Seventeen and a Half Years Later: Patronus (3/3)
Title: Seventeen and a Half Years Later: Patronus (3/3)
Author: kanedax
Spoilers: Deathly Hallows and Previous Chapters ( timeline here)
Characters: Victoire, James Jr, Harry, Neville, Teddy, various OCs
Rating: R for language, nudity, and sexual content
Summary: Victoire gets a bit of a shock
Notes: Since my last chapter, I created a convenient timeline for those who are getting buried beneath my continuity. The link will be placed in the “Spoilers” line from this point on.
I own these characters. The rest belong to JK Rowling
Patronus (2/3) / Previous Chapters / Patrick the Muggle
But of course the thoughts didn’t disappear.
After stopping into Hagrid’s hut for a quick cup of tea, a cup of tea that Victoire barely spoke three words over, instead choosing to listen to Hagrid go on about his Thestrals, Victoire found herself walking alone in the quiet darkness, the moon’s light reflecting a pale blue off the snow-covered grounds as she returned to the castle.
She walked alone, she walked in silence, which allowed those unwanted (wanted?) thoughts free reign. Thoughts of Teddy Lupin, alone with only her. Thoughts as simple as her head on his shoulder, thoughts as complex as rolling around on a forest floor, clothes in a tumbled pile beside them.
Do you think the hair color thing only stops on his head? Or does it go down further?
Damn it, stop it!
Why should I?
And so the mental argument continued as she entered the school and made her way towards Gryffindor Tower. As much as she wished she could stay by herself until she had this all figured out, she knew that tomorrow was another day, and that day was coming in just a few hours. Hopefully sleep would straighten things out.
If there was one good thing, it was that Nate had a project due tomorrow for Arithmancy, and was going to be in the library with Chelsea until late. So she could put off anything with him until tomorrow, when her brain was hopefully back to its normal state.
And Quidditch practice would still be going, so that kept Christine, Sam, and…
…Him…
…out of the common room. Sarah and Aaron were on prefect duty, so Victoire thought that she should be able to get upstairs, get into her pajamas, and into bed without having to talk to anyone.
“Password.”
“Gobstone.”
The Fat Lady nodded, and her portrait swung open, revealing the Gryffindor common room, which sounded surprisingly empty. She walked into the warm light of the fireplace, took a quick look around, and turned on her heel to climb the stairs.
There was someone there, sitting by the fireplace.
With green hair.
Fuck, Victoire panicked. Not now, he’s not supposed to be here!
Hoping against hope that he didn’t hear her enter the common room, Victoire tiptoed across the floor, taking the occasional glance over at Ted Lupin. Each time she did, the knot in her stomach tightened a little more.
God, he really is cute, isn’t he? Why didn’t you see that before?
Stop it. Not now. Please not now.
Ted didn’t look up as she passed. In fact, he didn’t even move at all. His head was hung low, elbow on his knee, forehead propped in his hand. He was staring at a piece of paper.
Must be homework, she said. Please be too busy.
But why would a piece of paper make him look like someone just died?
Victoire Weasley stood rooted to the floor, she looked towards the stairs. Back at Ted. Back up the stairs again.
Damn it, he’s your friend! Suck it up and go see what’s wrong.
Victoire took a deep breath, exhaled out air that was shaking with nerves. She pulled her foot free from the floor. Took a step. And another.
“Ted?”
No answer.
“Ted?” she repeated, closer this time.
Still no answer.
Now she was practically standing over him. “Ted, what’s wrong?”
Still no answer. Ted was completely lost in whatever he was reading. Victoire forced herself to sit down beside him, butterflies doing the hula in her stomach the entire time. She lifted her hand, which felt like it was suddenly made of lead, and put it on his shoulder.
She expected him to jump when she made contact. What she didn’t expect was for him to look up at her with a hopeful, expectant smile on his face.
Then she saw the smile melt as he came back to reality. He saw that she wasn’t who he wanted to see.
“Oh, hi,” he said, quickly folding the paper in half. Quarters. Eighths.
“Sorry,” said Victoire. “I didn’t meant to…”
“No, it’s fine,” Teddy said with a quick shake of the head.
“Aren’t you supposed to be at Quidditch?”
“We finished early,” he said, and she could hear a hoarseness in his voice. “Davies took a Bludger to the arm about five minutes in. We couldn’t keep practicing without our third Chaser, so we rescheduled for tomorrow when he gets out of the hospital wing.”
