She had always loved to climb trees.
Ever since they had been children, spending their days at the Potters’ place, she had always been the first to haul herself up into the trees, precariously jumping from branch to branch and trying to coax the others to join her.
They did in the beginning, but there always seemed to be better things to do than climbing trees. After a while, everyone would climb back down, running inside to play with their toys. Not Victoire. She never tired of pulling herself up through the leaves, branch by branch, and getting scratched endlessly by stray twigs.
He never did, either.
Although, that may have had less to do with the actual tree-climbing and a lot more to do with Victoire. She was a wispy little blonde thing, a year younger than him and a good deal smaller. He always felt so protective of her. He didn’t want her to be hurt.
Yet somehow it was always him who fell.
Life was easy. Most days were spent at the Potters’, where the heavily pregnant Ginny looked after them while their parents (or grandparents, in his case) worked. It hadn’t been that way in the beginning – they used to only meet every now and then – but once Teddy had met Victoire, he never wanted to leave the Potters’, and complained incessantly until his grandmother took him more often. He supposed Victoire had too.
They were best friends. Inseparable, they thought.
Soon Teddy turned eleven, and he couldn’t fall out of trees every day anymore. He went off to Hogwarts, a place he had been dreaming of as long as he had known of it. There, his mind was opened to a thousand things more interesting than leaves and branches.
But there was never anything more interesting than Victoire.
They only saw each other twice that year – once at Christmas, and then again in the summer holidays. They fell back into their old pattern quite easily, climbing trees and eating Grandma Molly’s cake and laughing and joking like they always had.
Victoire started school the following year, and was sorted into Ravenclaw. Not Gryffindor like him, as they had hoped, but he didn’t think it would make much difference. At least she was at school now, and they could see each other on a daily basis again.
But it changed. He didn’t notice at first, but it changed.
It was difficult enough to try to be friends with someone in a different house, a year below him. They didn’t share any classes; they didn’t sit together at meals. Then there was the fact that Victoire was a girl, something he wouldn’t have minded if it weren’t for his fellow Gryffindor boys. He was at that age where all girls supposedly had cooties, and the boys who shared his dormitory would tease him mercilessly whenever he mentioned her.
He wondered if it was the same for her. And slowly, they drifted apart.
Teddy went through his seven years of schooling. The times of sitting in tree branches with Victoire began to fade until they were just a vague memory. He passed Victoire in the halls every now and then. At first they would stop and say hello. Then that drifted into smiles and nods, until finally there was just ignorance. And it was over.
Soon after, school was over too. Teddy graduated, passing every subject (although Charms was a close call). The Ministry accepted him into Auror training, which he had wanted to do his whole life. Following the family business, as Harry liked to say. His mum had been an Auror.
Summer lay ahead. It was his brief sabbatical between school and work, between mucking about with his friends and having a serious career. He spent time with his grandparents, he helped Ginny to redecorate her living room, and he hung out with the kids who had always been like brothers and sisters to him. It was simple. Easy. Fun.
But there was always that lingering thought in the back of his mind.
He first saw her two weeks into the summer holidays. He was sitting at the kitchen table with Harry when she breezed in, talking at a hundred miles an hour and dragging her younger siblings behind her. Harry and Ginny were babysitting, like always.
It was the first time Teddy had really looked at her in years. There was a difference between seeing her walk down the corridor in her school uniform than seeing her in the Potters’ kitchen, talking non-stop and raiding the cupboards for something good to eat.
Just like old times. His heart skipped a beat.
Her blonde hair was much shorter than he remembered. When they had been little, it had always been long and flowing, almost to her waist. It would blow in his face as he followed her up trees. Now it was only a little longer than her shoulders, pinned back from her face. He liked it. He could see her eyes.
They, of course, were the same brilliant blue he had always known.
She caught him watching her, and their eyes locked. Only for a second. But that one second was perfectly long enough to bring the memories flooding back from where he had locked them all those years ago. The smell of the tall pine trees. The feel of his sticky hands after eating watermelon. The sound of her laugh. The view from the treetops, and how they had thought they could see to the end of the world.
Then she looked away, and the moment was gone. With a quick goodbye to Harry, Victoire was gone as well, out the door and back into her life. The life that he was no longer a part of; the life that he hadn’t been a part of for seven years.
