FIC: I Love Her in All Weathers (Teddy/Victoire)
Title: I Love Her in All Weathers
Author/Artist: teenage_hustler
Prompt: No. 19: "I wanna give you all my body and soul, in fact I want to give you the keys to all that I got, Cos you are my star, you are my rainbow."
Prompt submitted by: katminx_fics
Pairing(s): Teddy/Victoire
Word Count/Art Medium: 4880
Rating: PG-13
Warning(s): Suggestion of sexy time (without vivid description)
Disclaimer: Harry Potter characters are the property of J.K. Rowling and Bloomsbury/Scholastic. No profit is being made, and no copyright infringement is intended.
Notes: This was such a fun prompt! I’ve loved bringing the weather into it, and my recipient requested Teddy’s hair changing colour around his girl, which was a lot of fun to incorporate as well. I really hope you like it, Mystery Recipient! Thanks to C for the awesome beta work!
Summary: You wield all the weather in my life, and instead of bringing a hat and an umbrella, I want to face it all, because all of it is you, and I love you in all weathers. You are my rainbow.
The first time I met her, it was sunny.
Apparently. I was only a year and a half old at the time. Harry and Ginny took me to see Aunty Fleur at St Mungo’s. According to Ginny, from the moment I had unsteadily hobbled into the room to the moment the door closed when Harry carried me out, I could not stop looking at the tiny bundle being passed around the room. My eyes followed it like a Quaffle in a Quidditch game, Ginny always likes to say.
When it was Ginny’s turn to hold her new niece, she took a seat next to me and told me to look inside the blankets. All that was visible was a little pink face with tightly closed eyes. I stared and stared, so silently that Harry always jokingly wonders if I had gone into shock.
And then, as the sun’s rays filtered into the room and kissed baby Victoire’s cheek, her eyes fluttered open, and my hair turned the same shade of sapphire blue as the newborn irises before me.
"Interesting," Harry apparently then remarked. "I didn’t know newborns could smile."
"They can’t," Uncle Bill responded, also watching his daughter. "Not normally."
~*~
The first time she held my hand, there was thunder.
"Teddy! How many have you founded?"
Uh-oh. She’s found me! I thought this would be a really good hiding place because I hid here once when I played hide-and-seek with Mummy Ginny and Daddy Harry and Baby Brother Jamie. I have to make super sure she can’t tell what I done. I pretend my hand is a tissue and run it ‘cross my mouth.
"Teddy!"
I turn ‘round really fast. Vicky is really close to me. She is wearing her blue dress with yellow flowers and Aunty Fleur put ‘nother yellow flower in her long lighter yellow hair.
"Only a couple," I say, holding up my favouritest red bucket, where there is still three blackberries.
Vicky looks into my favouritest red bucket, sunny hair falling over her ears like a waterfall. She looks at me and her mouth scrunches up to one side and my tummy feels funny.
"Stick out your tongue."
"No!" I clap my hand over my mouth and she runs into me and pushes me to the ground. She sits on me and grabs my arms. I try to get away but she is stronger, which is not fair because she’s only four and a girl. I’m stuck. I have no choice, unless I want to keep being stuck for the next million billion trillion years.
I stick out my tongue.
"Ha! Purple! You ate all your blackberries! Aunty Ginny said not to! I’m telling!"
She jumps up and tries to get away, but I grab her leg and she falls over.
"Ow!" If Vicky made me fall over I’d cry because I don’t like it when I am sore. But Vicky doesn’t cry. She yells and screams and giggles and laughs and smiles, but she doesn’t cry.
This time, she punches my arm.
"Ow!" I say, and I feel the start of crying happening.
"Don’t trip me over, you meanie!" Vicky yells.
"Don’t call me meanie! It’s rude! And don’t tell Mummy Ginny I ate all the blackberries, you… bigger meanie!"
"But Aunty Ginny SAID-"
Then there is a big light in the sky. Like super mega enormous massive light that looked like Daddy Harry’s scar. Then there is a massive loud sound like, like BOOM! It is so cool!
I turn to Vicky to say how cool it is because maybe she doesn’t know it’s cool, but she is not there. I look ‘round, and I see her hiding under the blackberry bush.
"What you doing?" I ask her. She won’t be able to see the big lights if she’s hiding.
"I … I don’t like the booming noise," she says, in a voice almost as tiny as her tiny nose.
"Why?"
"It sounds like someone is shouting," she says. "It makes me think of Uncle Harry’s stories about his big ugly uncle who used to shout at him all the time."
"Oh, Mean Uncle Vernon?" Daddy Harry tells me and Vicky and Baby Brother Jamie and sometimes Cousin Dommie now about Mean Uncle Vernon and how if anybody is ever mean to us like Mean Uncle Vernon we should tell a grown-up straight away.
I crawl under the bush and sit next to Vicky. There’s not much room so our knees are touching.
"You know what I think the booming noise sounds like?" I ask her.
"What?"
"Hagrid."
"Hagrid? But … Hagrid isn’t scary."
"No, but I think sometimes people think he’s scary, because he’s so big. Like the booming noise. The booming noise sounds like Hagrid laughing at one of Mummy Ginny’s funny stories. Sometimes I have to cover my ears, because Hagrid’s laugh is really loud, but it’s a happy sound. Not scary at all."
Vicky is quiet. Daddy Harry says that sometimes when people are quiet, it means they are thinking and you should also be quiet so they can think better. I think that is what Vicky is doing now, so I stay quiet. A drop of rain falls on my leg.
Then, I feel something warm and soft. Vicky has slipped her little hand inside mine.
"I’m going to start thinking the booming sound sounds like Hagrid now too," she says and smiles at me. My hair turns yellow like the flower in her hair, and another drop of rain lands on Vicky’s arm.
"Teddy! Vicky! Where are you?"
Vicky and I stand up and run to Mummy Ginny. Her hand is still in mine.
~*~
The first time I hugged her, I mean REALLY hugged her, it was windy.
"Blimey," said Harry Dad, taking out his earpiece thingy. "I’m glad we Floo’d over. These winds are gale-force, apparently."
