Challenge: QL Round 1, Captain.

Prompt: Grandparent fic.

Note: Thank you to the most amazing person in the world, the supermegafabby Lizy for publishing this for me and inspiring the prompt. She's so amazing everyone should worship her.

i.

She is the smallest thing Arthur has ever seen. Born early - almost dangerously so - his first grandchild fights for her life with her lungs beating like fluttery butterfly wings. He can almost see them working furiously through her tiny chest, her translucent skin tinged blue.

It is the first anniversary of the Final Battle. None of them say it, but none of them have to. Arthur can feel, as clear as anything, Fred, standing amongst the crowd of family waiting in the corridor. Can imagine his freckled face against the window where Ginny and Gabrielle are now, peering in.

He strokes the baby's leg gently as she kicks her tiny feet. He's not worried. He knows she's going to make it, and that her birthday is no coincidence. Today is a day for fighters. For winners. He knows Fred had something to do with getting her here and he'll have something to do with keeping her here too. "Just trying to make this day a celebration, like it's meant to be," Fred would say. Probably laughing. Maybe with added fireworks.

"Have you thought of a name yet, dear?" he hears Molly ask Bill and Fleur quietly.

"Victoire," Fleur says. Arthur can feel the reverence of the word, a name spoken for the first time, a new baby becoming a new person. He smiles down at little Victoire.

"It means victory," Bill murmurs.

"It's perfect," Arthur whispers. "She's perfect."

Victoire whimpers, stretching her tiny arms out, kicking her feet, being alive. She's a Weasley, alright, Arthur thinks. She's a fighter.

ii.

He's never known such a small person to go through quite so many hot beverages. She asks for tea parties at first - as all little girls do, certainly as Ginny did - but they somehow turn into much more than that. He doesn't mean it, but by the time she is eight years old, Victoire is drinking full cups of tea (three sugars, no milk) and talking about what exactly has happened in her life.

"Teddy thinks he's special," she complains. "I said, 'Everyone goes to Hogwarts, Teddy,' but he didn't care."

"Well, not everyone goes to Hogwarts," Arthur says carefully. "Muggles don't go to Hogwarts. And sometimes even people who are born in magical families aren't meant to go to Hogwarts."

"There are magical people who don't go to Hogwarts?" Victoire asks worriedly, her big blue eyes growing round. "What do they do?"

Arthur smiles. "Anything they want," he says. "Anything at all.

iii.

Tea party after tea party after tea party. They leave piles of teabags on the table, soggy conversations, left over and leaking with excess regret.

"This is the last one," she mutters into her almost-empty mug. "What'll we do, Grandad? Next week?"

"It'll have to stop, won't it?" Arthur says. "We can have tea again at Christmas. And at Easter. And any time you like, really," he promises, his long fingers wrapped around his mug.

"I'm scared, Grandad," Victoire murmurs, half into her tea. "What if I don't make any friends?"

"My Vic?" Arthur says, a hand to his heart in shock. "No friends?"

"I'll have Teddy, I suppose." Her voice trembles oddly, as if needing help is something to be ashamed of.

"You'll have Teddy," he says. "And me. And each of your uncles, and your aunts. Every one of your cousins."

"Why does that matter? I'm gonna be the first there since Aunt Ginny. That was ages ago!"

"They might've forgotten about us," Grandad says solemnly. "And we've forgotten what it's like to be in your situation at least."

"I just wanna be normal," Vic says, dipping her biscuits into her tea.

"No such thing."

iv.

He's always pottering around in the garden shed, so it's not surprising that that is where she finds him when she gets back from Teddy's. She trudges through the fresh snow, her long hair pulled around her throat as a makeshift scarf - it hadn't been this cold in Surrey - and most determinedly does not cry.

The door is open just a fraction. Victoire waits a second, watching as ominous sparks begin to accompany the strange whirring sounds coming from within.

"Grandad?" she says tentatively, pushing the door open.

"Victoire!" Arthur exclaims happily, though she does notice how his face holds just a shadow of guilt as he shoves his wand deep into his robes. "Let's - er - not tell your gran about that, okay?"

"She's going to catch you one day," Victoire says.

Arthur crinkles his nose, amusement alight in his eyes. "Well, it's been fun while it lasted."