“Where’s Christine?”
“Upstairs,” Ted said, motioning with his head. “She and Welts went up to the dorms to get cleaned up and whatever.”
“Oh,” Victoire replied. “Ted, what’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” he said. “Nothing’s wrong.”
“It didn’t look it.”
Ted sighed a sorrowful sigh, and turned his head to watch the flickering fire.
“Is it Andromeda?” Victoire continued, forcing herself to move closer. “Is everything alright with your Gran?”
“No, it’s not her,” he said quietly. “She’s fine.”
Damn it, Victoire thought. Why does it have to be me? Where’s Jack? Where’s Gavin? Jenn? I’m in no state to try to comfort him, no matter what’s wrong.
“It’s Hermione.”
Oh, shit. No, no, no, I cannot be here for this.
“What happened?” she asked, amazed at the calmness of her voice.
“It’s…” Ted looked like the words were stuck in his throat like a chicken bone. At last, he managed. “It’s complicated.”
“It usually is,” Victoire replied. And I know it as much as anyone. “But try me. I’ll tell you if my brain can’t handle it.”
Teddy took another deep sigh, and as he spoke, his eyes never left the fireplace. “Last summer,” he said, “we did some… we had a talk. Or two. Or ten. We talked about where our relationship was going. What we had, what we wanted to have. And she started talking about… doubts.”
“Doubts?” Victoire hoped that Ted couldn’t hear her heart suddenly accelerate.
“Yeah…”
“Doubts like… doubts like what? Doubts like she wanted to slow down? Doubts like she wanted to break up? Doubts like she doesn’t love you anymore?”
Okay, that was asking too much. Let’s be a little less Miss Tactless, shall we?
“She says she still loves me,” he said quietly, fingering the folded-up paper. “She says that… she says that she still wants to be with me, and wants nothing more than to spend the rest of her life with me.”
“But?” Victoire asked. “There has to be a ‘but’ in there, or you wouldn’t look like you’re looking.”
“But she’s not sure,” he continued. “She says that she’s afraid that we only love each other because we’re all we’ve ever had. Because we’ve been talking about getting married since we were four. She’s afraid that we don’t… She’s afraid that we don’t even know if we’re right for each other, because we haven’t had any basis of comparison.”
“So what does she want?” Victoire asked, her heart beating faster. “She wants to… what… see other people?”
“That’s one way of putting it,” he said. “We talked more over holiday, and she just wrote me with her decision.”
“What’s her decision?”
“When summer comes around she just wants to be friends,” he said, and she could hear the cracking in his dry throat. “Next year, when I’m trying to get my life together and she starts at Bristol she wants to keep it to… you know… She doesn’t want to write. Only wants to see me on holiday. She wants to keep that up until we both can’t take it anymore or until… you know…”
“Until one of you finds someone else,” Victoire breathed.
“There it is.”
“That… that doesn’t sound that bad,” Victoire said.
“It sounds horrible,” Teddy groaned.
“But she still loves you…”
“But what if she does find someone else?” Teddy asked, looking at her for the first time. “And she will, I know it. She’s smart, she’s beautiful, she has so many things that she loves that would make your average guy melt…”
“Ted…”
“And I know she will find someone else,” he continued. “She’s been in an all-girls school for seven years, she hasn’t had a lot of opportunities. She’s not going to come back until she’s been on a few dates. This whole thing would be a waste if she didn’t. And it’ll be just my luck that one of them’s The One, you know?”
“But so what if they are?” Victoire argued. “Ted, the whole reason she’s doing this is because she loves you. She’s doing it because she wants to make sure that she just loves you the way that you’re supposed to love the person you get married to and have children with. If she finds someone else, someone who’s not you, then, well, it means that she did the right thing, and she’ll know that her love was just…”
“Just friends…”
“More than that,” Victoire said with a shrug. “She does love you. I can see it whenever you’re together. But there’s a difference between love when you’re our age and love when you’re… When you’re Granddad and Grandmum’s age. She just wants to make sure that she has that sort of love, for you or for anyone. And I think she wants to know that you have that same love for her.”
“Like I could ever think of someone else…”
“Maybe you should,” Victoire said, daring herself to rub his back. “You know that you’re not the only man HC could fall for, so you should also know that there are other women who could fall for you, too.”
Like me.
“I doubt I’m ready for that yet,” he said, looking back to the fire.