"Mmm," agreed Ginny Mum, glancing at the noticeboards. "I’m kind of surprised the Floo networks haven’t been shut down, truth be told. At least the Hogwarts Express runs on magic. Look at the delays on all the Muggle lines."
Harry Dad shook his head, then turned to me and smiled. "Ready to go through, Ted?"
"I guess," I answered, wishing the butterflies in my tummy would stop. Harry Dad laid a hand on my shoulder, and together we pushed my trolley through the magic barrier.
The Hogwarts Express greeted me, large, smoky and incredible. The wind blew through my hair as it turned as red as the train.
As Ginny Mum and Harry Dad push my trunk to me, I heard someone shout "Teddy!"
Uncle Bill and Aunty Fleur are jogging towards us, their windswept hair surrounding their heads like lions’ manes, but I barely see them before I notice Vicky running full pelt towards the train. I jump out of the carriage and she collides into me.
I hear Uncle Bill telling Ginny Mum that that is the last time he is going to attempt Muggle driving in a convertible when it’s this windy, but mostly, all I can feel is Vicky’s arms enfolding me in her usual, vice-like grasp.
"Vicky," I puff. "Can’t … breathe …"
"I don’t care," she says. "If I hold onto you tight enough, you’ll stay."
"But I can’t stay."
"Yes you can! Stay here with me, and then next year when I’m eleven we can go together!"
I don’t know why, but something about what she said made me feel better. The butterflies in my stomach died down, and I wrapped my arms back around her.
"You know I have to go."
"Of course I know," she says, and her arms loosen just a little. "But I don’t want you to. You’re going to learn about magic and make all these new friends you can do magic with, and I’ll still be magicless, and we’ll … it won’t be the same."
"No, I suppose not. But I can tell you all about it when I write to you, and I’ll visit during Christmas and Easter. Then in summer I’ll be back, and before you know it we’ll both be going to Hogwarts and doing magic together."
A whistle blew, and Ginny Mum clapped a hand on my shoulder. "Come on, love," she said.
"Don’t forget to write to me," Vicky whispered as Ginny Mum pulled me away from her.
"Never," I promised, turning away to climb onto the train. As we left the station I watched her running after the train. Her hair looked so pretty blowing in the wind.
~*~
The first time we kissed, it was raining.
"Hey Ted?"
I looked up from my Charms textbook to see James, holding an Exploding Snap deck and an expectant smile.
"You sure?" I asked. "I kicked your arse from here till Sunday last time."
"No, Vicky did. You just tried to take credit because you were sitting next to her."
"I helped with her game plan!"
"She planned to get her left eyebrow singed?"
"Absolutely!" I tucked my book into my tote bag and stood up. "I'll show you. Where is Vicky anyway? She'd hate us forever if we started playing without her."
James shrugged. "I saw her on the Quidditch pitch earlier. Maybe she's still there?"
I glanced out the window. The day had been reasonably fine until half an hour or so ago. Then the Heavens randomly decided to open and pour rain on us with no warning, as is typical of the weather in Great Britain. This downpour didn't look to be letting up any time soon.
"If she stopped once the rain started, she'd be back by now." I pulled out my wand and cast a quick Impervious on myself. "I'm going to go and check that she isn't madly flying around in the rain."
"Knowing Vicky, that's probably exactly what she's doing," James remarked.
He was not wrong. I ran as quickly as I dared down to the Quidditch pitch. When I got there, I could just about make her out, flying twenty feet in the air and wielding a Beater's bat, which she would periodically swing at a Bludger she had presumably let loose. I'm more of a Gobstones than a Quidditch man myself (a trait that reminds Harry a lot of my birth father), but I do at least know that you don't need a bat unless you're a Beater, and Vicky is a Chaser. I suspected that she wasn't beating the shit out of a wet ball in the pelting rain as a training exercise.
"Vicky!" I yelled.
She glanced down, pushing her wet hair out of her face. Of course she wouldn't think to do an Impervious.
"What do you want, bitch?" she yelled back, her quote-unquote hilarious sweary nickname for me even more ridiculous-sounding than usual. "Can't you see I'm training?"
"Bollocks! Since when are you a Beater? Stop being stupid and come down, dick!"
OK, so maybe I enjoy the sweary nicknames too.
"Oh, so you think I'm stupid too, do you? That makes ALL the fucking sense!"
"What the bloody hell are you talking about-"
"Why do you bother hanging out with me at all when you could be with your 4th year friends or James or even bloody Dom, since she's SO much smarter and prettier and BETTER than me-"
Ah, now it made sense. I pulled out my wand and Summoned a bedraggled Vicky toward me with an ironic "Accio Bad-Tempered Female Dick". I was quite surprised at how well it worked.
I hit her with a drying spell and her own Impervious once she landed, then turned her to face me.
"What did Aunty Fleur's letter say?" I asked, keeping my hands on her shoulders. I should have known from the start really. Vicky's always pissed off after Aunty Fleur writes to her. It's kind of remarkable how two people who look so similar can be so different.
Vicky half-heatedly tried to shrug my hands off, but I know her well enough to know that it was more her wanting to seem tough and independent than her actually wanting me to let go. She frowned up at me, and then sighed. "Dom told her about her first lot of exams. You know, the ones where she basically got full marks in everything?"
"Yeah." Everybody in the Gryffindor common room at the time knew about Dom's perfect marks. She was skipping around the common room and telling everybody all the details. It would have been annoying, but Dom has always been extraordinarily endearing. I suspect she has more Veela in her than either of her two siblings.
"So what's Mum's reaction? Write to Dom and congratulate her? Floo-call Dad? Set up a side vault at Gringotts for school fees at St Mungo's medical school? No, no, her reaction is to IMMEDIATELY Owl ME and demand to know why I'm not studying hard like Dom. Why am I spending my time playing Quidditch and going to Hagrid's when I could be hitting the books and making the teachers feel stupid, like Dom?"
"Hasn't she asked you that before?"
