Work Text:
When Theo asked me to write the foreword to his work, I found myself considering doing something I had never before: discussing my family in public. This is not something I do lightly for I have never the celebrity awarded to some members of it (and neither did them, I might add). But when first kid you babysat (an honour that avoided me with the kids of my own generation, as one of the youngest in it) asks a favour, you cannot deny them.
So, thanks to some emotional blackmail and appeal to nostalgia, this chapter has come to fruition. I am somewhat aware this is unlike most of its type, as most authors do not petition their aunts to write prefaces to their work.
(I will stop teasing now, Theo.)
On Saturday mornings, my dad always took us to the pond near home. In the summer, we would swim in the crystalline water. In the winter, we would skate across the frozen surface. Spring was time for searching animal pups and flying over the glade. Autumn, for exploring the grove and jumping in the mounds of burning-red leaves. Those are my first memories of him. Occasionally, mum would join us, but that was back in the days when she was still flying professionally and she had training sessions more often than not. So, dad was left to entertain us. I did not understand it at the time, but he had taken on a more bureaucratic job when I was born, so he could do just that. This, as I understand, he never regretted.
Most people seem to think of my father as a man of action. I knew very little of him as one. I won’t dare to say I am aware of every facet of his – we never do with our parents. And yet, it is impossible for me to picture him as a conquering hero: the man that raised me was rather in love with our family (at times, even too much), more homely than anything else. As I got older and faced my own relationships, I learnt to appreciate my parents’ wedding even more. He made her gentle and, in return, she made him happy – so happy.
My early perception of the event that made my family famous was made unique for its banality. To my younger self, to die in the war was only another manner people used to get to place where we could not follow. Teddy’s dad and mum had died in the war, and so had daddy’s dad and mum, Uncle Fred, Aunt Andie’s husband, and several others. My only fear then was that my daddy and mummy would die in the war too, but after they had sworn an oath not to – after being woken by their daughter’s nightmare – I reckoned that was enough.
The first time someone told me my dad was someone important was at Carys Kerigan’s fifth birthday party. Carys and I had hit it off immediately after her mum signed in with the Harpies. She was my first friend who was not a child of my parents’ school friends, or part of family, or Muggle – the first whose parents had not fought in the war. When one considers this, it is no surprise that I learned the truth right then. The other kids my age did not care much about whose daughter I was, but Carys had tons of older cousins and one had been very quick to blab on it.
I was six years old when I realised my dad was more famous than my mum. It should not have been that shocking. Even at my mum’s games, a lot of people would call his name, but I had always figured it was because he was mum’s husband. In my house, mum was the cool one who could outrun us and charm the whole house into order. Dad was the one who let me paint his toenails purple and braid his hair.
I thought I was the stupidest person in the world for not knowing. Then, I found out James did not know either and if my nine-year-old brother did not know, he was definitely more stupid than me. Al did, he read about it in a book. In typical Al’s fashion, he had not said a word on it, assuming we knew as well. Teddy was also into it, after all, he was in Hogwarts, where we all became much more aware of the implications. He could have told us, yet we never counted on him to speak on these matters. Too strait-laced when it came to our parenting – he would never have considered to introducing a heavy subject before our parents.
After that, James and I made a game to discover how much our cousins and friends knew about the subject. To our surprise, the winners were Freddie, who had talked a lot with his father about it, and Hugo who like Al, had read about it, but unlike him, had deliberately evaded speaking of it. When we found out most of the others were as oblivious as us, we got tired of it. The subject was dropped for an entire summer, replaced by swimming sessions at the lake, pick-up Quidditch matches and Exploding Snap tournaments. We thought we had kept our quest for answers under wraps, but of course, that was not the case. In the following autumn, dad took us to Godric’s Hollow. By my grandparents’ graveside, he told us a bit of the truth – and in the next decades, he would share a lot more.
Mum always said it was difficult for him to talk about it, but it was not until I had children of my own that I realised how much. My youngest is forty-two, and it was not until last year that I told her all of it. A parent’s greatest wish is to protect one’s own from the harsh reality of the world. To think that my father was forced to deal with it as nothing more than a child has never seemed so unfair. But then, their entire generation was exposed to it in a gruesome way. It was why they worked so hard to change their laws, and their world. So what happened to them could not be repeated. Today, we reap the fruits of their work, and I am a proud witness to those improvements.
When my dad gave permission to write his biography, he had two conditions. First, the work should be published posthumous. Second, all those included in his story be mentioned (although many have their own biographies) in order for credit to be given to the creditable. This is the reason behind the immensity of the tome presented here, which Theo had made comprehensive and even entertaining.
Those were his words to describe the book. As far as I know, my dad did not read the complete piece. He died, I assure you, without ever comprehending why anyone would be inclined to read his biography. Nevertheless, he came to accept it, sometime in the last twenty years (there are diverging opinions in the family about when exactly this happened, but my guess is thirteen years ago, due to the events described in chapter seventy-four). A few weeks after his passing, I found his copy of the book. Nearly all chapters on him are brand new, but there is one that’s particularly worn – stained and dog-eared. The one dedicated to my mum.
He is gone to meet her now, and all the others. For the first time, I am no one’s daughter, an orphan like he always was. Different from him, I had the privilege of knowing my parents, of building my family before losing them. I can miss visiting their home, tasting a cup of tea by their side. But I am wrong, thinking of them as lost. My dad was once taught the ones who love us never really leave, and he passed that to me. I have no doubt he and my mum are waiting for me, catching up with their friends and introducing them to the life they gave their children.
I see now that dad taught me how to love, and mum taught me how to dream.
Lily Luna Potter
13 August 2106