The Fall of The Phoenix

Gabriel Dominic Lupin-Potter

Chapter Thirty-Six: Gabriel Dominic Lupin-Potter

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Victoire and Teddy's house was near the ocean. It was made of grey stones of all different sizes, with the front door facing the water below. A winding stone path ran down the side of a hill and down onto the stone that lined the water. Though there was very little sand, the rock was pocked with holes that had filled with a fascinating array of aquatic life. When the tide went out, the holes became tide pools that teemed with movement and color. I ordered twenty books on the ocean life around their home, waiting for the day that I would have the chance to walk my godchild along the water and teach them about everything that we saw there.

The water was, of course, perpetually a cause of fear, but I found that I was able to deal with it so long as I did not get too close to the drop offs into deeper waters. Tide pools posed about as much a threat as a bath (which was a bit, but nothing unbearable). Walking along the shallows was also not overly scary, for I knew that it would be little more than a matter of very brief unpleasant experience if I did happen to slip.

Lily, Albus, James, and I scoured the water's edge for shells, which we turned into mobiles for the baby's room. The house was perpetually a bit on the cold side, which meant that Victoire was knitting constantly. Teddy and Levi got Grandpa's help in building the crib, wanting to make it out of driftwood. Dad showed up the day that Grandpa was set to start, wand and a hammer in hand and an eager look on his face. All of the curtains in the house were white lace, so that the sunshine still poured into the room on the rare day when the sky wasn't grey, and they left the windows cracked most of the time to allow the sound of the waves to fill the home.

Despite it being the middle of summer, we had the fireplaces lit constantly. In the evenings, the boys would pile massive pieces of driftwood up and light a bonfire, the salt making the flames flicker in an impressive array of colors that I attempted to replicate in my palms when I was alone or with just Lily.

Though I had been desperately eager to spend some time at my home over the summer, we wound up spending most of the first month at the Lupin-Potter home instead, helping them get ready for the baby. I found that I didn't mind.

Victoire, Lily, Coleen, and I made our trip into muggle London on a sunny day in early June. She wanted white linens and a stuffed wolf. We convinced her to purchase the bubblegum pink wolf toy that Lily and I found buried under a pile of stuffed elephants. The significance of the color had to be explained to Coleen, who was bewildered when Vic promptly burst into tears when presented with the toy.

We all disguised our appearances a bit, with Vic using a spell that hid her bump (we elected not to tell her how odd this made her changed gait look), though one of Vic's coworkers was pregnant as well and was willing to be our cover story if anyone spotted us out buying baby supplies. Victoire's baby shower was in a few days, so we tried to steer her away from buying clothes that she wasn't completely in love with, but she still wound up sending home bags stuffed full of baby clothes multiple times throughout the day after making a large purchase.

I distracted Victoire several times while the other two girls bought gifts for her from both themselves and our younger two brothers, as they hadn't gone anywhere but the Lupin-Potter home, the Burrow, and our home since we came back for the summer. While we were out, Grandma was getting things ready for Vic's cake. It was, to James and my horror, flavored like fake strawberry. Victoire had craved everything of the dreaded flavor since her second month of pregnancy, so we dutifully determined that we would simply avoid the cake, leaving more for the mother-to-be.

During the baby shower, Levi and I would be revealing the name of the baby. I was a bit nervous, though I knew that I could perform the spell that would make the fireworks go off correctly while he lit the bonfire. Fire was, after all, my forte. Still, I worried that something would go wrong and I would ruin the day.