"Only a dozen times in the past two months! I just..." She shrugs my hands off and prods at the wet ground with her broom. "I can't take it anymore. I keep trying to tell her that me and Dom are different. I tell her that Quidditch and helping Hagrid with the animals is important to me, and she's all like 'Mais oui, but Victoire, this is important too." I tell her that I'm doing pretty well in classes, and she's like "but you could be doing better, mon cher." I tell her that I'm as stupid as the cat, and she says "non, Victoire. No daughter of mine is stupid." Only she is so deaf to my point of view that if we didn't look the same I wouldn't think I'm her daughter at all."
She continued poking. I could feel my Impervious wearing off, but I didn't care. I was seeing Vicky as I rarely saw her. She's normally so sure of herself. When she tried out for Quidditch in first year, the captain told her first years never make the house teams and she just said "they're about to now" and proceeded to completely floor them with how good she was. On the other hand, in third year Potions the class was asked if they knew how to brew a spot enhancing potion, and Vicky loudly declared that George Weasley was her uncle and she could whip up this potion in her sleep. Ten minutes later she had blown up the lab and subsequently caused everybody in their classroom and the next one over to spend the afternoon in the Hospital Wing. When I visited her there she had shrugged and said "I missed a step... or five." But her belief in her own awesomeness, to use one of James' words, didn't falter for a moment even then.
Unsure of what else to do, I placed my now wet hand over the one grasping the broom. She stopped her poking, her eyes leaving the ground and landing on mine.
"You know she loves you, right?" I asked.
"Yeah, of course," she answered immediately. "It's just... she always talks about Dom like Dom is the greatest kid ever. And Dom's great, but... so am I."
I considered the broom in our hands.
"Do you remember how she came to watch your first Quidditch match?"
"How could I forget?" She put on her disturbingly accurate imitation of her mother's accent. "That was quite enjoyable to watch, Victoire.’ I swear, that woman only has emotion when she's complaining."
"You say that, but you should've been in the stands while the game was on. Every time you made a goal or took the Quaffle or did any of those scary loopy twist things you do, she was out of her seat and screaming to everybody who would listen." My imitation of Aunty Fleur is not great, but Louie assures me that it has gotten better in the past few years. "Oh! Oh mon dieu! Look! Look at my little girl! That is my girl up there! See how talented she is? She is amazing!"
Vicky blinked at me. "She... that's what she said?"
I nodded. "In an actual French accent, obviously, but yeah, she was really going for-oof!"
Suddenly I was landing on sopping wet grass, a pile of equally wet Vicky on top of me. As my hair turned the same shade of green as the grass, Vicky propped herself up.
"She's proud of me, Teddy!"
"Of course she is," I said, reaching up to smack the back of her head. "You're amazing."
She caught my hand just before I made contact. I made to pull my hand away, by habit more than anything else, but she held it there.
Our eyes met, and she had me locked in.
"You really think so, don't you?"
I said nothing. There was no need; she already knew the answer.
I think I must have blanked out for a couple of seconds, because I can't recall the details. All I know is, one minute we were staring like it was the first time we had ever properly seen each other, then the next thing I knew, we were kissing.
It's a shame, really. A first kiss and all, you sort of want to remember the lead-up.
"Huh," Vicky said after, as we squelched back to Gryffindor Tower.
"What?" I asked.
"I'd always thought that the first time we kissed, it would be less... wet."
I laughed. What other reaction was there?
~*~
The first time we went all the way, it was snowing.
"Hmm."
"What?"
I turned from the barometer. Wearing her tattered hand-me-down dressing gown and glittery furry slippers Dom got her one birthday as a joke, Vicky was a true vision...
...of how ridiculous anybody can look, regardless of how much they take after their poised, elegantly French mother.
"Your hotness knows no bounds," I teased.
She stuck her tongue out at me, took a seat at the battered coffee table of Grimmauld Place, and poured herself a cup of tea. "Why were you 'hmm'-ing?"
I pointed at the barometer. "It looks like we'll have snow today."
"Really? Buggerpants. I wanted to go for a fly."
"Since when has weather stopped you from doing that?"
"Since it's occurred to me that all the kids are going to stay in today and you'll want my help stopping them from breaking Uncle Harry and Aunty Ginny's tacky Quidditch plate collection."
"True." Who would have thought a joke present from Ginny two decades ago would become so important to both of my parents that Ginny actually cried the first time a certain blonde haired, blue eyed, Quidditch obsessed child ran into it at the tender age of seven and caused half the plates to smash onto the floor. You'd think they'd attach a permanent Shield Charm to the cabinet or something, but Ginny thinks it would damage the paintwork.
"Nobody is more qualified than you at making sure OTHER people don't run into it, after all," I continued.
"Fuck off, bitch."
As it turned out, Vicky needn't have worried. Indeed I should have known that none of the younger cousins would listen to me when I told them about the barometer. Their responses varied from "pull the other one, I'm Flooing to Scorpius'" (Albus) to "That thing's never worked" (Lily) to "You're an idiot" (Louie). Everybody else was out of the house by lunchtime.
As the last child (Dom) left the house, Vicky and I glanced out the window.
"I think Lily might be right," Vicky said. I suppose she aimed her comment at the clear day outside in an effort to spare my feelings. Or at least I would suppose that, were she not Vicky.
"Thanks for saying that you think Lily’s right, not Louie."
"Why would I say that? I know Louie's right regardless."
Previous point made.
"Dick."
"Bitch." She bent down to tie her shoelaces. "I'm going to go for that fly now. Do you have enough domestic chores to keep you busy while you're gone, or do I need to assign you a few more?"
"Depends. Are you ready to admit that the sight of me in an apron turns you on yet?"
"Oh yeah. Clean those plates, baby. Clean them." She pulled me toward her and planted a quick kiss on my lips. "I'll be back... whenever. But definitely by dinner time."
I spent the afternoon practicing the NEWT level charms I'd been working on recently. I had them mostly down, but there were a few little inconsistencies that still cropped up when my mind wandered or I started getting tired. I wouldn't be too bothered about it for any other subject, but I need a solid O in Charms if I want to get into the Spellmaster's Academy next year. Which I do. Painfully.
As I was finishing up, I heard a disturbance in the fire. "Teddy?"
I looked, and Louie's abashed head greeted me.
