Victoire was all cried out. Now she was sitting calmly on her bed, waiting for a solution to come to her. She hadn’t been able to think of anything to make things better, so her best hope was that they would just become right.
The dormitory door opened, and Tina walked in.
“Hey,” Victoire said. Tina glanced at her but didn’t respond. “How “ how’s Seth?” Victoire ventured nervously.
“I kissed him,” Tina said. “So he’s okay. No thanks to you.”
“You kissed him? That’s great!” Victoire grinned, but her heart wasn’t in it. “I’m sorry about...about what happened.”
“Couldn’t let well enough alone, could you?” Tina spat, and Victoire recoiled. “You just had to barge in and mess with our carefully balanced equilibrium.”
“What are you talking about? Teddy and I saw that you needed some help so we thought we’d help out a bit.”
“The best way you could’ve helped was by getting together with Teddy.” Tina sat on her bed with a huff. “Not by messing with us.”
“Um, you lost me there,” Victoire said, trying to keep her voice normal so Tina would respond in kind.
“I should’ve known when you kept prying that you were planning something,” Tina said. “Seth said not to worry about it, but I knew there was something fishy about the date with Teddy.”
“I’m still confused,” Victoire remarked, heartened by Tina’s nicer tone.
But then she blew up again. “Do you think Seth and I are really that stupid?” Tina ranted. “We knew that we liked each other, and we knew that it would work out well between us, but we had the greater good in mind! Our lives would just be easier if you and Teddy got together, so we decided to focus on that first. Then you had to go and ruin that too...”
“Wait, how’d you know?” Victoire interrupted. “And why didn’t you just start dating Seth and help us from that enviable position?”
Tina just glared. “We decided it’d be better if we waited. And Teddy came back to the pub without you. I put two and two together. You must really think I’m an idiot for not catching on, huh?” She folded her arms crossly.
“To you and Seth? No. I’m the idiot,” Victoire said sadly. She’d been so excited at the prospect of working with Teddy on such a good cause she hadn’t even paid attention to Tina. Tears, which Victoire thought she was fresh out of, began to well into her eyes. “I’m sorry, Tina,” she choked out. “Everything’s been messed up and it’s my fault.”
“At least you have the wisdom and courage to admit it,” Tina replied. Victoire wiped her eyes and nodded. She looked up when she heard the door click shut. Tina had left.
With an anguished moan, Victoire flopped down and burst into tears again. Her eyes were already stinging and swollen from her first sobs, but Victoire let her tears flow anyway. She had no doubt that Seth was very angry with her as well, so there was no one she could talk to. It was amazing how, in the course of an hour, she could ruin everything in her life so thoroughly. She couldn’t take any joy from the way The Plan had apparently worked. All she felt she could do was cry, so she did.
For a while.
Then, her tears once again dry, Victoire sat up and saw her bookbag. There was something she hadn’t ruined yet, and might even take her mind off everything else. She stood up, gathered her books, and went to the library to do homework for a while.
She didn’t look anywhere but at her Transfiguration assignment on her way out of the common room, so her gaze didn’t fall on Tina, Seth, or Teddy “ if, in fact, they were even there. She wouldn’t know. Her attention was so focused on this aspect of her life she must not ruin, she almost ran into several people on the way to the library.
Heartbreak should be marketed as a study enhancer, Victoire mused as she carried several books to her work table. She, personally, had never been so motivated in her life. Not even for O.W.L.s.
Twenty minutes later, though, Victoire had to admit that trying to market heartbreak wouldn’t work very well. She was making valiant progress with her Transfiguration essay but kept getting distracted by thoughts of her friends. How could she make it up to them? While Victoire tried to remember how a rodent’s anatomy factored into wand movements, her brain defied her by supplying various ideas for an attempt at reconciliation.
“Gah.” Victoire threw down her quill and dropped her face into her hands. This wasn’t going well. It was tempting to go back to her room, but Tina might be there “ she didn’t want to deal with that again, not yet. With a sigh, she picked her quill back up and flipped through a nearby book, looking for a fact that would strengthen her essay.
