going to grow, like the other one?"
"I certainly hope so. The magic for it works, anyway. Alphard was the test. He showed up right on schedule."
Carina touched their nephew's name, then looked at him warily. "You're not trying to start up that whole ancient and most noble thing again, are you?"
He laughed. "Hardly. I just... I don't know. I just realized they were the only ones left after what happened to Mum's cousin. They're, like... I don't know. Lynchpins." He shrugged. "Do you think it's stupid? I thought about just starting with them and doing the charms, so there'd just be the future. You know... their whole line starting and all that, and in five hundred years everyone would be trying to figure it out from them. But I thought they might like it this way more."
Carina considered this. "I think they'll like it. But it's missing something."
"Who?"
"Not a who, a what." Carina frowned at it for a long time, then raised her wand. "May I?"
"Does the phrase 'of age' mean anything to you?"
"May I?"
He rolled his eyes and gestured her to go on.
"Inscribo," she said, and bright light flashed across the top of the parchment. In its wake, written in Carina's simple but pretty script, were the title Gens Lupina and, beneath it, the motto, Multi aspectus amoris et honoris.
"Many shapes of love and honor," he translated. "Catchy, but since when do we have a motto?"
"Since about two minutes ago." She grinned. "What, do you think the old motto fell out of the sky one day? Someone made it up. And I like mine better than Toujours purs, anyway. Should it be French instead?"
"No, definitely Latin. Looks much snootier."
Carina laughed, and they spent the rest of the evening following the lines, gossiping about who had done what (and usually to whom). In Slytherin, Carina had learned any number of tidbits about the family that hadn't quite made the books Orry had been reading.
Mira and the baby arrived Friday night--she made up a story about spontaneously deciding to come home and wish them a happy anniversary--and Mum didn't object in the least to watching Al while Mira went back to Kinshasa to convince her husband to be pulled back magic-style. By midnight, they were all sitting around the parlor laughing, and Orry felt peaceful and at home. Mum and Dad were curled up together on the sofa, fitting comfortably in a way Orry couldn't even imagine fitting another person. Mum talked about work, where she was training Dane Weasley, and Mira talked Dad into reading part of the book he'd been writing about the first war with Voldemort. Daniel marveled at how much had happened without the Muggle world seeing anything, and Mira started in on her theories about what Muggle events were really magical in origin, and Orry countered her at least every third word until Mum told them to stop debating. Carina held the sleeping baby against her knees and whispered to him until he decided he wanted to eat, and Mira had to take him away.
Orry wished there were some way to make the new family tree show this, the real gens Lupina, but it didn't translate very well.
Very late, Mum narrowed her eyes and made an abrupt comment about how she and Dad were going to go away for the weekend (Dad looked surprised), and Carina turned sheet-white. Mum smiled and said she reckoned she'd got her weekends mixed up, but somehow or other decided to wear her best clothes (and talk Dad into wearing his) for their ordinary afternoon at home, despite the fact that they weren't expecting the fifty-odd people who showed up at noon.
It was a loud, merry gathering, and there were quite a few bawdy jokes from their old friends. Keeping some of the smaller children in attendance from asking what those jokes meant had somehow fallen to Orry, and he ended up spending most of the day telling them the most exciting stories he could remember from history to keep them distracted. Little Opal Thomas attached herself to him quite literally for an hour, as no one could quite figure out which spell she'd accidentally done, probably thanks to large quantities of mulled mead from the Hog's Head having been consumed by then. Before everyone left, Mira made a point of fussing over Carina for planning it all, and everyone gave her a rousing cheer. Mum hugged her.
Once she'd finished basking in the praise, Carina announced Orry's present, and Orry broke the Concealing Charm he'd had on it all afternoon, revealing the new family tree on the parlor wall.
The house didn't really empty until well after sunset, leaving them all alone again. Orry and Mira did the clean-up, excusing Carina because she was horrible at it, though they said it was because she'd done all the work so far. When they finished, they went back to the parlor, where Mum and Dad were standing in front of the tapestry. Carina and Daniel were on the floor--he was sitting, she was lying on her stomach with her bare feet waving in the air--letting Al inchworm his way back and forth between them. Mira sat down at an angle from them, making a triangular area that Al caught onto quickly enough. He gave a high-pitched, spittly giggle, and started to make his way toward his mum.