"What's up?"
"Er," Louie began. "Well, I guess I should apologise for calling you an idiot first."
"That's ... nice of you, but why?"
Louie frowned. "Look outside."
I glanced behind me and very nearly had to double take. The window was almost completely white with mist, but what I could see were thick fluffy flakes of snow, dancing around in eccentric swirls before disappearing from my limited view.
"Huh... I was wondering why it felt chilly in here."
"Anyway," Louie continued, "the Muggle government reckon it's gonna be a big one. The Floo network can only run calls, and even that's probably not gonna be for much longer."
"Wow, okay." I started thinking quickly. "Can you Floo Dom at Melanie's, and Albus at Scorpius', and tell them to stay there and especially tell Albus not to be stupid and try to fly back. I'll call Lily and James." I grabbed the chain around my neck.
"What about Vicky?"
"She went flying. I’m calling her now." I showed Louie the pendant I always wore. A wolf, linked to an identical wolf around Vicky’s neck with a Protean Charm. Louie beamed and cut the Floo connection.
"Get the fuck back here. Now." I whispered into the pendant, touching it with my wand. I couldn’t help but grin - were our situations reversed, it is exactly how she would order me to come home.
Next, I Floo’d Lily and James, telling them to stay with their friends, and added to Lily that maybe the barometer was not so broken after all. My kid de-facto sister stuck her tongue out at me and flounced off. When he found out that Vicky and I would be alone for the next however-long, James said that he hoped I’d visited the 17s-and-up section of Weasley Wizard Wheezes recently and then promptly had to duck as I lobbed a hot coal at his head.
That took about five minutes, and Vicky had not yet replied. Maybe she’d had to find somewhere safe to stop flying before she could answer. I turned the kettle on.
Five minutes later, my tea was poured and I was sitting in front of the fire. Still no reply, which was odd. I took a sip and opened my Charms textbook.
Five minutes later, I had abandoned my book and was poking at the fire. She was probably deliberately not replying to annoy me. She was therefore going to get a smack across the back of the head when she got back.
Five minutes later, the pokes had gotten more violent. I’m normally not a violent man but cripes, I’d like to hit her sometimes. Of all the selfish, prattish things to do, why was she ignoring my message in the middle of this freaking snowstorm? Bloody hell.
Five minutes later, and I was going to break up with her. It was not worth putting up with that shit any more.
Five minutes later, and I was on the floor, head buried in my hands. Vicky, come on. Come on, Vicky. "WHERE THE FUCK ARE YOU?!" I yelled into my pendant, jabbing at it with my wand.
Five minutes later, it grew hot. A wolf pup was caught in a fence. Had to find its mum. Nearly fucking there. My hair turned as orange as the fire as relief and awe and everything else hit me at once.
Five minutes later, the door blew open. I was there in a heartbeat, pulling her inside.
"Geez, you’d think you were the one caught in a storm-"
"Shut up," I ordered, crushing my mouth against hers before she could make the choice to shut up or not.
If she was confused, she didn’t show it. It seemed she’d decided that pulling off her soaking wet jumper and backing me into the living room was a far better use of her time.
"I’m sorry," I said once we’d reached the fire and I could finally bear the thought of not kissing her for a moment. "I was just … this storm is insane and I didn’t know where you were and normally I ALWAYS know where you are and you didn’t answer your necklace and-"
"And I’M the one who needs to shut up?"
Her words were cold, but her tone was warm. She laid a hand on my cheek and smiled - a small, coy, untypical Vicky smile that made my heart jump, as it has done since before I can remember.
"I’m sorry, Teddy. I didn’t mean to worry you. Truly. Even I’m not that much of a dick."
"No," I agreed, pulling her to me again. My hands found their way to her ponytail. "I can’t … you’re insane, Vicky. What sane person sees a wolf pup in a snow storm, stops, and TAKES THE WOLF to its mother?"
"What was I supposed to do? Leave the poor thing there?" Her hands were on my jumper, then under it. Merlin her hands were cold. At least I think that was why I shivered.
"Most people would."
"I’m not most people."
"No." Her limp hair fell around her shoulders as I scooted closer. "You’re too amazing for that."
She grinned and kissed me again. As my hands found their way under her shirt and touched cold, goose-pimpled skin, I heard her sharp intake of breath, followed by a sound that I could best describe as a growl. Her hands reached for my belt.
I pulled away, just enough for our lips to come apart. Her hands froze where they were as she looked at me, blue eyes on … whatever bloody colour my eyes were choosing to be.
"Are you sure?"
She smiled, shaking her head as if to say "you complete moron", which she would normally just say, to be honest.
"Teddy, I’ve been sure for years."
It occurred to me afterwards as we lay by the fire, her hand on my chest and mine in her hair, that I’d been sure for years too.
~*~
When we both said ‘I do’, there were rainbows.
I looked out into the audience, considering each of the most important people in my life in turn. Aunty Fleur and Uncle Bill, who brought her into this world. Harry and Ginny, the best parents I could have ever asked for, letting me spend as much time with her as I wanted when we were kids. Dom and Louie, who never looked at me as anything other than their older brother. James, Albus and Lily, who never let me hear the end of it when we forget to put Silencing Charms on my room.
Then finally, Vicky. Intense, blonde, Quidditch-mad, animal-obsessed, love of my life Vicky. Nothing I could say could both express how much I’ve loved her all these years and avoid her mocking me about my words for the rest of our lives. But it was a risk I would have to take.
"When you are happy, you bring the sun. When you are scared, the thunder. Confused and upset, the wind. Angry, the rain. And passionate, the storm. You wield all the weather in my life, and instead of bringing a hat and an umbrella, I want to face it all, because all of it is you, and I love you in all weathers. You are my rainbow."
She grinned, taking my hand in hers. "And you are mine."
As we kissed in front of the Minister and our family and friends, my hair turned the same shade of dark purple as the dress she told Aunty Fleur she was going to wear whether Aunty Fleur liked it or not.
"By the way," she whispered to me as we walked down the aisle together, "’bringing a hat and an umbrella’ is possibly the dumbest line I’ve ever heard."