“You don’t have to be,” she said, pushing herself ever closer. Now her arm was around his shoulder as he hunched forward. “It’s not like it ever takes… it’s not like it’s always the sort of feeling you had with HC. I know that it took a long time for you to get together. Sometimes it… Sometimes it just hits you like a bolt from heaven. One day they’re there, and one day… one day they’re there.”
Teddy looked up at her, and she realized just how close she had gotten to him. Inches away from those lips she had been dreaming of.
Kiss him. Kiss him now, you know you want to…
“Like you and Nate?” he asked.
“Not exactly,” she said in almost a whisper. God, he felt so close kiss him!
“I don’t know,” he said, turning away from her. “I just hope that it happens quick either way. I miss her already.”
All of the tension that was building inside her came crashing down.
Kissing him would be the worst thing right now, she thought. She just ended it, for God’s sake. And you still have a boyfriend. Don’t make it harder on everyone.
“If she comes back,” said Victoire, pulling her arm away, “she comes back. And no one will be happier for you both than I will.”
And as she said it, she knew that she meant it. She considered HC her friend as much as Ted, and she knew that she wanted nothing more than to see them both happy.
“But if she doesn’t…”
“If she doesn’t,” Victoire continued, “Then she doesn’t. You move on. Just know that I love you either way, alright?”
Did you just say that?
Ted looked back to her, and gave a small, weary smile. “Thanks,” he said. Victoire couldn’t tell how he took the comment.
Hell, she couldn’t even tell how she took the comment.
“You know,” Teddy said with a chuckle, “for a fifth year you talk a lot of sense.”
“I’m a girl,” she said. “Girls are perceptive that way.”
“I just hope you’re right.”
“So do I.”
And he wrapped his arms around her. And she wrapped his arms around him. And she gave him a comforting hug, the kind that two friends give each other, nothing more.
“And on that note,” he said. “I should go sleep before I… you know… before I break down completely.”
“No one wants to see that,” Victoire said with a small smile. “I’ll see you in the morning?”
“God, I hope so,” Ted said with a sigh, pushing himself to his feet. “Night, Vic.”
“Good night, Teddy.”
And Ted Lupin left Victoire Weasley alone by the fireplace. Alone with her thoughts which weren’t quite as raging as they had been earlier.
The couch bounced beside her.
“Well, that was interesting.”
Victoire turned to see Chelsea Lemming sitting where Ted had sat just a minute before, a broad grin on her face.
“Oh, God,” Victoire said, panic starting to take her as she looked back towards the entryway. “When did you come in?”
“About five minutes ago.”
“And you… you heard…”
“Most of it,” Chelsea replied, grinning wider than before. “Saw most of it, too. I hung back because I didn’t want to interrupt.”
“Oh, God, Chelsea, it wasn’t what it looked like…”
“Well, that’s good,” Chelsea teased, “because it looked to me like Ted Lupin just broke up with his girlfriend and you wanted to comfort him with a good snog.”
Victoire wanted to protest, but… “Was it that obvious?” she asked weakly.
“To me, it was,” Chelsea said with a shrug. “But don’t worry about Ted.”
“Why not?”
“Well, one, he’s a boy. And two, he’s a distraught boy. I honestly doubt he’ll even remember talking to you tomorrow, let alone that your hair smells like apple shampoo.”
Victoire stared at Chelsea in shock, breaking only long enough to get a whiff of one of her blonde locks.
“Don’t feel guilty,” Chelsea said. “I’d want to snog him, too, if I were in your position.”
“Look, could we not talk about this now?” Victoire asked, anxiously looking around the room. “Someone might come down.”
“Like Nate?”
“Pretty much, yeah.”
“Alright,” Chelsea said with a shrug, her grin never leaving her face. “Wanna head to bed?”
“Actually, yeah,” Victoire said as they stood up. “I think I need to just snuggle up and sleep.”
“You might want to take a hot bath, too,” said Chelsea. “Always makes me feel better when I’m all conflicted. Or a cold shower. Depends on how exactly you’re feeling.”
“Well, a hot bath might…” Victoire stopped, suddenly hearing her words. “Chelsea, I do not need a cold shower! It’s not like that!”
“You sure?” Chelsea laughed. “Cuz honest to God, I got a little randy watching you try to go at it with him; I don’t even want to think about how you’re feeling.”
“It’s not like that,” Victoire insisted as they climbed the stairs. “It’s not at all like that.”
Fingers through blue hair. Tongues twisting. Hands trailing up your chest.
