Naming The Baby
by Am-Chau Yarkona
"Charlotte, we can't just call the boy John! My mother
will have a fit."
"Don't shout, Pallas, you'll wake him, and the last
thing I need right now is a crying baby."
Pallas Lupin shut the nursery door gently and steered his
wife into their bedroom. "I know, love. All I'm saying is that he needs a
wizard's name."
"And a Muggle's too. We can't be sure he's not a
Squib," Charlotte replied, sitting down on the bed and starting to take her
stockings off.
"He needs both, then," Pallas said.
"Something classical is always good. Romulas? Claudius?"
"You might just as well call the poor child Gandalf,"
Charlotte sniffed, and Pallas had the good sense to let the subject rest for the
night.
* * *
"He's definitely going to be a John," Charlotte
announced over breakfast. "John something-wizardly, I don’t care what,
but definitely John."
"Why John?" Pallas enquired mildly, pouring
himself a glass of pumpkin juice and his wife orange juice. "Perfectly good
Muggle name, I agree, but why John and not Peter or Luke, or for that matter
Michael or James?"
"Because—" Charlotte began, but turned away
when the baby made a soft noise. He was just gurgling at the cat, though, and
she went on as if she's never paused. "—I have a feeling about it. John
was the name of my favourite grandfather, and is the name of my favourite
Gospel. And it's about as ordinary as you can get."
Pallas nodded diplomatically, discarded two questions
concerning the wisdom of reusing the names of one's deceased ancestors or
important names from one's religion, and settled for asking, "Why is it so
important that he has an ordinary name? Isn't he unique, our special boy?"
"Of course he's unique—pass the salt—but sometimes
it can be handy to pretend you're not, without actually lying about your name. I
don't use my middle name as a witch, but in the Muggle world I've been known to
sign Mary instead of Charlotte: it is me, and I answer to it, but it attracts
less attention."
Pallas passed the salt for Charlotte's hard-boiled egg,
privately vowing to give the boy a proper name as well as "John".
* * *
"How about Julius?" Pallas suggested, delicately
changing the baby's nappy while Charlotte looked on. She shook her head.
"Meneloas?" he tried. "Lucius? Ursa?"
She giggled. "Much too girly."
"Cassius? Mercutio? Remus?"
Charlotte was, he saw, beginning to get bored with the
game. He closed the nappy with a final spell-word, and passed her the baby.
"Well—why not Remus?" he pushed. "It's a
good name, as these things go."
She rocked the boy in her arms, trying it out. "John
Remus Lupin. It's not bad."
Pallas nodded, then risked saying, "It might sound
better the other way round. Remus John Lupin." Charlotte started to wrinkle
her nose, so he added quickly, " If we're to avoid all Tolkien references,
it'd better be R.J. Lupin, rather than J.R."
She grinned down at the baby. "Remus John Lupin.
It…" Her voice softened and her eyes unfocused a little, as if she was
seeing something beyond the normal three dimensions. "In a funny way I
think it suits him. Remus John it is."
Pallas smiled. He'd never been as good at Divination as his
wife, but it felt right to him, too.
- End -