"At least I managed to say more than four words."
"Bitch."
"Dick."
Author/Artist: teenage_hustler
Prompt: No. 19: "I wanna give you all my body and soul, in fact I want to give you the keys to all that I got, Cos you are my star, you are my rainbow."
Prompt submitted by: katminx_fics
Pairing(s): Teddy/Victoire
Word Count/Art Medium: 4880
Rating: PG-13
Warning(s): Suggestion of sexy time (without vivid description)
Disclaimer: Harry Potter characters are the property of J.K. Rowling and Bloomsbury/Scholastic. No profit is being made, and no copyright infringement is intended.
Notes: This was such a fun prompt! I’ve loved bringing the weather into it, and my recipient requested Teddy’s hair changing colour around his girl, which was a lot of fun to incorporate as well. I really hope you like it, Mystery Recipient! Thanks to C for the awesome beta work!
Summary: You wield all the weather in my life, and instead of bringing a hat and an umbrella, I want to face it all, because all of it is you, and I love you in all weathers. You are my rainbow.
The first time I met her, it was sunny.
Apparently. I was only a year and a half old at the time. Harry and Ginny took me to see Aunty Fleur at St Mungo’s. According to Ginny, from the moment I had unsteadily hobbled into the room to the moment the door closed when Harry carried me out, I could not stop looking at the tiny bundle being passed around the room. My eyes followed it like a Quaffle in a Quidditch game, Ginny always likes to say.
When it was Ginny’s turn to hold her new niece, she took a seat next to me and told me to look inside the blankets. All that was visible was a little pink face with tightly closed eyes. I stared and stared, so silently that Harry always jokingly wonders if I had gone into shock.
And then, as the sun’s rays filtered into the room and kissed baby Victoire’s cheek, her eyes fluttered open, and my hair turned the same shade of sapphire blue as the newborn irises before me.
"Interesting," Harry apparently then remarked. "I didn’t know newborns could smile."
"They can’t," Uncle Bill responded, also watching his daughter. "Not normally."
~*~
The first time she held my hand, there was thunder.
"Teddy! How many have you founded?"
Uh-oh. She’s found me! I thought this would be a really good hiding place because I hid here once when I played hide-and-seek with Mummy Ginny and Daddy Harry and Baby Brother Jamie. I have to make super sure she can’t tell what I done. I pretend my hand is a tissue and run it ‘cross my mouth.
"Teddy!"
I turn ‘round really fast. Vicky is really close to me. She is wearing her blue dress with yellow flowers and Aunty Fleur put ‘nother yellow flower in her long lighter yellow hair.
"Only a couple," I say, holding up my favouritest red bucket, where there is still three blackberries.
Vicky looks into my favouritest red bucket, sunny hair falling over her ears like a waterfall. She looks at me and her mouth scrunches up to one side and my tummy feels funny.
"Stick out your tongue."
"No!" I clap my hand over my mouth and she runs into me and pushes me to the ground. She sits on me and grabs my arms. I try to get away but she is stronger, which is not fair because she’s only four and a girl. I’m stuck. I have no choice, unless I want to keep being stuck for the next million billion trillion years.
I stick out my tongue.
"Ha! Purple! You ate all your blackberries! Aunty Ginny said not to! I’m telling!"
She jumps up and tries to get away, but I grab her leg and she falls over.
"Ow!" If Vicky made me fall over I’d cry because I don’t like it when I am sore. But Vicky doesn’t cry. She yells and screams and giggles and laughs and smiles, but she doesn’t cry.
This time, she punches my arm.
"Ow!" I say, and I feel the start of crying happening.
"Don’t trip me over, you meanie!" Vicky yells.
"Don’t call me meanie! It’s rude! And don’t tell Mummy Ginny I ate all the blackberries, you… bigger meanie!"
"But Aunty Ginny SAID-"
Then there is a big light in the sky. Like super mega enormous massive light that looked like Daddy Harry’s scar. Then there is a massive loud sound like, like BOOM! It is so cool!
I turn to Vicky to say how cool it is because maybe she doesn’t know it’s cool, but she is not there. I look ‘round, and I see her hiding under the blackberry bush.
"What you doing?" I ask her. She won’t be able to see the big lights if she’s hiding.
"I … I don’t like the booming noise," she says, in a voice almost as tiny as her tiny nose.
"Why?"
"It sounds like someone is shouting," she says. "It makes me think of Uncle Harry’s stories about his big ugly uncle who used to shout at him all the time."
"Oh, Mean Uncle Vernon?" Daddy Harry tells me and Vicky and Baby Brother Jamie and sometimes Cousin Dommie now about Mean Uncle Vernon and how if anybody is ever mean to us like Mean Uncle Vernon we should tell a grown-up straight away.
I crawl under the bush and sit next to Vicky. There’s not much room so our knees are touching.
"You know what I think the booming noise sounds like?" I ask her.
"What?"
"Hagrid."
"Hagrid? But … Hagrid isn’t scary."
"No, but I think sometimes people think he’s scary, because he’s so big. Like the booming noise. The booming noise sounds like Hagrid laughing at one of Mummy Ginny’s funny stories. Sometimes I have to cover my ears, because Hagrid’s laugh is really loud, but it’s a happy sound. Not scary at all."
Vicky is quiet. Daddy Harry says that sometimes when people are quiet, it means they are thinking and you should also be quiet so they can think better. I think that is what Vicky is doing now, so I stay quiet. A drop of rain falls on my leg.
Then, I feel something warm and soft. Vicky has slipped her little hand inside mine.
"I’m going to start thinking the booming sound sounds like Hagrid now too," she says and smiles at me. My hair turns yellow like the flower in her hair, and another drop of rain lands on Vicky’s arm.
"Teddy! Vicky! Where are you?"
Vicky and I stand up and run to Mummy Ginny. Her hand is still in mine.
~*~
The first time I hugged her, I mean REALLY hugged her, it was windy.
"Blimey," said Harry Dad, taking out his earpiece thingy. "I’m glad we Floo’d over. These winds are gale-force, apparently."