Orry went to Mum and Dad. Mum slipped her arm around his waist. "That's a lot of work," she said. "I can't believe how many of Dad's people you found. Did you see him tracing them?"
"Yes... do you like it?"
"Quite a bit, yes." Mum kissed his cheek.
"Dad?"
"I'm astounded at it. It's... honestly, it's strange to think of myself in the middle of a web like that."
Mum laughed. "I can just see our great-great-great-grandchildren looking at it and thinking, "Oh, that Grandfather Remus must have been this stern and forbidding person. And Grandmother Nymphadora... with a name like that, I reckon she must have been quite the traditionalist."
"We could add pictures," Orry suggested. "I'll get you with purple hair. I'll make mine match, and they'll all wonder where the purple-haired Lupins have got to."
Mum laughed merrily. "I'd love to do that. But I can just imagine some scandalized grandchild burning us off."
"Oh, that'll never happen."
"You're so certain no one in our line could ever do such a thing?" Dad asked.
"No," Orry said. "But I am quite certain I made it inflammable."
"My boy," Dad said, grinning.
They turned together and went back to where the others were playing with Al. Mum and Dad sat across from Mira, and Orry stretched out on the floor beside Carina. He Conjured a sparkly ball of light and Al giggled, slapping clumsily at it. Mira and Dad did the same, and the game was on, with the baby as the object and the prize. Every time he caught one of the balls, it zoomed up to the ceiling, and by the time he tired of it, there were several of them flying around, but no one paid them any mind as they bounced from wall to wall, flashing their reflection on the golden threads of the tapestry.
Title: Gens Lupina
Author: FernWithy
Format & Word Count: Ficlet, 2116
Rating: PG
Prompt: February 6
Warning: All Lupinlets, all the time.
Summary: Tonks and Remus's children prepare for their twenty-fifth anniversary party.
Author's Note (if desired): I don't know why, but I saw the picture and interpreted it as a sister annoying her brother. Thanks to volandum, minoukatze, dipsas and terrathree for help with Latin.
Orion Lupin had a vicious headache from too many hours spent hunched over his books. He concentrated and morphed his hair out long enough to tug on, which usually helped for some reason. This time, the morph itself balanced out any relief. He lay down with his face in his book, eyes closed, rubbing the back of his neck and wishing the world would just quiet down for a bit.
Particularly the part of it where someone was slamming his door open and thudding rapidly across the room.
The mattress bounced. "All right, Orry?"
"You know," he said, "when I envision girls leaping onto my bed, they aren't, as a rule, my sisters."
"Please don't qualify that with 'as a rule.' Let's just say it's an absolute. For my piece of mind." Carina tilted her head and ran her finger over the pages of his book. "History of Magic? I can't believe you're taking a N.E.W.T. with Binns."
"After a year of it, I'd think you'd be starting to come around."
She stuck her tongue out. "I had a letter from Mira. She and the baby can definitely come, and she's trying to convince Daniel to let her bring him through the Floo Network. I guess the airplanes out of Kinshasa are a little slow."
Orry looked at her blankly.
"Mum and Dad's anniversary!" she punched his shoulder. "Honestly, Orry. Do you ever listen to me?"
"You generally repeat yourself, anyway."
"Saturday. Mum and Dad's twenty-fifth wedding anniversary. The reason we're all here? I've got half the wizarding world coming, I worked all summer at Weasleys' to get the fireworks, Granny's got a larder full of food, the whole Auror division is involved with a cover-up to keep the surprise, but their own son has his nose stuck in goblin wars."
"I didn't forget the party," Orry said. "I was just wondering why Daniel would be taking an airplane at all. Mira can bring the baby through the Floo, then go back and drag him along Apparating if he doesn't like the ash."
Carina shrugged. "Last time they were here, I heard him muttering something about being pulled along like luggage. Feels like an outsider or something." She rolled her eyes at the very thought of their Muggle brother-in-law having any discomfort at the thought of being transported the same way one might transport a heavy cauldron or a pile of laundry. "Dad's wild about him, though. He should come. Did you get them anything yet?"