“Aunt Hermione would be proud of you, doing homework on a Saturday.”
Victoire’s heart leapt, but she hurriedly stuffed it back down. Her imagination was angry at her for persevering with her homework, so it was retaliating by making her believe that Teddy was right behind her, speaking in a normal tone of voice. It was the only reasonable explanation.
Reason be hanged! she thought. Her imagination couldn’t replicate the very sight of Teddy, nor the warmth of his body as he passed right next to her on his way to the other chair at her table.
“What are you doing here?” Victoire asked, unable to keep a hint of harshness from her voice. Had he thought of more reasons why she was evil?
“Tina nicked some food from the kitchens for you but by the time she got back you were gone. She asked me to look for you. I figured this is where you’d be.” Teddy offered his explanation steadily, looking at Victoire calmly.
Victoire was struck by just how well he knew her and almost smiled tenderly, then realized she had no reason to be talking civilly to this person. “Why did she get food for me?” she asked coolly.
“She was sorry. Actually “ ” Teddy smiled a little “ “she said that you were the most pathetic thing she’d seen in months, and she just had to try and make you feel better.”
“I thought she was still angry at me,” Victoire confessed, bewildered. She was having the hardest time rebuffing Teddy. This confrontation was turning into more of a conversation. “She left without saying anything.”
“Well, she hadn’t quite forgiven you.” Teddy grinned his devastating grin. “In fact, she sat in the common room for quite a while, muttering about how pathetic you were, how angry she was trying to be at you, that sort of thing.”
Victoire really wished he hadn’t smiled. “So were you in the common room when I left?”
“No, I was up in my dorm,” Teddy replied. “Tina came up there with Seth later.”
She sighed in relief. It wasn’t clear to her why it mattered that he hadn’t seen her then, but she was happier talking to him now. Though, of course, she really shouldn’t be happy talking to him, after he’d yelled at her earlier. Maybe she should bring that up. She opened her mouth.
“When’s that essay due?” Teddy asked before she could say anything. He pulled her parchment toward him, brushing her hand as he did so.
Victoire closed her eyes “ not concentrating, but trying to quell the shivers that emanated from his touch. “Wednesday.”
“And you’re working on it today?” Teddy shook his head. “Come on; let’s go for a walk.”
“What?” This had gone from mildly bewildering to mind-numbingly confusing. This wasn’t the sort of behavior Victoire would expect from someone who had yelled hateful things at her only hours before.
“Gather up your things so nobody steals them and let’s go,” Teddy repeated impatiently.
She did as he said. “Teddy, I’m really confused,” she confessed, shouldering her bag and following him out of the library. “Homework is important for my success in my classes.”
“I know all that. But you don’t really want to be in there, do you?”
“Depends,” Victoire said nervously. “What’s going to happen on this walk?”
“No more yelling,” Teddy promised, looking down at his shoes then back up at Victoire.
“Are we even going to talk about it?” Victoire wanted to know. “Because the fact that the yelling happened at all is really bothering me.”
Teddy sighed. “I know. It’s bothering me, too.”
“Well...” Victoire began, then stopped. She didn’t need to lash out at Teddy when he hadn’t even done anything yet, and appeared to be apologizing. So she didn’t say that it was his fault he was bothered.
“Do you remember Christmas?” Teddy said.
“Huh?” Victoire hadn’t expected that. “Sure, I remember. Why?”
“Remember the mistletoe?”
“I’m not likely to forget that anytime soon,” Victoire said wryly. What does this have to do with anything? she thought.
“And what I said right before I...” he gestured vaguely at Victoire’s face, seemingly too embarrassed to continue.
“Yes. I remember that.” She hadn’t understood him at all. “You won’t...you won’t take this to mean anything it doesn’t, will you?”
“And you still don’t get what I’m trying to say,” Teddy said, clearly frustrated.