"Yeah," Victoire says softly, slipping past her grandad and plopping herself down on a rusty old stool.

Arthur watches her for a moment. "What's happened?"

The question snakes its way into Victoire's chest. What has happened? She doesn't quite know anymore.

"It's over. Teddy and me. I just got back from there. He said he needed space. As if he didn't have enough space with me off at Hogwarts!"

"Oh, Vic," Arthur sighs, his eyes creasing with sadness. He shuffles forward and wraps his arms around her. Victoire lets herself be held, finding comfort in the familiar scent of burning and Grandad that envelops her. "I'm not very good at these things, you know."

"I know," she whispers, her throat feeling dangerously scratchy, blinking furiously. "I just don't understand. I thought we were okay."

"Maybe you are. Maybe you'll go back to Hogwarts next week and he'll realise how much misses you. Maybe..."

"Maybe?"

"Maybe he won't." He looks down at her, finally releasing her from his arms. "But that can't be helped. Nothing to do but wait and see."

The soft wool of her Weasley jumper is gentle on her face as she furiously runs at her eyes. Still, she refuses to cry.

"Why do things like this happen? Why couldn't we just - just stay happy?"

"Well, take this, for example," Arthur says, digging into the pockets of his robes and pulling out a AAA battery. "Muggles call this a batry. It's used to power their electical things."

"It's battery, Grandad," Victoire giggles. "And electrical. Honestly, you're worse than Dad."

Arthur smiles. "Okay, so I don't know much about this electrickity. But I can tell you one thing: see this battery here? It's got two ends." He touches one end with his finger and turns it round so Victoire can see the little plus symbol. "It's got the positive end," he says, then turns the battery upside down, "and it's got a negative end."

"I don't get it," Victoire says, scowling.

"That's because I haven't told you the best part!" Arthur says. He can feel a mad grin growing across his face. "Now, the electricicky in this won't work unless it's got both the positive and the negative. Get it? It's a loop, see. They feed off each other, and give to each other. The bad times in your life will give to the good ones, not take from them."

Victoire's blue eyes narrow as Arthur continues. "The next time you're on top of the world, you'll remember this. And that won't take away from your happiness. It'll make it even better."

"So you're saying I need the bad things so I'll feel better?" The scepticism in her voice is sharper than intended, but Arthur just smiles down at her. He fidgets with the battery in his hand and shakes his head.

"Not quite, Vic, dear. You need the bad things so that you'll truly appreciate happiness. If you're never sad, you'll never be happy. If there's no rain, who gives a toss about sunshine?"

"That doesn't make me feel any better."

Arthur chuckles softly. Victoire rolls her eyes at him, flicking her blonde hair over her shoulder. Sometimes she can see why the rest of her family think Grandad is off his rocker. "It wasn't supposed to," he says. "That's the point. It's okay to be sad."

He watches Victoire's lips quirk into a half smile. "You're absolutely barmy, Grandad," she says disbelievingly.

"Here," Arthur says, holding out his closed fist. "Open your hand."

Victoire holds her hand out, palm up, and waits. Arthur releases his fingers and drops two AA batteries into her waiting hand. "What's this?" she asks, eyeing the batteries warily.

"Two batteries," Arthur says, as if that is all she needs to know.

"Yes, but why?"

"Whenever you're sad," Arthur says, "just touch the two negative parts together. They'll feed off each other and the loop will carry on and both ends will be positive!"

Victoire grins. "I don't think that's how it works," she says fondly, clutching the batteries tightly in her fist. "But I feel better already."

A warm smile spreads across Arthur's entire face. "See?" he says. "This electicky is just like Muggle magic."

"Oh, Grandad," Victoire says again, shaking her head. "Absolutely bonkers."

"In a good way?"

"The best."

v.

"Grandad," she says, so quietly it is both a breath and a confession. "I love you."

A secret that is not so secret; one sold to him by everyone else in this hospital, by everyone else waiting their turn to say goodbye. "I love you."

She hates that it tastes like tea, shocks the palm like a closed fist around fresh batteries, set the pulses at a steady bump bump bump. Mostly, she hates that everyone else is here.

"Grandad," she says softly. "Grandad, please."

He doesn't say a thing, but he keeps on breathing, and that is just as good.