"What?"
"A present, Orry. It's traditional among civilized people."
"Someday, you'll stay on one topic for a whole sentence. They'll declare it a bank holiday. I have a headache. Go away."
She shook her head and waved her wand in a complicated motion she'd learned from Granny Tonks and wasn't supposed to use outside of school for another year, not that she'd ever paid attention to that. Orry thought about complaining, but his headache did, in fact, disappear entirely. She raised an eyebrow at him. "Did you buy a present for Mum and Dad's anniversary?"
"No."
"Orry!"
The indignation in her voice was amusing enough to push away the last weariness from the headache. He laughed and leaned over the side of his bed, pulling out a round storage tube. "Will you calm down? I made one. I've been working on it for a year." He unrolled the tapestry and sent it to the far wall, holding it there with a mild sticking charm and marveling that he could finally do so without worrying that someone would accuse him of underage magic. "I swear I used half the books in the library to find what old Auntie burnt off. The woman should be posthumously charged with being a pain the arse."
Carina rolled off the bed, then went to the unfurled tapestry and traced the complicated lines with her eyes. She was finally forced to follow some with her fingers. Orry grinned.
The whole thing looked like the top half of an hourglass, hundreds of names funneling down to Mum and Dad, alone in the middle, bound by a double line. He'd carefully traced down some lateral lines to show people like Sirius Black and James Potter (and naturally, Harry Potter), but even when he'd simply listed ancestors, the pureblood lines on Granny Tonks's and Grandfather Lupin's sides looked tangled and dense from stitching dotted lines, connecting up to common ancestors. Granddad's line and Grandmother Lupin's looked neat and clean, tall, narrow trees rising between wild brambles.
"Mum's wanted to fix that tree for years."
"The one at Number Twelve is gone. I mean, it's there, of course, but I couldn't do anything with it. Aunt Ginny tried as well, but... well, you know. I got Phineas to help me with some of it, but he didn't have the thing memorized. I've just been digging through books at Hogwarts. Not to mention half the hamlets in Muggle Britain." He got off the bed and went to stand beside her. "Working on a History N.E.W.T. has its perks."
"How come you crowded it all up at the top? The whole bottom half is blank."
"Not entirely."
"I mean, except for us, and Daniel and Mira."
"And little Al."
"Well, yes, of course."
"Follow the bouncing logic, Car."
"Oh! Oh, you mean... it's going to grow, like the other one?"
"I certainly hope so. The magic for it works, anyway. Alphard was the test. He showed up right on schedule."
Carina touched their nephew's name, then looked at him warily. "You're not trying to start up that whole ancient and most noble thing again, are you?"
He laughed. "Hardly. I just... I don't know. I just realized they were the only ones left after what happened to Mum's cousin. They're, like... I don't know. Lynchpins." He shrugged. "Do you think it's stupid? I thought about just starting with them and doing the charms, so there'd just be the future. You know... their whole line starting and all that, and in five hundred years everyone would be trying to figure it out from them. But I thought they might like it this way more."
Carina considered this. "I think they'll like it. But it's missing something."
"Who?"
"Not a who, a what." Carina frowned at it for a long time, then raised her wand. "May I?"
"Does the phrase 'of age' mean anything to you?"
"May I?"
He rolled his eyes and gestured her to go on.
"Inscribo," she said, and bright light flashed across the top of the parchment. In its wake, written in Carina's simple but pretty script, were the title Gens Lupina and, beneath it, the motto, Multi aspectus amoris et honoris.
"Many shapes of love and honor," he translated. "Catchy, but since when do we have a motto?"
"Since about two minutes ago." She grinned. "What, do you think the old motto fell out of the sky one day? Someone made it up. And I like mine better than Toujours purs, anyway. Should it be French instead?"
"No, definitely Latin. Looks much snootier."
Carina laughed, and they spent the rest of the evening following the lines, gossiping about who had done what (and usually to whom). In Slytherin, Carina had learned any number of tidbits about the family that hadn't quite made the books Orry had been reading.
