The center must hold.

"Everyone, be quiet!" A loud voice overpowered the several conversations that could be heard through the entire yard "Come make a line so we can serve you grandma's cake" That almost made the noise come back, as an entire trope of kids marched to the little house's door.

By the threshold, a gorgeous girl, with long blonde hair and piercing blue eyes, stood with a smile. Next to her stood a tall, scrawny, blue haired guy, who was counting with his finger all the kids walking towards the house.

"We're gonna need ten servings" He said as matter of fact. The girl looked at him with a raised eyebrow and a half smile.

"So according to you, only the kids are going to eat cake?"

Teddy stopped for a minute, and now he was the one with the arched brow. "You, Victoire Weasley, eating grandma's cake? Aren't you on a diet or something?"

Victoire rolled her eyes, entertained "Come on! You know it was only once, and just because I wanted a perfect summer body. But I'm over it now." She closed her eyes and raised her chin proudly, with an air of superiority.

Teddy had to laugh. Soon, Victoire did too.

Both got into the house, leading the band of kids with them. Teddy made everyone sit in the living room, while Victoire went into the kitchen and started cutting the pristine cake her Grandmother had left for them to enjoy.

"It's a shame Molly and Lucy couldn't come today" She said when Teddy entered the room. Over the table, there were already some plates ready to go.

"Yeah, it's not the same without them… Although, I appreciate not having to look after one more kid, too" He joked.

"Please, don't be ridiculous. One can barely feel Lucy. She's so silent and shy, she wouldn't be trouble at all." She sighed "Also, if Molly were here, we'd have an extra hand."

"Right, as if she wouldn't have locked herself up in aunt Ginny's old room to call Richard through the old muggle line."

As much as she loved her cousin, Victoire laughed at Teddy's remark. He was right. That summer, Molly hadn't spent a day without talking to her new boyfriend, Richard Lee. At times, it was annoying, but Victoire was really happy for her. Molly's last relationship hadn't ended well and Victoire had been afraid of her cousin never dating again. But now she was, and she felt as if the sky was hers.

"Either way" Teddy sat on the kitchen's countertop, glancing at her as she cut the cake, "I don't think we really need that extra hand. I mean… we've done a great job, don't you think? Nothing has broken, no one's hurt… We even managed to keep them inside the house and quiet for a couple minutes."

As if on cue, the sound of running came to their ears. Victoire chuckled by the coincidence, and Teddy cursed under his breath. With seventeen years already, he had started to use "inadequate vocabulary" a while ago. Always when there weren't adults or kids around, of course.

"Hey, no running inside the house!" He shouted, making sure his voice was loud enough for the kids in the other room to hear.

He was surprised when the running steps came right through the kitchen door. Agitated, eleven years old Dominique, James, Fred and Roxanne looked at him with expectation.

"Teddy, Teddy! Do you think uncle Neville will let me join the Quidditch team?" Asked little James Potter, eagerly. In the back, Victoire bit her lips, trying to stop herself from laughing.

"Well… first you'd have to get placed on Gryffindor. Either way, I'm not sure if uncle Neville…"

"Of course I'm going to be a Gryffindor! That's a Potter's place" James looked at Teddy as if he was speaking rubbish.

"Well, they said that about the Weasley's too, and look at Molly and I" Victoire intervened, going up to stand next to Teddy and smirking at her little cousins.

"Yeah, but it's different for the Potter's" James said, his words coming out confidently.

"Oh, yeah? How so?" Victoire looked him in the eye, genuinely interested on why he was so sure about it.

James was ready to explain himself, when the door opened again. Ten years old Rose and Minna Weasley entered, followed by Albus, who was still on his nines for a couple of days more.

"Why are James, the twins and Dom getting cake before us?" Inquired Rose, her brow furrowed, and arms crossed in front of her.

"Cause we're older" Spoke James, looking at Rosie with superiority.

"That's unfair!" Cried Minna.

"Kids, kids, calm. No one has gotten any cake" Teddy gave James a face, and he just showed Rose her tongue. Victoire bit her lips again.

"We told you to wait on the living room" She scolded them, as Teddy led them to the door once again.

"But you're taking too long!" Dominique complained. Victoire rolled her eyes with entertainment at her sister's impatience.

"We'll be there on a minute" Assured Teddy, finally closing the door. When it was only the two of them again, he let out a breath and smiled. "They sure know how to make one laugh. I'll give them that"

Victoire laughed and nodded, quickly going back to the cake cutting. Teddy looked at her intently for a couple of minutes, while trying to put order to all the thoughts revolving around his mind.

