Author's Note: Written for…
The Next-Gen Competition. Prompt: Victoire on her first date
The Start of Something New
It wasn't often that anything surprised Fleur these days. She'd long ago become accustomed to the spontaneous ways of her in-laws and had successfully taught her husband and children how much she disliked surprises. Still, seeing her thirteen-year-old daughter standing soot-covered in their kitchen when she was supposed to be at school nearly gave the poor woman heart failure.
"Victoire, what do you think you are doing here?" Fleur demanded, waving her wand over the girl to clean her robes and sleek red hair.
"I need your help, Maman," she said, wringing her hands.
"Come, sit. Tell me what is wrong." The French witch summoned a pot of tea and the biscuit jar for them.
"Daddy and Louis aren't home, are they?" Victoire wondered nervously, glancing around the kitchen for any sign they might still be in the cottage. Dominique, she knew, was in Charms class.
"No, your father took Louis out to play quidditch with some of his friends. Please, Victoire. What is wrong?"
"You remember how I wrote in my last letter that I kind of like this Hufflepuff boy?"
"Of course. Edmund Warren, was it not?"
The girl nodded, unable to keep from smiling. "He asked me out … on a date … for this Saturday."
"Oh, darling, how wonderful!"
"But it's not, Maman! I have nothing to wear. All I have at school are a few shirts and skirts and none of them seem right for a first date."
Fleur hummed in response. "Where is the boy taking you?"
"He only told me to meet him in the entrance hall this Saturday, before the Hogsmeade trip."
"All right. I will have something delivered to you this Friday. It's best you go back to school before your father finds you are missing classes."
:-:
Victoire stayed up late on Friday, pacing the Ravenclaw common room and waiting for her mother's package to arrive.
Finally, fifteen minutes from midnight, three owls flew through the open windows and dropped a long box at her feet. She recognized the logo on the lid as being from Madam Malkin's, where she got all her school and dress robes.
The pale green dress she pulled from the box was the most beautiful she'd ever seen, and complimented her fair skin and bright hair perfectly. It was much better than anything she'd be able to find on her own.
:-:
Edmund was already waiting for her by the entrance doors when Victoire descended the marble staircase in her shimmering dress and forest green flats to match her purse and hair band. She quickly noticed how overdressed she was when she saw him wearing jeans and a shirt with the Hufflepuff crest on it.
"You look b-beautiful," he stuttered, his eyes never leaving hers. She blushed.
"Thank you. Where are we going?"
"It's a surprise," he told her, smiling broadly and leading her – not to the group of students lining up for the Hogsmeade trip – but back up the marble staircase.
After a good while of walking, Victoire worried that he was only taking her back to her tower, before they abruptly stopped in the middle of a corridor on the sixth floor.
"What are we doing here?" she asked quietly. There were no doorways in the stretch of hall, and Edmund was only staring at a patch of wall.
"My brother told me there was a secret room here," he mumbled, feeling around the wall for a lever or switch. Victoire giggled.
"You mean the room of requirement?"
"Yeah..?"
"That's one floor up, for starters," she said, taking his hand.
"How d'you know?" he asked, a bit put-out.
"My family has a sort of … long history with the room. What did you want to do with it, anyway?"
"I just wanted to take you somewhere special, where we wouldn't be interrupted."
They were passing by an old classroom that hadn't been touched in the three years they'd been at school, and Victoire decidedly changed their course and barged into the classroom instead.
"What're we doing in here?" Edmund asked, eying the dust-covered desks.
"It's unused," she explained, taking out her wand. "And private."
She muttered a few spells under her breath, ones she'd heard her maman and grandmother using since she was little, and the dust swirled up from the furniture and blew out of the open window. Another wave sent the desks and chairs skidding across the stone floor to rest against the opposite wall, leaving a wide open room for them to spend their afternoon in.
"Brilliant," Edmund said, causing Victoire to blush again.
The boy took out his own wand and started up the gramophone in the corner of the room. It started playing a slow classical song that Victoire guessed was probably as old as the castle itself, and not really her type of music. Regardless, she took Edmund's hand when he offered it to her, and allowed him to twirl her around the room for a while.