"Mmm," agreed Ginny Mum, glancing at the noticeboards. "I’m kind of surprised the Floo networks haven’t been shut down, truth be told. At least the Hogwarts Express runs on magic. Look at the delays on all the Muggle lines."
Harry Dad shook his head, then turned to me and smiled. "Ready to go through, Ted?"
"I guess," I answered, wishing the butterflies in my tummy would stop. Harry Dad laid a hand on my shoulder, and together we pushed my trolley through the magic barrier.
The Hogwarts Express greeted me, large, smoky and incredible. The wind blew through my hair as it turned as red as the train.
As Ginny Mum and Harry Dad push my trunk to me, I heard someone shout "Teddy!"
Uncle Bill and Aunty Fleur are jogging towards us, their windswept hair surrounding their heads like lions’ manes, but I barely see them before I notice Vicky running full pelt towards the train. I jump out of the carriage and she collides into me.
I hear Uncle Bill telling Ginny Mum that that is the last time he is going to attempt Muggle driving in a convertible when it’s this windy, but mostly, all I can feel is Vicky’s arms enfolding me in her usual, vice-like grasp.
"Vicky," I puff. "Can’t … breathe …"
"I don’t care," she says. "If I hold onto you tight enough, you’ll stay."
"But I can’t stay."
"Yes you can! Stay here with me, and then next year when I’m eleven we can go together!"
I don’t know why, but something about what she said made me feel better. The butterflies in my stomach died down, and I wrapped my arms back around her.
"You know I have to go."
"Of course I know," she says, and her arms loosen just a little. "But I don’t want you to. You’re going to learn about magic and make all these new friends you can do magic with, and I’ll still be magicless, and we’ll … it won’t be the same."
"No, I suppose not. But I can tell you all about it when I write to you, and I’ll visit during Christmas and Easter. Then in summer I’ll be back, and before you know it we’ll both be going to Hogwarts and doing magic together."
A whistle blew, and Ginny Mum clapped a hand on my shoulder. "Come on, love," she said.
"Don’t forget to write to me," Vicky whispered as Ginny Mum pulled me away from her.
"Never," I promised, turning away to climb onto the train. As we left the station I watched her running after the train. Her hair looked so pretty blowing in the wind.
~*~
The first time we kissed, it was raining.
"Hey Ted?"
I looked up from my Charms textbook to see James, holding an Exploding Snap deck and an expectant smile.
"You sure?" I asked. "I kicked your arse from here till Sunday last time."
"No, Vicky did. You just tried to take credit because you were sitting next to her."
"I helped with her game plan!"
"She planned to get her left eyebrow singed?"
"Absolutely!" I tucked my book into my tote bag and stood up. "I'll show you. Where is Vicky anyway? She'd hate us forever if we started playing without her."
James shrugged. "I saw her on the Quidditch pitch earlier. Maybe she's still there?"
I glanced out the window. The day had been reasonably fine until half an hour or so ago. Then the Heavens randomly decided to open and pour rain on us with no warning, as is typical of the weather in Great Britain. This downpour didn't look to be letting up any time soon.
"If she stopped once the rain started, she'd be back by now." I pulled out my wand and cast a quick Impervious on myself. "I'm going to go and check that she isn't madly flying around in the rain."
"Knowing Vicky, that's probably exactly what she's doing," James remarked.
He was not wrong. I ran as quickly as I dared down to the Quidditch pitch. When I got there, I could just about make her out, flying twenty feet in the air and wielding a Beater's bat, which she would periodically swing at a Bludger she had presumably let loose. I'm more of a Gobstones than a Quidditch man myself (a trait that reminds Harry a lot of my birth father), but I do at least know that you don't need a bat unless you're a Beater, and Vicky is a Chaser. I suspected that she wasn't beating the shit out of a wet ball in the pelting rain as a training exercise.
"Vicky!" I yelled.
She glanced down, pushing her wet hair out of her face. Of course she wouldn't think to do an Impervious.
"What do you want, bitch?" she yelled back, her quote-unquote hilarious sweary nickname for me even more ridiculous-sounding than usual. "Can't you see I'm training?"
"Bollocks! Since when are you a Beater? Stop being stupid and come down, dick!"
OK, so maybe I enjoy the sweary nicknames too.
"Oh, so you think I'm stupid too, do you? That makes ALL the fucking sense!"
"What the bloody hell are you talking about-"
"Why do you bother hanging out with me at all when you could be with your 4th year friends or James or even bloody Dom, since she's SO much smarter and prettier and BETTER than me-"
Ah, now it made sense. I pulled out my wand and Summoned a bedraggled Vicky toward me with an ironic "Accio Bad-Tempered Female Dick". I was quite surprised at how well it worked.
I hit her with a drying spell and her own Impervious once she landed, then turned her to face me.
"What did Aunty Fleur's letter say?" I asked, keeping my hands on her shoulders. I should have known from the start really. Vicky's always pissed off after Aunty Fleur writes to her. It's kind of remarkable how two people who look so similar can be so different.
Vicky half-heatedly tried to shrug my hands off, but I know her well enough to know that it was more her wanting to seem tough and independent than her actually wanting me to let go. She frowned up at me, and then sighed. "Dom told her about her first lot of exams. You know, the ones where she basically got full marks in everything?"
"Yeah." Everybody in the Gryffindor common room at the time knew about Dom's perfect marks. She was skipping around the common room and telling everybody all the details. It would have been annoying, but Dom has always been extraordinarily endearing. I suspect she has more Veela in her than either of her two siblings.
"So what's Mum's reaction? Write to Dom and congratulate her? Floo-call Dad? Set up a side vault at Gringotts for school fees at St Mungo's medical school? No, no, her reaction is to IMMEDIATELY Owl ME and demand to know why I'm not studying hard like Dom. Why am I spending my time playing Quidditch and going to Hagrid's when I could be hitting the books and making the teachers feel stupid, like Dom?"
"Hasn't she asked you that before?"