Stop it.
You’re such a liar.
“Not at all,” she said, feeling that knot again as they opened the door shared by the fifth-year girls.
Maybe a little lower than her stomach.
“Well, if you say-“
“Eee!”
A high scream pierced Victoire’s ears as she and Chelsea entered the room. She saw two naked bodies roll off of a bed and onto the floor, hidden from view.
“What the hell?” Victoire gasped as a hand flew up onto the bed and pushed up.
“Hi, Vic,” Christine Hogan said, her face furiously red. “I didn’t know you were coming back so early.”
“What… How…”
She and Welts went up to the dorms to get cleaned up and whatever.
“Oh, God, not again,” Chelsea Lemming said, rolling her eyes. “Honestly, does this have to happen every time you two are alone?”
“You knew about this?” Victoire said, spinning to her before she was struck by another thought. “Wait, how could you get Sam in here? There’s a jinx. Boys can’t…”
“Oh, for God’s sake,” came another voice from behind the bed. One that wasn’t Sam’s. “Keep your fucking sack together, Weasley.”
Theresa Daulby pulled herself up, naked, from beside Christine’s bed.
“Um,” Christine squeaked. “Hi, Vic. Um…”
Victoire just stood stock-still. She felt as though her voice was gone forever, and that her jaw had completely unhinged itself.
“And please don’t ever confuse me with Welts,” Theresa continued, grabbing a robe. “I know I don’t have any tits, but that doesn’t mean I look like a fucking boy.”
Chelsea threw her bag onto her bed as Theresa put her bathrobe on. “I didn’t know you two were in here,” she said to Christine. “Sorry.”
“Um, I…” Christine said, still on her knees behind the bed, hidden from view below her shoulders.
“I need to get a shower,” said Theresa. “Have fun, you three.” She walked out of the dorm room, leaving the three girls alone.
As the door closed behind her, Chelsea looked between the two best friends. “You mean she doesn’t know?” Chelsea asked Christine.
“I was… I mean, I was going to…” Christine stammered, pulling her blanket up with her to cover herself. “I mean, this wasn’t supposed to be… It isn’t…”
“Wwwwwwwwhhhhhh…” was all Victoire could bring herself to say. Whatever word was going to come next seemed to have become stuck in her brain.
“Look, I… I don’t know how to explain…”
“Victoire wants to snog Ted Lupin.”
“CHELSEA!”
“What? Like your brain didn’t need a reboot.”
“A what?”
“So that’s why you were looking at Nate so weird at Defense!” said Christine. “You were thinking about Ted!”
“I… No, I wasn’t!”
“Of course you were,” said Chelsea.
“Nothing to be ashamed of,” said Christine. “Ted’s really nice, and he’s really cute.”
“Look, I wasn’t thinking about Ted and there are apparently more important things to talk about and could you put a bloody shirt on before my brain goes into complete paralysis!?”
“Oh, sorry,” said Christine, dropping the sheet and grabbing her pajama pants and an extra-big t-shirt from beneath her pillow.
“I’m sorry, Vic,” said Chelsea. “I didn’t think they’d be… and I didn’t know that you didn’t know.”
“How…?”
“I walked in on them once,” said Chelsea with a shrug. “Before Christmas. She made me promise not to tell you or Sarah.”
“This happened before?”
“Yeah, once,” said Christine. “Or twice. Four…”
“Four times?”
“At least?”
“But… but… but you and… hate…”
“I know,” Christine stammered. “I know it’s hard to explain.”
“Haaaaaate…”
“I know.”
“You… Sam… she… with the…” Victoire weakly mimicked a slashing wand.
“I know,” said Christine. “That’s… that’s kind of how this one happened. We… we had a row about Defense until we started shagging.”
Victoire’s lip twitched, and she fell helplessly onto her bed. She tried to say more as Christine pulled on her t-shirt, but only a quiet whimper came.
“Look, it’s… Vic, it’s just a thing,” Christine said with a shrug. “I don’t know how to explain it. I still don’t like her. She doesn’t like me. But… it was fun the first time it happened. And the second. So I think we just decided ‘why not?’”
“Sam?” Victoire managed to ask.
“I still like him,” she said. “But he hasn’t really shown any interest. Until he does… well… this is fun, too?”
“But… But…”
“I think what Vic’s trying to say,” said Chelsea, leaning against her bedpost, “is that Sam does like you, and that he is interested, and that you should make a move on him instead of sleeping with your mortal enemy.”
