This was written for Being A Wallflower. I hope you'll like it.
Word count:1452
Sickness
"I just feel awful," croaked Victoire from her bed, "how come I'm the only one who got sick here, when you all ate the same thing as me and did the same thing I did? This is so unfair!"
Teddy chuckled but his mirth was quickly shut down by his wife's dark look.
"Don't you even dare mock me Teddy Lupin! Don't think I forget that it's your fault I'm here, dying slowly from this terrible sickness-"she coughed "-and stuck in this stupid bed. 'Come on Vic',' you said, 'it'll be fun to leave for the summer, just the two of us and go somewhere we've never been.' I'll give you fun!"
Even though her rant was frequently interrupted by heavy coughs and the dark rings under her red eyes gave her a crazy look, Teddy couldn't help but feel an urge of fondness.
"Don't you think you're overreacting a little bit? I mean, this is only a small cold. You'll be up and about in two days and this will just be a bad memory," he noted with a smirk, though in his mind he added 'for you that is, because your reaction to this is just too funny not to remember it'.
When Victoire had first begun to show signs that she was ill two days ago, Teddy had been worried. Her violent coughs and the cold shivers from her fever had made her drop quite a few things (she had accidentally broken a vase they had been offered for their wedding. What it was doing there he wasn't sure, but he knew Victoire wouldn't shed a tear over the loss of what she had qualified as a 'hideous piece of pottery').
They had gone to a mediwizard almost immediately and had thankfully discovered that this was nothing a couple of Pepper-Up potions and a few days of rest wouldn't cure.
Or at least it would if Victoire wouldn't react as if the world was ending and she was about to die of this.
It was in moments like this that Teddy wondered why exactly he had married the woman when she was obviously completely mad.
Still, this sickness meant that instead of exploring Thailand as they had planned, she was stuck in their hotel room, and he stayed with her to take care of her.
After all, not only was she too weak to do much of anything, but he also knew that leaving her would mean serious retributions from her part when she'd get better. And anyone who knew Victoire was afraid of what she thought appropriate revenge.
Not that he would ever even think of leaving her alone. For one, there was no telling what might happen if he did (the last time he had left to eat at the hotel's restaurant he had found all his clothes hanging from the ceiling), and for two he loved her too much to leave her alone.
Luckily the sofa could be used as a bed too, because as he looked at what used to be their bed but was now a mountain of used handkerchiefs on one side and bottles of medicine on the other he thought there was no way he wouldn't catch her bug if he slept there.
"Can you open the curtains please?"
Victoire's voice drew him out of his musings and he left his chair to let light into the room. They, well he, had drawn the curtains when his wife had yawned one time too many.
In the end, no matter how much she had protested she didn't need it, he had told her to take a nap.
Unsurprisingly she had fallen asleep not five minutes after that like he knew she would.
They had grown up together after all, and he knew to notice the signs. He had learned those long ago and they had proven very useful since then, because Victoire was one of those people who lived their lives at their fullest, making the most of every day and only stopping when their bodies stopped for them.
He could still remember the amount of times he had found her passed out from lack of sleep and too much work when they had been at Hogwarts. It had worried her parents a lot, especially when she was very young as she tended to drop at the weirdest times, but Teddy had always known this was just her way of living.
She managed to cram into one day what other peoples did in a week and then she wanted to do more, and she was almost always bursting with energy. He had jokingly once asked her if her parents had given her too much coffee as a child but though the idea was ludicrous, the result would have been the same.
It was one of the things that had drawn him to her in the first place, and one reason among many as to why he loved her so much.
"You know," he remarked lightly as light reveled the horrible state of the room, "this is going to be hell to clean up."
"As if. We're wizards Teddy, or do I need to remind you that we have magic? This will be all back to how it was in two waves of a wand, and I'm even willing to bet it'll be cleaner than it was when we got here," she answered rolling her eyes.
"I know that, but I thought we had decided to do this like Muggles for once? You know; no magic for these holidays? It was your idea."
"I think this can count as a justifiable exception. After all, I am too sick to even move, and knowing you if you tried to clean this you'd blow up the room."
"I so wouldn't!"
"Two words Teddy, two words."
"What?"
"Hogwarts. 2009."
"Are you going to bring that up every time I do or say something like that?"
"Well, at least until you do something worse."
"Just you wait until you're healed! I'm not the one who was telling everyone who'd hear her all about how she was dying and in immense pain when all she had was a small cold."
"I'll have you know that dozens of people die from simple colds."
"And hundreds of people are bad at cleaning charms."
He knew he shouldn't have said it the very moment he opened his mouth, her victorious smirk told him that much.
Just as he was about to find a way to change the subject, her smile turned into a grimace and she coughed harshly again, before letting herself drop back on her bed, the gesture not unlike that of a fallen soldier as it got a deadly wound.
"Are you alright?" He knew she probably was, after all she had seemed rather fine when they talked, but you never knew. Better safe than sorry he supposed.
"No…" She groaned pitifully. "I feel like I'm dying. Teddy , my throat hurts…"
"Well, it was time to give you another dose of your medication anyway," he said, gesturing at a couple of closed vials.
Victoire made a disgusted face at the news. "Can't you at least let me die in peace? "
"You're not going to die Vic'. Just drink this and you'll be fine in no time."
"But it's disgusting."
"Perhaps, but it'll make you feel better."
"Fine! But I won't like it!"
"I'm not asking you to like it, I'm asking you to drink it. Merlin, I hope our children will be easier to deal with than you."
He bit his lips at those last words. They had only been married for a year after all, and none of them had mentioned the idea of children yet, even though they both knew the other wanted some (in a distant future).
Somehow though, Teddy knew this wasn't the right time to talk about this.
Thankfully, it seemed that Victoire hadn't heard him as she was too busy trying to ignore the awful taste of the potions she had to take.
What he wouldn't give to be able to take a photo of her face right now… It'd be perfect blackmail material, and it might even be enough for her to stop mentioning the 2009 Hogwarts' incident.
(later that day, when Victoire would finally fall asleep she'd dream of a beautiful little girl with rainbow colored hair who was running into her arms, and maybe she'd even wake up healed the next morning.
In the meantime though, she'd complain about the unfairness of her life while her husband would sit beside her and pretend he was listening.
It's alright. As long as he was there she didn't mind.)
AN/
So somehow I find myself writing more and more next-gen… This is weird.
This was written for the:
-Hogwarts School Of Witchcraft and Wizardry Challenge/Competition, History of Magic (Write a slice of life story - Words: Hung, Action: Someone must yawn, Era: NextGen, Sentence: Fine! But I won't like it!)
- Hogwarts School Of Witchcraft and Wizardry Challenge/Competition, Herbology (Write a story where someone is caring for a ill person - Words: Broken, Era: Next-Gen, Year: 2020, Pairing: Teddy/Victoire, Sentence: I just feel awful, Event: Summer Vacation)
- Hogwarts School Of Witchcraft and Wizardry Challenge/Competition, Xylomancy (Next-Gen Era)
-Gift-Giving Extravaganza, for Being A Wallflower
-HP Potions Competition, Alihotsy Draught.