The last time I published something on fanfiction, I recall promising to write either some Klaine or Rose/Scorpius. As you can see, this is neither of those. But I was in the mood for some Teddy/Victoire, so here it is. Two more chapters to come!
A Bit of Harmless Fun - part 1
by padfoot
...
"Don't judge me."
Victoire was biting her lip as she addressed the room at large. Most of the girls scattered in sleeping bags across the lounge room of Shell Cottage nodded dully in response, but Victoire fixed her half-hearted glare on Dominique. Her sister was the only one who seemed to be fully awake, and she was looking straight at Victoire with a quirked eyebrow and a distinctly judgmental expression.
"Seriously, Dom. Don't judge me."
"I'm not judging," Dominique replied, her tone even more judgemental than her quirked eyebrow and straight-mouthed stare.
"You are," Victoire insisted, defensive and somewhat desperate. By this point, some of the room's other occupants had begun to take interest in the conversation. "And you don't even know what happened yet!"
"What did happen?" One of the other girls asked, following up the question with a wide yawn.
The girl lived in a house close to Shell Cottage, and knew Victoire and Dom through being neighbours rather than through school. She was close in age to Dominique, and close in temperament too.
Victoire bit her lip again, and fixed her eyes on the pale-coloured carpet at her feet.
She hadn't meant for what had happened to happen, not really. It had all been sort of a joke, a fun little game to play as a treat for herself on her fifteenth birthday. Her parents were away, and her friends had come to Shell Cottage for an innocent, regular sleepover. Just friends hanging out. The thing that had happened was all the result of a little bit of harmless fun. Harmless fun that Victoire just knew Dominique would judge her for indulging in.
"It was nothing," Victoire said, trying and failing to sound blasé. "I just know that you're going to comment, and I'm telling you now that you shouldn't. Because it's nothing."
"Okay," the same girl, the neighbour, said. She drew out the word in a way that made it sound particularly judgemental.
The girl sat up and stretched, glancing around the room to meet Dom's eye. The two exchanged a look, which made Victoire squirm. The other girls in the room began to stir as well, eyes blinking open to watch the conversation unfold.
This was definitely not what Victoire had wanted.
When she had thought about this moment, the moment of her confession, of revealing the results of last night's harmless fun, she had hoped only Dom would witness it. Dominqiue, after all, as her younger sister, tended to witness practically all of Victoire's embarrassments. And, despite her expressions and questions, Dom tended to be capable of withholding judgement and keeping secrets, both of which were very valuable skills in these kinds of situations.
Victoire had not considered that her words might pique the interest of other friends of hers. She had also not considered the world of mortification she was opening herself up to, by giving her sister an ally in this situation.
"It's just, I had a lot of butterbeer," Victoire explained, "I was, you know, a bit less- um, you know…"
"A bit less inhibited?" Dominqiue suggested, her expression all innocence, but her eyes flashing deviously.
Victoire nodded and muttered, "That's the word, yeah."
"And what did you do?"
There was a long moment of silence.
"Nothing actually happened, okay?" Victoire repeated, just to make herself clear.
It was true. Nothing had happened in the sense that people tended to think things like this happened. Victoire was fifteen after all, not twenty-one. She wasn't about to have a butterbeer-prompted romp in the sack just for fun.
It had just been a little bit of flirtation, a few more kisses on the cheek than should strictly happen between friends, and a lot more kisses in other places. She had, for instance, never known that someone's lips on her collarbone could elicit quite so strong of a response before last night.
"Okay," both Dominique and her co-conspirator said, giving identical nods.
Victoire frowned and sighed out a deep breath, knowing there was no way to get of this situation without completely mortifying herself. Better to get it over with, she figured.
"I'll be back in a second," she said, then turned around and hurried up the stairs to her bedroom.
Victoire winced at the murmuring that erupted as soon as she left the living room. She was never going to live this thing down.
She ducked into the bathroom to wash her face and run her fingers through her hair, eager to delay heading back to her bedroom and facing the mortification of the thing that had happened.
It was one thing to do stuff with someone late at night, alone in shadowy corners and in her moonlit bedroom. But it was another thing entirely to face it in the morning.
The sun shone brightly through the bathroom's frosted glass window, casting a warm golden glow on Victoire's tired eyes and flushed cheeks. She patted her face dry with a handtowel, hoping to cool away some of her blush, but of course it was no good. Taking a deep breath, she checked her hair one more time and turned towards her room. Better to get it over with, she reminded herself.
The bedroom door was shut, and Victoire knocked on it gently, scared to enter unannounced.
"It's me," she said quietly, "Can I come in?"
A few seconds went by without Victoire hearing an answer. She moved closer to the door, listening for sounds of movement inside, and was taken by surprise when it was pulled opened and she found herself standing awfully close to last night's happening.
His eyes were bleary and still half-shut, his hair sticking up everywhere, and Victoire instantly felt guilty about having woken him up.
