and he mentioned you by name

[Victoria de Lacey]

Tori was curious about a lot of things, but none moreso than what the woman she was about to see might know about her dad. He never spoke a lot about what school was like for him, though she remembers the one time she heard him talk about it, he'd mentioned her current professor by name - she got the feeling there were some bad memories associated with the school, but she wasn't entirely sure what shape those took. She didn't spend a lot of time with her dad, mostly she lived with her mother, so there wasn't a lot of chances to ask him really, and even when there was, Uncle Lani was normally there, or Fayre, or Hadrian, so she didn't know how to ask him alone, he didn't seem to like being alone very much after all. So she knocked on the door, hoping that Professor Potter might carry some more answers than she's gotten from anyone else of late. "Excuse me Professor, could I have a quick word please, it's Tori de Lacey."

@Professor Lyra Potter ​

 

[Lyra Potter]

Lyra Potter was only temporarily at Hogwarts New Zealand as a professor for the semester, so she was borrowing Professor Grayveson's office while she was out on maternity leave. Lyra had just made a cup of tea when she heard a knock on the door. The woman flicked her wand at the door, causing it to swing all the way open. Tori de Lacey was standing there, and Lyra knew what she must want to talk about. The brunette smiled at the young girl. "Please, come in, Tori. Would you like a cup of tea?" she asked.

 

[Victoria de Lacey]

Tori didn't really like tea, but everyone kept offering it to her anyway, and she didn't want to be rude, especially to a professor so she smiled and nodded. "Yes, please Professor," she could always just not drink it, or pretend she liked it as she barely managed to swallow it down, she was good at pretending, she always had been, it was maybe one of the only things she was good at. She walked a little further into the room, looking around. It was a bit weird that they had Professor Potter this year, this semester when she knew she wouldn't have her next year. That made her a bit sad actually because she'd grown to like the woman in the short time she'd had to know her. She almost felt like she'd had something torn away from her despite not even having had it in the first place. "Is it weird knowing you're not here for long? Or even being back at all?"

@Professor Lyra Potter ​

 

[Lyra Potter]

Lyra busied herself making a cup of tea for Tori. She smiled at the girl's question because she knew she had mixed feelings about her brief tenure in the school. "No, and yes. While I hope something more permanent might open up in the future, I knew when I accepted this position that it was temporary. It is a weird feeling being back here. I never expected this to be my path when I was here last time. I wanted to be a Quidditch star. My aunt was my Head of House, so it feels completely weird that Professor Cade has assumed that role. Especially if you really know him like I do. He's my brother-in-law, of course, but he was my friend when we were students here-- at least most of the time he was my friend." she said with a wink at Tori. She handed the cup to the girl before returning to her seat.

@Victoria de Lacey

 

[Victoria de Lacey]

Tori nodded, only really hearing half of what was being said because that wasn't really the question she was here to ask, she just... didn't quite know what she wanted to ask or how to ask it. The professor seemed to give her a way in though as she handed her the cup and Tori headed over to one of the seats on the other side of the desk. "So you and Mr Professor Cade know each other then?" She already sort of knew that, when she'd heard her dad mention them there was always a ... and Lyra... in there, more often implied than anything. They didn't seem to talk about it all that much and she didn't think she would ever understand why. Uncle Lanithro kept saying she'd get it when she was older but she thought that was a stupid excuse to tell a child. She wasn't a child, she was eleven! "Good friends?"

@Professor Lyra Potter ​

 

[Lyra Potter]

Lyra nodded her head with a smirk on her face. “Yes. We are good friends now. We hit a rough patch in our friendship during sixth year when we broke up but we worked it out after graduation. We ended up on the same quidditch team. Of course, there was another rough patch when I started dating my husband—his brother. They didn’t get along well back then.” the professor said with a shrug. Her history with James was extensive but it was nothing compared to Felix and that complicated relationship.
@Victoria de Lacey

 

[Victoria de Lacey]

Tori put her cup on the edge of the table, she nodded along to what the professor was saying, it did all sound a little more complicated than she fully understood, mostly because the idea of dating gave her the ick at the moment. She couldn't imagine Mr. Professor Cade ever being young enough to date anyone. He was an adult. She couldn't imagine her mother being that young either, but she imagined she must have been at some point. She cleared her throat. "Did you... date anyone else?" She didn't know why she just didn't come out and say it, but what if it was a sensitive topic? Her dad only ever mentioned it once and he walked away after wards, so she had to imagine something happened. She desperately wanted to know what her dad was like back then.