"Only a dozen times in the past two months! I just..." She shrugs my hands off and prods at the wet ground with her broom. "I can't take it anymore. I keep trying to tell her that me and Dom are different. I tell her that Quidditch and helping Hagrid with the animals is important to me, and she's all like 'Mais oui, but Victoire, this is important too." I tell her that I'm doing pretty well in classes, and she's like "but you could be doing better, mon cher." I tell her that I'm as stupid as the cat, and she says "non, Victoire. No daughter of mine is stupid." Only she is so deaf to my point of view that if we didn't look the same I wouldn't think I'm her daughter at all."
She continued poking. I could feel my Impervious wearing off, but I didn't care. I was seeing Vicky as I rarely saw her. She's normally so sure of herself. When she tried out for Quidditch in first year, the captain told her first years never make the house teams and she just said "they're about to now" and proceeded to completely floor them with how good she was. On the other hand, in third year Potions the class was asked if they knew how to brew a spot enhancing potion, and Vicky loudly declared that George Weasley was her uncle and she could whip up this potion in her sleep. Ten minutes later she had blown up the lab and subsequently caused everybody in their classroom and the next one over to spend the afternoon in the Hospital Wing. When I visited her there she had shrugged and said "I missed a step... or five." But her belief in her own awesomeness, to use one of James' words, didn't falter for a moment even then.
Unsure of what else to do, I placed my now wet hand over the one grasping the broom. She stopped her poking, her eyes leaving the ground and landing on mine.
"You know she loves you, right?" I asked.
"Yeah, of course," she answered immediately. "It's just... she always talks about Dom like Dom is the greatest kid ever. And Dom's great, but... so am I."
I considered the broom in our hands.
"Do you remember how she came to watch your first Quidditch match?"
"How could I forget?" She put on her disturbingly accurate imitation of her mother's accent. "That was quite enjoyable to watch, Victoire.’ I swear, that woman only has emotion when she's complaining."
"You say that, but you should've been in the stands while the game was on. Every time you made a goal or took the Quaffle or did any of those scary loopy twist things you do, she was out of her seat and screaming to everybody who would listen." My imitation of Aunty Fleur is not great, but Louie assures me that it has gotten better in the past few years. "Oh! Oh mon dieu! Look! Look at my little girl! That is my girl up there! See how talented she is? She is amazing!"
Vicky blinked at me. "She... that's what she said?"
I nodded. "In an actual French accent, obviously, but yeah, she was really going for-oof!"
Suddenly I was landing on sopping wet grass, a pile of equally wet Vicky on top of me. As my hair turned the same shade of green as the grass, Vicky propped herself up.
"She's proud of me, Teddy!"
"Of course she is," I said, reaching up to smack the back of her head. "You're amazing."
She caught my hand just before I made contact. I made to pull my hand away, by habit more than anything else, but she held it there.
Our eyes met, and she had me locked in.
"You really think so, don't you?"
I said nothing. There was no need; she already knew the answer.
I think I must have blanked out for a couple of seconds, because I can't recall the details. All I know is, one minute we were staring like it was the first time we had ever properly seen each other, then the next thing I knew, we were kissing.
It's a shame, really. A first kiss and all, you sort of want to remember the lead-up.
"Huh," Vicky said after, as we squelched back to Gryffindor Tower.
"What?" I asked.
"I'd always thought that the first time we kissed, it would be less... wet."
I laughed. What other reaction was there?
~*~
The first time we went all the way, it was snowing.
"Hmm."
"What?"
I turned from the barometer. Wearing her tattered hand-me-down dressing gown and glittery furry slippers Dom got her one birthday as a joke, Vicky was a true vision...
...of how ridiculous anybody can look, regardless of how much they take after their poised, elegantly French mother.
"Your hotness knows no bounds," I teased.
She stuck her tongue out at me, took a seat at the battered coffee table of Grimmauld Place, and poured herself a cup of tea. "Why were you 'hmm'-ing?"
I pointed at the barometer. "It looks like we'll have snow today."
"Really? Buggerpants. I wanted to go for a fly."
"Since when has weather stopped you from doing that?"
"Since it's occurred to me that all the kids are going to stay in today and you'll want my help stopping them from breaking Uncle Harry and Aunty Ginny's tacky Quidditch plate collection."
"True." Who would have thought a joke present from Ginny two decades ago would become so important to both of my parents that Ginny actually cried the first time a certain blonde haired, blue eyed, Quidditch obsessed child ran into it at the tender age of seven and caused half the plates to smash onto the floor. You'd think they'd attach a permanent Shield Charm to the cabinet or something, but Ginny thinks it would damage the paintwork.
"Nobody is more qualified than you at making sure OTHER people don't run into it, after all," I continued.
"Fuck off, bitch."
As it turned out, Vicky needn't have worried. Indeed I should have known that none of the younger cousins would listen to me when I told them about the barometer. Their responses varied from "pull the other one, I'm Flooing to Scorpius'" (Albus) to "That thing's never worked" (Lily) to "You're an idiot" (Louie). Everybody else was out of the house by lunchtime.
As the last child (Dom) left the house, Vicky and I glanced out the window.
"I think Lily might be right," Vicky said. I suppose she aimed her comment at the clear day outside in an effort to spare my feelings. Or at least I would suppose that, were she not Vicky.
"Thanks for saying that you think Lily’s right, not Louie."
"Why would I say that? I know Louie's right regardless."
Previous point made.
"Dick."
"Bitch." She bent down to tie her shoelaces. "I'm going to go for that fly now. Do you have enough domestic chores to keep you busy while you're gone, or do I need to assign you a few more?"
"Depends. Are you ready to admit that the sight of me in an apron turns you on yet?"
"Oh yeah. Clean those plates, baby. Clean them." She pulled me toward her and planted a quick kiss on my lips. "I'll be back... whenever. But definitely by dinner time."
I spent the afternoon practicing the NEWT level charms I'd been working on recently. I had them mostly down, but there were a few little inconsistencies that still cropped up when my mind wandered or I started getting tired. I wouldn't be too bothered about it for any other subject, but I need a solid O in Charms if I want to get into the Spellmaster's Academy next year. Which I do. Painfully.
As I was finishing up, I heard a disturbance in the fire. "Teddy?"
I looked, and Louie's abashed head greeted me.
"What's up?"
