MISSED CALLS ➡︎ TEDDY LUPIN [2] ✓

xcvi. A VERY WEASLEY CHRISTMAS

Just like every other year since Oliver was born, on December twenty-fifth, the Weasley home was filled to the brim with family and friends for a joint Christmas and birthday party.

The older cousins, such as Oliver, Avalon, Victoire, Arthur, Luna, and Laurel, as well as their parents sipped on wine or champagne while the younger ones, especially Isabel, grumbled and complained about how they weren't allowed to have any.

As the morning turned to afternoon, more and more people began to show up.

Avalon, in her nicest party dress, greeted the door with her twin brother, smiling and hugging and making polite conversation with each guest that arrived.

The twins broke away from their usual script when their Aunt Narcissa arrived, and Avalon rushed to wrap her arms around the older woman in excitement.

"Hello, my darling Avalon." Narcissa said, slyly slipping a small parcel wrapped in gorgeous silver paper into her psuedo-niece's hand. "This is for you, but wait until later to open it, alright?"

Avalon had always thought Aunt Narcissa was ethereally beautiful, with her long, pristinely styled blonde hair and elegant aura. She had heard stories about what the woman was like, before Avalon had even been born—cold and foreboding, with a Death Eater for a husband and very little joy in her life apart from her equally cold son. But the longer Avalon knew Narcissa Black, the more the woman from the past seemed like nothing more than a lesson from her Modern Wizarding History class.

How could this warm, loving, generous woman who had never had anything but kindness to offer Avalon and her siblings, be the same woman that fought for hatred and blood purity?

Even as the eldest Weasley daughter hugged Narcissa in thanks, she simply couldn't see the woman from her father's bedtime stories about the war, the one who war all black and was scary to be around. No, her Aunt Narcissa was someone who loved styling grays and whites with bright pops of green and blue and red, who gave the best presents and was so quick to give advice.

"Hey, Mum?" Avalon asked, walking into the kitchen, where her mother had been taking a break from the party.

Her mother smiled as she walked up to her, wrapping an arm around her daughter. "Yes, my love?"

"D'you think you could tell me about the war sometime, now that I'm of age?"

Amelia Weasley pursed her lips, and in her brown eyes Avalon could practically see flashes of red and green magic as well as even a wall exploding in on itself. Memories of the final battle were flying through her mind, it seemed.

"Well..." The matriarch of the family began hesitantly. "You're the same age now as your Uncle Harry was when he fought Voldemort, so I guess that would be alright."

Avalon smiled softly, glad to finally be let in on the secrets of her mother's past.

—

Presents had been exchanged, food had been eaten, and soon enough, it was well past midnight, and all of her family and friends had left for the night, except for Victoire, who had been able to arrange a sleepover.

"What's that?" The blonde asked from her spot on Avalon's bed, watching as her cousin held the silver package in her hands.

"It's a gift, from my Aunt Narcissa." Avalon replied.

She sat down next to Victoire and began to tear open the small parcel.

Inside was a note, as well as a velvet bag that held something hard and heavy.

Avalon carefully opened the bag and dumped it out into the palm of her hand, finding a small silver ring with the Black family crest on it.

Avalon,

This is another heirloom I found while decluttering around the house. It belonged to my mother, and her mother before her, and her mother before her, etc., etc..

The tradition in my family was to give this ring to the eldest daughter of the family on her seventeenth birthday. It was supposed to go to my elder sister, but by the time she turned seventeen she was already engaged and out of the house. It would have gone to my other older sister, Andromeda—Teddy's grandmother—but she was disowned just before her seventeenth birthday. So it went to me.

And since I have no daughters, I had planned on giving it to your mother, since she is the closest thing I have to a daughter. You and Arthur had just been born when I offered it to her, but she declined. She told me to wait to give it to you until your seventeenth birthday. Unfortunately, however, I managed to misplace it somewhere in the house for just about seventeen years.

But I found it a week or two ago, and figured it would be better late than never to give it to you.

I understand if you don't want to bear the Black family name. However, I do hope that you can look past the centuries of nasty history and see that not all of us were horrible. My sister Andromeda, my late cousin Sirius, and me, although if your mother has told you anything about my past, you would know that I was on the wrong side for much of my life. Either way, the Black family name will die with me, so why hold onto all of our old knicknacks and trinkets, when I have my nieces and nephews to give the objects that aren't cursed?

So happy late birthday, and merry Christmas, my dear Avalon.

Aunt Narcissa.

if u don't understand the paragraphs where avalon is thinking about narcissa it's basically just her comparing the narcissa that amelia knew during the war vs aunt cissy that avalon knows now