"James does have a point" He said, walking slowly towards the blonde "Maybe it's not all Potter's place, but he's definitely going to be a Gryffindor."

Victoire thought of the boy and all the funny traits he already exhibited, as well as his attitude towards life. She grinned "Yeah, you're right… Still, I think we should prepare him so he knows maybe not all of his siblings will end up with him."

Both teenagers shared a knowing glance. Albus.

"Yeah... We have to teach them that kind of stuff" Teddy reclined his back on the kitchen and sighed, now standing right next to her. "We're their older cousins after all"

"We're" She nodded, finally cutting the twelfth piece. When she turned to leave the knife on the sink, she encountered him. For a minute she was surprised, she hadn't realized how close he had gotten. Then, though, she slowly relaxed and smiled at him "They'll look up on us for a long time on their lives" She didn't know why, but her words came out with a whispering hush.

"We must be together. You know, present ourselves as a unit. For them." He murmured it too, his brown eyes looking straight into hers.

"Yeah, for them" Victoire's pulse had slowly began to rise. The more the seconds passed, the more she wanted Teddy to lean onto her and break the short distance that separated them.

Teddy wanted to. He sure did. He had been dreaming about that moment since the ending of the schoolyear. Hell, since he was a kid. But he wasn't sure if that was what she really wanted. She kept sending him a lot of mixed signs he didn't know how to take, and he was scared that if he were to make a wrong move, it'd damage their relationship forever.

"We're almost like the center of this cousin world" He continued, his chest going up and down along with his heartbeat. "We must hold, so that they don't ever feel insecure about coming to us. They must know we're always going to be here for them."

"Yeah, they must know" At this point, Victoire didn't even know how to build logical sentences. This was the closest she had ever been to Teddy, and the butterflies in her stomach were flying at high speed inside her.

No one said anything for a couple minutes. They kept looking at each other, both lost on the other's eyes.

Victoire was almost losing it. She decided, right there, that she wouldn't wait for him. She could see perfectly that he wanted it too, and she wasn't about to walk out of that kitchen without a kiss from Teddy Lupin. Gathering up all the courage that the sorting hat had mentioned she had when wondering whether to send her to Gryffindor or Ravenclaw, she stood on her tiptoes trying to reach into Teddy's lips. She closed her eyes and began to cut the distance.

Teddy, in awe, having trouble to believe everything that was happening, closed his eyes too. One of his hands went instinctively to Victoire's waist as he leaned slowly into her.

When their lips finally touched, it was like everything else in the world stopped.

Victoire felt the nod in her stomach finally release all the butterflies out of her body, she heard fireworks around them and promised to herself that she would never forget how Teddy's lips felt like the summer breeze.

Teddy could only think on how the girl's lips were the softest silk he had ever felt. The grip he had on her waist had tightened: after knowing how it was to kiss her, he never wanted to let her go at all. He felt as if he had just climbed Mount Everest! The beast inside him was roaring triumphantly.

And then, the world finally moved on.

"We want cake! We want cake!" Ten different voices reached them on the exact same time, all coming from the living room, where ten different kids were slowly losing their mind over the delay of the promised dessert.

The kiss broke within a second. Victoire and Teddy bothstood there, in the side of the kitchen, agitated and looking at each other silently, not knowing what to say. It took a few seconds more until Victoire's delicate lips broke into a smile.

"Put the plates on a tray, I'm gonna calm those monsters." She ordered, trying to maintain her voice as firm as she could as she marched out of the kitchen, closing the door behind her.

Teddy stood there for a while more, startled, an unbelieving hand touching his own lips, trying to determine if what had just happened was real. He only started moving when the noise started again. Only this time, there was an eleventh voice asking for cake.

A/N:

Hey! Hope you enjoyed reading. I'm sorry for any grammar or spelling mistake, English's not my first language. Minna Weasley is a character of my creation, daughter of Charlie Weasley. I do have a one shot about her, but it's written on Spanish. If you'd like to know more, let me know and I'll write about it here!

This is basically a set of stories about the Next Generation, mostly about the kids falling in love, but there will also be one shots centered around family, since that counts as love too. It'll be mainly about the cannon characters we know, but I'll also include stories about some of my OC's.

Please don't forget to leave a review! That helps me to know if you liked it, if you want more or if there's something I should work on, some mistakes I'm making.

Again, thanks for reading! See you next time.