Victoire nodded.
“But, she’s afraid to say it since she’s having difficulty kissing Ted because she’s too busy sleeping with a little prick like Nate. She’s projecting. It’s not pretty.”
“He’s not…”
“He is, Vic,” Christine said. “He’s a jerk. He doesn’t even try to hide it around you. He teases the lower years all of the time. He doesn’t care about anyone but himself. He hates whoever’s better than he is.”
“But in Defense,” Victoire said quietly. “I was thinking about Ted. Nate was mad, it was like he knew.”
“No, Nate was mad because you made a Patronus and he didn’t,” said Chelsea. “He said as much to me when we were studying tonight. He was mad because he couldn’t do it himself, because you’re better at it than he is. And, for someone who’s dated you for more than two years, you would really hope that he would compliment you for casting a spell that very few wizards or witches can cast as strongly or as quickly as you did instead of giving you the stink eye and saying some nasty things about you.”
“He… he wouldn’t…”
“He knows you’re friends with Christine and Sarah,” said Chelsea, “so he thinks I’m a neutral third.”
“So… So it wasn’t because he knew about Ted?”
“No, it wasn’t,” said Christine. “But would it matter if it was? Ted’s a thousand times the man that Nate is.”
“I say dump him and make a move,” Chelsea said with a shrug. “Personal opinion, of course.”
“But it’s HC,” said Victoire. “He loved… he loves her. It’s not like they’re breaking up for good. They might get back together.”
“Yeah, they might,” Chelsea said. “But they might not. Willing to take that chance?”
“Wait,” Christine said, raising her hand. “Teddy and HC broke up? This isn’t just, um, wishful thinking?”
“It’s complicated,” said Victoire, realizing that that phrase probably paled in comparison to whatever was happening with Christine, Sam, and Daulby.
“Not that complicated,” said Chelsea. “They’re seeing other people. Making sure that they’re not falling for each other because they haven’t had anyone else.”
“How do you know about this?” Christine asked Chelsea. “Why have you suddenly become Chelsea Lemming, Oracle?”
“She listened to most of our conversation,” said Victoire. “Saw me almost kiss him.”
“You almost kissed him?”
“But I didn’t!”
“Well, that tears it,” said Christine. “He’s single, and he’s cute, and you’re friends and you’re interested. There’s only one thing to do.”
“I don’t… I’ll be his rebound. After her.”
“Everyone’s someone’s rebound,” said Christine.
“I… I don’t know,” Victoire said, putting her head in her hands. “I just need to think. Or not think. Or something. I need sleep so bad right now.”
“No problem,” said Chelsea. “Just close your drapes, we’ll be whisper quiet.”
“And don’t think this is over, either,” Victoire said to Christine, her eyes narrowed. “Just because I’ve had the most brain-battering day of my life doesn’t mean you’re getting off easy.”
“Bad phraseology, Vic,” said Chelsea. “I think they were getting off pretty…”
“Brain battered,” Victoire said loudly, closing her eyes. “No innuendo talky.”
“I know,” Christine said quietly. “We’ll talk. I know I should have told you earlier, but…”
“But nothing,” Victoire said. “And Sarah gets her say, too. Just because you’re… doing whatever it is with Demon Daulby when Sarah’s on prefect duty doesn’t mean she doesn’t deserve to know.”
“I know,” Christine said. Even though she and Victoire were best friends, Sarah Harvey came in a close second for both of them.
But whatever was going to happen, it was going to have to wait.
“We’ll talk in the morning,” Victoire said, not even worrying about her pajamas as she lay down. “I just… I just need to sleep.”
“Sure thing,” said Christine. “Good night.”
“Night, Vic,” Chelsea said, starting to unbutton her shirt to change into pajamas as Victoire closed the curtains around her bed.
Victoire Weasley closed her eyes. Tried hard to clear her head.
Yet the thoughts kept bouncing around.
Christine’s sleeping with Theresa until Sam’s interested.
Chelsea has this really weird crush on my uncle.
Everyone thinks your boyfriend’s a jerk.
You’re casting spells that strike expert wizards and saviors of the free world speechless.
All of those thoughts kept her awake late.
But when sleep finally came all she could dream was how close she was to Ted Lupin that night. How much she wished she could have moved those last few inches to know how it really felt to kiss him.
And how she truly hoped she could have another chance.
Patronus (2/3) / Previous Chapters / Patrick the Muggle