@Professor Lyra Potter ​

 

[Lyra Potter]

The brunette put her cup down on the table as Tori asked another question. Lyra hesitated because she knew what the young Gryffindor girl was really asking. Felix. This was his daughter. One that he had told her about all those years ago. "Of course I did." She bit her lip nervously. "What has he said about me, Tori?" she asked the girl curiously. "Fee.. your dad...I mean." Lyra said, pushing a stray lock of hair behind her ear. Lyra wasn't sure she would ever be able to explain the hurricane that was her relationship with Felix Urie. It took her years to work through the self destructive mess that she made. Lyra found her happy ending with Ezra and their children. She never spoke of Felix...except to occasionally ask James if he was okay. That was the most she allowed herself.

@Victoria de Lacey

 

[Victoria de Lacey]

Tori let out a sigh of relief as the professor seemed to catch the ball she'd thrown in the air and she relaxed a little in the seat, the rigidity of her body giving way to a more languid feeling through her body. Maybe this topic of conversation was unusual for a professor and a student, but how else was she going to get out information? All she had known was that neither of her parents had a good time in Hogwarts, and neither of them remembered it particularly fondly. Her dad wasn't secretive not really, but he didn't talk about it a lot unless she asked him directly, and even then. It was usually short one word answers. She'd gotten the message years ago. "Not much, honestly, mostly he just..." she didn't want to say her dad seemed sad because she didn't think that was the right word. He just didn't like to talk about it, like maybe the memories weren't good, but she didn't quite understand the look he gave her whenever she asked about his time at school. "He said... I once heard him say that he'd flown really high and really close and then he fell really hard and really fast, and then he clarified he loved me always and that it had nothing to do with me, but I didn't get that part." She'd never thought she had anything to do with anything, but she was also eleven and clearly didn't know anything. "Mostly he said it was a really long time ago, and that he didn't really want to talk about it." She frowned and then shrugged, "then he said something about Mr. Professor Cade? And then about Mr. Ezra Cade, your husband I guess?"

@Professor Lyra Potter ​

 

[Lyra Potter]

It was...surprisingly difficult to hear what Felix had said about her, though it was clear that Tori didn't really understand what Felix meant. Of course, Lyra understood. She always knew what Felix meant. Even now when it was repeated words through his eleven year old child. If Lyra had not broken his heart, Tori wouldn't be here, and she was sure Felix would never have wished that. Just like Lyra would have never wished that about her own children. "Ezra is my husband, and Professor Cade's brother." she said gently. "I didn't meet him until after we graduated school." she explained. "Felix..your dad..he was my very, very best friend from the moment I met him on the first day at Hogwarts." she said, smiling softly at the memory of the pair climbing trees on that very first day.

@Victoria de Lacey

 

[Victoria de Lacey]

From Tori's perspective, adults seemed to be very complicated people. She didn't think she wanted to be an adult if this was the result. If her dad was once the professor's very best friend, then... why was he not her best friend now? Lumos and Nox and Jasper were Tori's best friends, and she didn't want them to not be her best friends. Felix was her good friend and Yew, Will was really funny and so she liked him too. There were a lot of people she liked a lot and she didn't want them to leave school unhappy and to look like how her dad looked when he talked about it. It made Tori frown. "Something happened? He's not your very best friend anymore?" She didn't know what could have happened, but it can't have been very good. Her dad's best friend now was Miss Hayes, but, she only assumed that from the fact they often spent time together. She spent time with her best friends too, but sometimes she didn't know what the difference was, since she saw her best friends all the time, but her dad didn't see his very often, at least she didn't think he did. They were in different countries. "Nox and Lumos and Jasper are my very, very best friends, but I met them before school..."

@Professor Lyra Potter ​

 

[Lyra Potter]

Lyra wasn't quite sure how to explain this all to an eleven year old girl because it was so convoluted and adult. She had never said anything to her own children about it, and she wasn't sure Felix would thank her for enlightening his daughter. "And you are so lucky to have them." she said kindly. Lyra hadn't had many friends growing up. It was hard for the Potters to know who they could trust. They mostly kept to their family. "Tori..I wish I had a simple answer for you, but life gets more complicated the older you get." Lyra said, apologetically. "My mother died, unexpectedly, during our seventh year, and my heart broke, so I broke his heart. Unfortunately, as you get older, you will find that as humans we make mistakes. Unfortunately, not all mistakes can be fixed." she said with sadness creeping into her voice. Felix was really ten years overdue an apology from Lyra Potter.