For the first time, it hurt a little.
Over the next few days, Teddy realised that letting her go had been the biggest mistake of his life. She had been his best friend. She was funny, interesting, clever. And beautiful. How had he not noticed that, in all those years passing her in halls?
About one thing Teddy was certain: he wasn’t going to let this continue. He wasn’t going to let another seven years pass by without her by his side. They’d said they would always be best friends, always together. It was time that he honoured that pact.
And so it began.
Teddy waited a week, spending all his spare time at the Potters' house. She didn’t show up. He didn’t want to ask after her; people would just jump to conclusions. And the conclusions would most probably be correct.
He tried to push her out of his mind. Perhaps it just wasn’t meant to be. But one morning as he was helping Ginny choose a paint colour for the walls, Victoire burst through the front door with her siblings again, laughing and smiling as she kissed her aunt on the cheek. He expected her to leave straightaway, but she told them she was going to stay for the day.
Luck might have been on his side, after all.
Victoire wandered off, and Teddy stayed with Ginny. He didn’t want to follow her immediately, as tempting as the thought was. She barely knew him anymore, after all. Teddy had no idea how he was going to approach her, what he was going to say – their relationship was in an awkward position.
But any obstacle could be overcome, even seven-year silences.
Sometime later that morning, Teddy went looking for her. She was nowhere inside, which didn’t surprise him – when they were younger, Victoire had never been able to be in the house for more than ten minutes, unless she was sleeping. It had amused him to no end, watching her plead with her mother to go outside and play, even when it was fifteen degrees below freezing.
Today, however, was a lovely, warm day. He wandered throughout the Potters’ garden, searching for her. Eventually he found his feet were leading him towards the small grove of trees where they had spent the majority of their younger years, climbing until they wore themselves out.
It made sense that she would be there.
Teddy entered the cool shade of the trees, glancing up each one as he passed. It had been years since he had been down here, and he found himself smiling as more memories surfaced at the sight of the trees. Finally, at the biggest, he glimpsed a long leg and a shimmer of blonde hair.
He began to climb, his arms and legs finding holds he had forgotten were there. A branch whipped at his face, scratching his cheek. Teddy grinned. It had been a long time since he had done this. Ignoring the twigs that pulled at his clothes and hair, he scaled the tree, heading for the figure sitting on a branch up ahead.
She had always beaten him to the top.
Eventually he reached her, pulling himself up on a branch next to hers. She was looking out over the countryside, and Teddy followed her gaze. If he squinted, he thought he could see his house. And perhaps even the sea, although that was unlikely.
‘Remember how we used to think we could see to the end of the world?’ Victoire asked softly, still staring out through the leaves of the tree.
‘Yeah,’ Teddy said, glancing at her. She had made it up the tree with barely a scratch on her, and her hair still perfectly in place. He smiled. She had always been so much better at it than him. But at least he hadn’t fallen out yet.
‘What happened, Teddy?’ she asked, turning to look at him. He didn’t have to ask what she meant. It was the same question that had been on his mind all week.
‘I don’t know,’ he said, shrugging. ‘I ... I’m sorry.’
‘It’s not your fault,’ she said quietly, looking away.
‘I feel bad anyway,’ Teddy said, reaching out a hand tentatively and placing it on her knee. She didn’t move, which he took as a good sign. ‘I wish so badly that we had stayed friends. There’s a whole part of your life that I missed out on, a part of you I don’t know ... It’s not right. We were supposed to be inseparable.’
She smiled. ‘Best friends forever, right?’
‘Of course.’
She took his hand in her own, squeezing it tightly. He felt a warmth spread throughout his body, and a broad smile crossed his face. It felt as if everything were right again. Then he checked himself. He was sitting in a tree, holding hands with Victoire. Of course everything was right.
All of a sudden, there was a laugh and a shout from below. Bewildered, Teddy and Victoire leant as far over as possible without falling out of the tree, trying to see who was down there. Albus and Louis were standing on the ground, staring up at them with identical grins on their faces.
‘What are you waiting for?’ Albus called up to Teddy. ‘Kiss her!’
And so he did.