"Er," Louie began. "Well, I guess I should apologise for calling you an idiot first."
"That's ... nice of you, but why?"
Louie frowned. "Look outside."
I glanced behind me and very nearly had to double take. The window was almost completely white with mist, but what I could see were thick fluffy flakes of snow, dancing around in eccentric swirls before disappearing from my limited view.
"Huh... I was wondering why it felt chilly in here."
"Anyway," Louie continued, "the Muggle government reckon it's gonna be a big one. The Floo network can only run calls, and even that's probably not gonna be for much longer."
"Wow, okay." I started thinking quickly. "Can you Floo Dom at Melanie's, and Albus at Scorpius', and tell them to stay there and especially tell Albus not to be stupid and try to fly back. I'll call Lily and James." I grabbed the chain around my neck.
"What about Vicky?"
"She went flying. I’m calling her now." I showed Louie the pendant I always wore. A wolf, linked to an identical wolf around Vicky’s neck with a Protean Charm. Louie beamed and cut the Floo connection.
"Get the fuck back here. Now." I whispered into the pendant, touching it with my wand. I couldn’t help but grin - were our situations reversed, it is exactly how she would order me to come home.
Next, I Floo’d Lily and James, telling them to stay with their friends, and added to Lily that maybe the barometer was not so broken after all. My kid de-facto sister stuck her tongue out at me and flounced off. When he found out that Vicky and I would be alone for the next however-long, James said that he hoped I’d visited the 17s-and-up section of Weasley Wizard Wheezes recently and then promptly had to duck as I lobbed a hot coal at his head.
That took about five minutes, and Vicky had not yet replied. Maybe she’d had to find somewhere safe to stop flying before she could answer. I turned the kettle on.
Five minutes later, my tea was poured and I was sitting in front of the fire. Still no reply, which was odd. I took a sip and opened my Charms textbook.
Five minutes later, I had abandoned my book and was poking at the fire. She was probably deliberately not replying to annoy me. She was therefore going to get a smack across the back of the head when she got back.
Five minutes later, the pokes had gotten more violent. I’m normally not a violent man but cripes, I’d like to hit her sometimes. Of all the selfish, prattish things to do, why was she ignoring my message in the middle of this freaking snowstorm? Bloody hell.
Five minutes later, and I was going to break up with her. It was not worth putting up with that shit any more.
Five minutes later, and I was on the floor, head buried in my hands. Vicky, come on. Come on, Vicky. "WHERE THE FUCK ARE YOU?!" I yelled into my pendant, jabbing at it with my wand.
Five minutes later, it grew hot. A wolf pup was caught in a fence. Had to find its mum. Nearly fucking there. My hair turned as orange as the fire as relief and awe and everything else hit me at once.
Five minutes later, the door blew open. I was there in a heartbeat, pulling her inside.
"Geez, you’d think you were the one caught in a storm-"
"Shut up," I ordered, crushing my mouth against hers before she could make the choice to shut up or not.
If she was confused, she didn’t show it. It seemed she’d decided that pulling off her soaking wet jumper and backing me into the living room was a far better use of her time.
"I’m sorry," I said once we’d reached the fire and I could finally bear the thought of not kissing her for a moment. "I was just … this storm is insane and I didn’t know where you were and normally I ALWAYS know where you are and you didn’t answer your necklace and-"
"And I’M the one who needs to shut up?"
Her words were cold, but her tone was warm. She laid a hand on my cheek and smiled - a small, coy, untypical Vicky smile that made my heart jump, as it has done since before I can remember.
"I’m sorry, Teddy. I didn’t mean to worry you. Truly. Even I’m not that much of a dick."
"No," I agreed, pulling her to me again. My hands found their way to her ponytail. "I can’t … you’re insane, Vicky. What sane person sees a wolf pup in a snow storm, stops, and TAKES THE WOLF to its mother?"
"What was I supposed to do? Leave the poor thing there?" Her hands were on my jumper, then under it. Merlin her hands were cold. At least I think that was why I shivered.
"Most people would."
"I’m not most people."
"No." Her limp hair fell around her shoulders as I scooted closer. "You’re too amazing for that."
She grinned and kissed me again. As my hands found their way under her shirt and touched cold, goose-pimpled skin, I heard her sharp intake of breath, followed by a sound that I could best describe as a growl. Her hands reached for my belt.
I pulled away, just enough for our lips to come apart. Her hands froze where they were as she looked at me, blue eyes on … whatever bloody colour my eyes were choosing to be.
"Are you sure?"
She smiled, shaking her head as if to say "you complete moron", which she would normally just say, to be honest.
"Teddy, I’ve been sure for years."
It occurred to me afterwards as we lay by the fire, her hand on my chest and mine in her hair, that I’d been sure for years too.
~*~
When we both said ‘I do’, there were rainbows.
I looked out into the audience, considering each of the most important people in my life in turn. Aunty Fleur and Uncle Bill, who brought her into this world. Harry and Ginny, the best parents I could have ever asked for, letting me spend as much time with her as I wanted when we were kids. Dom and Louie, who never looked at me as anything other than their older brother. James, Albus and Lily, who never let me hear the end of it when we forget to put Silencing Charms on my room.
Then finally, Vicky. Intense, blonde, Quidditch-mad, animal-obsessed, love of my life Vicky. Nothing I could say could both express how much I’ve loved her all these years and avoid her mocking me about my words for the rest of our lives. But it was a risk I would have to take.
"When you are happy, you bring the sun. When you are scared, the thunder. Confused and upset, the wind. Angry, the rain. And passionate, the storm. You wield all the weather in my life, and instead of bringing a hat and an umbrella, I want to face it all, because all of it is you, and I love you in all weathers. You are my rainbow."
She grinned, taking my hand in hers. "And you are mine."
As we kissed in front of the Minister and our family and friends, my hair turned the same shade of dark purple as the dress she told Aunty Fleur she was going to wear whether Aunty Fleur liked it or not.
"By the way," she whispered to me as we walked down the aisle together, "’bringing a hat and an umbrella’ is possibly the dumbest line I’ve ever heard."
"At least I managed to say more than four words."
"Bitch."
"Dick."