"I'm sorry!" she blurted, "I thought you were already awake."
Her bedroom's occupant let out a drowsy chuckle, "Don't worry, I was. Just hoping to get a sleep in."
Victoire's guilt grew.
"Sorry," she said, "I don't really do that. Sleep in, I mean."
"I noticed."
They stood together for a long, awkward moment. Victoire was very pointedly staring at anything but the boy in her doorway. The boy, on the other hand seemed rather relaxed, rubbing his eyes, rolling his shoulders and shifting his weight from foot to foot.
"Can I come in?" Victoire finally asked.
"Oh, yeah. Sure. Sorry."
The boy stepped aside, and Victoire slipped passed him, desperate not to touch him. Things had progressed rather fast the last time that had happened.
"It is your room," the boy added belatedly, watching Victoire from the doorway as she moved to her bed, bending down to fish his jumper from where it sat in a heap on the floor.
"It is," Victoire agreed, somewhat absently, fetching the boy's shoes and socks as well, and carrying them over to place in his arms.
"And you're very protective of your space," the boy went on, his eyes making Victoire's skin tingle as they followed her movement around the bedroom. "And that, I'm guessing, is the reason why you're kicking me out."
"No," Victoire quickly replied, finally stopping to meet his eyes. Her cheeks instantly turned cherry red, so she swiftly looked away again, moving over to her wardrobe.
"Then why I am being kicked out?"
The question had Victoire stumped, and she bought herself some precious time by opening her wardrobe and running her hands over the clothes hanging up in there. She had no intention of getting dressed at all – in fact she had no intention of ever leaving the house ever again, if that's what it took to hide from her embarrassment – but looking at her clothes gave her something to do other than look at the boy.
"Because soon everyone will realise that you're gone," Victoire eventually said.
"And you don't want anyone to know what happened?" the boy guessed.
Victoire laughed without humour and muttered, "It's a bit late for that."
"Oh."
There was another stretch of silence, before Victoire spoke with forced light-heartedness.
"It's all my fault, I suppose, for letting you sleep in."
"A rookie error, Weasley. I expected more from you."
The teasing came easily to him, directed at her softly, without any cruelness or venom. It was charming and natural and normal, dispelling at least some of the awkwardness that hung thick in the air. Victoire smiled.
"I'm sorry to disappoint you," she said. She was still looking into her wardrobe at her clothes. Of course she was so focused on him that she could see nothing but blurred colours in front of her. Still, she refused to meet his eyes.
Victoire could hear his footsteps muffled by the thick carpet as the boy stepped away from the doorway, closer to her.
"I'm not disappointed," he said, and for those three words his voice wasn't teasing at all. "It's just that I think you could do better. Anticipate my sleeping in, you know. Make concessions for it, plan ahead. Maybe you could do that next time."
His last words were slow and deliberate, his voice so much closer than Victoire had expected.
She glanced up, startled to see him beside her, within arm's reach.
"Next time?" she asked.
He gave a little shrug, suddenly shy and ridiculously endearing, and said, "If you want."
Victoire's cheeks were burning, but her stomach bubbled with nervous happiness. She smiled with an anxious, breathless kind of joy, half embarrassed and half thrilled.
"I would like there to be a next time," she told him.
He smiled too.
"Hey! Victoire!"
They both started at the sound of Dom's yelled from downstairs, and on instinct Victoire darted to the door, making sure no one was outside.
"Yes?" she called back.
"Are you coming back down here or what?"
"Just a second!"
Victoire glanced back at her companion, who was still smiling gently, but now looking rather resigned to missing his sleep in.
"I'll be downstairs in a couple of minutes," he offered, "Just let me, uh-" he wordlessly held up his armful of clothes.
"Okay," Victoire said. "See you soon."
She left him behind with one more shared smile, hurrying back down to the living room. Everyone was awake now, rolling up sleeping bags or rifling through their overnight bags for a change of clothes. She hadn't realised how long she'd been gone.
"Have you sorted out that thing that happened that we're not supposed to judge you for?" Dominique asked.
Victoire scowled, but refused to let her new good mood be ruined.
She gave her sister a curt nod and said, "It's nothing. I was being stupid, asking you not to judge me." Feeling particular daring she added, "I don't even care if you find out."
"That's good," Dominique replied. Her expression suddenly bright and very discomfiting, and she shared a glance with her co-conspirator from before.
Suddenly Victoire regretted her words. She regretted them very much. She opened her mouth to take it all back, but Dominque spoke up first, her tone painfully loud and confident.
"Because you know what I realised just now? There's someone who was definitely at your party last night, but isn't in this room now. Isn't that strange?"
"Dom-" Victoire said desperately, but she already knew it was too late.
"Who's missing?" the next-door niehgbour asked, clearly in on Dominique's plan and not even feigning innocence anymore.
Dom shot Victoire one last smug little smile and said, "Teddy Lupin."