Mira and the baby arrived Friday night--she made up a story about spontaneously deciding to come home and wish them a happy anniversary--and Mum didn't object in the least to watching Al while Mira went back to Kinshasa to convince her husband to be pulled back magic-style. By midnight, they were all sitting around the parlor laughing, and Orry felt peaceful and at home. Mum and Dad were curled up together on the sofa, fitting comfortably in a way Orry couldn't even imagine fitting another person. Mum talked about work, where she was training Dane Weasley, and Mira talked Dad into reading part of the book he'd been writing about the first war with Voldemort. Daniel marveled at how much had happened without the Muggle world seeing anything, and Mira started in on her theories about what Muggle events were really magical in origin, and Orry countered her at least every third word until Mum told them to stop debating. Carina held the sleeping baby against her knees and whispered to him until he decided he wanted to eat, and Mira had to take him away.
Orry wished there were some way to make the new family tree show this, the real gens Lupina, but it didn't translate very well.
Very late, Mum narrowed her eyes and made an abrupt comment about how she and Dad were going to go away for the weekend (Dad looked surprised), and Carina turned sheet-white. Mum smiled and said she reckoned she'd got her weekends mixed up, but somehow or other decided to wear her best clothes (and talk Dad into wearing his) for their ordinary afternoon at home, despite the fact that they weren't expecting the fifty-odd people who showed up at noon.
It was a loud, merry gathering, and there were quite a few bawdy jokes from their old friends. Keeping some of the smaller children in attendance from asking what those jokes meant had somehow fallen to Orry, and he ended up spending most of the day telling them the most exciting stories he could remember from history to keep them distracted. Little Opal Thomas attached herself to him quite literally for an hour, as no one could quite figure out which spell she'd accidentally done, probably thanks to large quantities of mulled mead from the Hog's Head having been consumed by then. Before everyone left, Mira made a point of fussing over Carina for planning it all, and everyone gave her a rousing cheer. Mum hugged her.
Once she'd finished basking in the praise, Carina announced Orry's present, and Orry broke the Concealing Charm he'd had on it all afternoon, revealing the new family tree on the parlor wall.
The house didn't really empty until well after sunset, leaving them all alone again. Orry and Mira did the clean-up, excusing Carina because she was horrible at it, though they said it was because she'd done all the work so far. When they finished, they went back to the parlor, where Mum and Dad were standing in front of the tapestry. Carina and Daniel were on the floor--he was sitting, she was lying on her stomach with her bare feet waving in the air--letting Al inchworm his way back and forth between them. Mira sat down at an angle from them, making a triangular area that Al caught onto quickly enough. He gave a high-pitched, spittly giggle, and started to make his way toward his mum.
Orry went to Mum and Dad. Mum slipped her arm around his waist. "That's a lot of work," she said. "I can't believe how many of Dad's people you found. Did you see him tracing them?"
"Yes... do you like it?"
"Quite a bit, yes." Mum kissed his cheek.
"Dad?"
"I'm astounded at it. It's... honestly, it's strange to think of myself in the middle of a web like that."
Mum laughed. "I can just see our great-great-great-grandchildren looking at it and thinking, "Oh, that Grandfather Remus must have been this stern and forbidding person. And Grandmother Nymphadora... with a name like that, I reckon she must have been quite the traditionalist."
"We could add pictures," Orry suggested. "I'll get you with purple hair. I'll make mine match, and they'll all wonder where the purple-haired Lupins have got to."
Mum laughed merrily. "I'd love to do that. But I can just imagine some scandalized grandchild burning us off."
"Oh, that'll never happen."
"You're so certain no one in our line could ever do such a thing?" Dad asked.
"No," Orry said. "But I am quite certain I made it inflammable."
"My boy," Dad said, grinning.
They turned together and went back to where the others were playing with Al. Mum and Dad sat across from Mira, and Orry stretched out on the floor beside Carina. He Conjured a sparkly ball of light and Al giggled, slapping clumsily at it. Mira and Dad did the same, and the game was on, with the baby as the object and the prize. Every time he caught one of the balls, it zoomed up to the ceiling, and by the time he tired of it, there were several of them flying around, but no one paid them any mind as they bounced from wall to wall, flashing their reflection on the golden threads of the tapestry.