@Victoria de Lacey

 

[Victoria de Lacey]

"Oh..." That made Tori sad. She couldn't imagine losing her mum suddenly, or at all really. She didn't want to lose anyone ever. She remembered how sad she was when her puffskein died, the first one, not the ones she had now, and she'd been so sad about it. She thought that maybe she would be even more sad if her mum died, or Rory, or Uncle Lani, or her dad. Or Fayre and Hadrien even. Or anyone she knows. She picked up the tea and took a small sip, mainly to give herself a second to process what she'd said. It was complicated, she broke his heart, maybe he'd broken hers too. She had read all those princess books and she knew that sometimes the prince and princess took a long time to get together, but she hadn't read one where they didn't before. Those were probably a bit above her. Though she'd read the Hunger Games novels and had nightmares for weeks. That wasn't a romance novel though, but Gale and Katniss didn't get together in the end and she thought they would. Was it like that? "Okay," she said simply, unsure there was much else she could ask, and then it hit her and she smiled. "You're happy, with Mr. Ezra Cade, even if things didn't work out with my dad, he's your prince isn't he?" And maybe that was the point. Maybe it didn't always have to work they way she thought. Maybe she would understand when she was older and maybe she wouldn't, but maybe that was okay.

@Professor Lyra Potter ​

 

[Lyra Potter]

Lyra watched as Tori seemed to collect her thoughts. The professor could tell the young girl was processing what Lyra had said. Death was a hard concept for most children Tori’s age though Lyra’s dad disappeared around her sixth birthday. After a few moments, Tori asked a question that got a genuine smile out of Lyra Potter. “Yes, he is. We are immensely happy. I believe things happen the way they are meant to be even if it’s not how we thought they would be.” the brunette said with sincerity. “I do hope Felix is happy, too. He was funny and brave and loyal and kind and warm. I do hope you got all of those things from him.” Lyra said with a wink at Tori.

@Victoria de Lacey

 

[Victoria de Lacey]

Tori didn't think she'd learned anything new from this conversation, but she hadn't really thought she would. It was clear that something had happened between them that set them on different paths, and those different paths lead to her meeting her friends William and Kiera, and perhaps even somehow to her meeting Lumos and Nox. She didn't always understand how school could transition into adulthood and maybe that was the point, she wasn't supposed to understand it until she was there, but it had helped her to put some idea about her dad into her mind. She thought she probably saw a lot of what the Professor described in her dad, and she wanted nothing more than his approval whenever she saw him. She knew he loved her, but she couldn't recall if he'd ever actually told her that he did. She was sure he had, because parents said that sort of thing to their kids. Maybe she needed to pay more attention. She knew at least that she had nothing to do with what had happened between them, but that had never really been a doubt anyway. "Thanks for talking to me, maybe Dad wouldn't be happy with me asking you questions, but he never specifically told me not to either. I think I'll write him a letter," she could tell him she'd met Lyra. She thought he'd be happy about that. Maybe some of the qualities she mentioned helped her get into Gryffindor house. She put the barely touched tea back on the table. "I should let you get back to work, you probably have a lot to do before you have to leave."

@Professor Lyra Potter​

 

[Lyra Potter]

Lyra smiled kindly at Tori as she said she was going to write Felix. "Don't be too hard on him, honey." Even though she loved Ez and the life they built together, it was hard not to think of Felix at Hogwarts. He was her closest friend during those six and a half years before she ultimately betrayed him. She took Felix for granted when she was younger, and she pushed and pushed until he was as broken as she was. She knew that now, and she regretted how she had treated him because he had always been her best friend before anything else. As the first year girl readied herself to leave, Lyra thought of the last time Felix had proposed to her when he had told her about his child. "He told me about you once when you were just a little baby. I still remember how proud he was of you. How much he loved you. He said he couldn't wait for us to meet though I think it took a little bit longer than he expected." Lyra said with a grin at the memory. "Please let me know if there is anything I can help you with this semester. I owe that to your dad."

@Victoria de Lacey

 

[Victoria de Lacey]

"Oh," Tori hadn't expected the professor to say that, she supposed she'd not really thought about the fact that her dad would have told people about her as a baby. She knew he did now, of course, but she also knew he hadn't been there when she was born and hadn't known about her until she was a little older. She'd wondered why, but never asked. She hadn't even realised he'd known her that young since she hadn't spent any time with him util she was nearly five that she could remember. It was kind of nice to know that he'd told someone who had been so close to him. Hearing that he'd been proud of her too, that made a warmth rise up in her chest. "Okay, I will, thank you, I didn't really know what I was going to get out of this talk but, yeah I think it was really helpful." She said, with a small smile. She seemed to be doing okay in the class at the moment, so she didn't think she needed anything academically from the professor at the moment, but she was certainly glad they'd had this talk. If only to get maybe a little insight into who her father was, since he seemed to be so different from what she knew of him.

@Professor Lyra Potter ​