“Well, no.” Victoire shook her head and laughed a bit. “Teddy, I am utterly confused. I thought you were going to say you didn’t mean what you yelled earlier, or at least apologize for making me think you hate me.”
“I couldn’t hate my best friend,” Teddy interrupted.
“You pretended pretty well,” Victoire responded. “And now you’re talking about what you said at Christmas as if it was something marvelous revelatory and I’m slow for not understanding what on earth you’re trying to say.”
“I’m really sorry for yelling at you about your veela stuff,” Teddy replied, throwing Victoire off balance again by reverting back to their original topic. “I was overreacting.”
“Yes, you were!” Victoire exclaimed. “If you didn’t like it, you should’ve told me before I ruined my best friends’ lives!”
“Their lives aren’t ruined,” Teddy said earnestly.
“Well, mine is!” Victoire responded. “Was,” she amended. “I thought so, at least. Back when Tina left me in a rage and I left you in a rage and I didn’t even want to look Seth in the eye.”
“Gosh, I’m sorry,” Teddy said, grasping Victoire’s arm. “I didn’t mean to make you so upset.”
Victoire looked askance at him.
“Okay, I did mean to rile you up a little bit. Just enough to make you realize that you didn’t have to resort to veela tricks to get me to like you.”
“Teddy, you’re insane.” Victoire cradled her head in her hand. “That’s not how it works.”
“I don’t see why not.”
“Well, considering that I tried to give you an opening to admit that you didn’t need veela tricks and you didn’t take it, I think that’s reason enough.”
“Oh.” Teddy blushed. “What an idiot.”
Victoire didn’t want to nod, even though she agreed heartily. Because Teddy had pretty much admitted that he actually liked her and she didn’t want to make him change his mind.
“So...back to Christmas.”
“Yes, please tell me what subtle hints about your feelings I missed there,” Victoire said.
“I thought you liked subtle things,” Teddy said. “So I tried to tell you that I actually wanted the kiss to mean something real. When I asked you not to think of it meaning something it didn’t, you were supposed to think that I was meaning it very strongly. You didn’t pick up on that?”
“No. No, of course not!” Victoire winced and grinned at the same time. “I’m a little bit surprised that Tina and I didn’t come up with that as a possible explanation, but not really. That was rather out there.”
Teddy shook his head. “You know, I thought I knew you pretty well.”
“You do.” Victoire put her hand on his shoulder and smiled reassuringly. “You know me better than anyone in the world.”
“Then why did I fail so badly at wooing you?” he asked despairingly.
“Now, that I don’t know. But, you’ve gotta admit, I didn’t do so hot at wooing you either.”
“You had unfair advantages.” Somehow, Teddy’s arm was around her waist and her hand on his shoulder was sliding around his neck.
“I thought veela tricks didn’t work on you.” His face was so close. She could see the gold flecks in his brown eyes as he leaned in.
“No one’s immune,” he whispered, before pulling her to him and pressing his lips to hers.
Now this was a kiss with meaning behind it. Victoire didn’t know if Teddy felt the same, but she could feel all her pent-up frustrations of the year flowing into the kiss, and in return she received fireworks and warmth and triumph. She’d done it. Her life’s dreams were coming true right at this moment.
The moment, though, ended far too soon. Teddy pulled away and stared at her, gasping a little.
“Why’d you stop?” Victoire complained.
“Just wanted to make sure neither of us had turned into toads,” he replied, his face quirking into that grin Victoire loved so much.
“Not yet,” Victoire said, snaking her arms even more tightly around him. “Guess we’d better try for a while longer, see if the spell is on a time-delay or something.”
Teddy hastened to comply.
Gratification and Justification by Cinderella Angelina
Chapter Notes: This chapter is ... much shorter than the others. I've had it all completed until this point for about a month now, and I'm trying to write an epilogue that will boost up the ending and tie some loose ends, I hope. Until then, enjoy.
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