A/N: Though I wish I could claim the ingenious idea of writing stories inspired by the beautiful songs of Melissa Polinar, it was in fact the brainchild of Vanity Sinning. This is part of my entry to her 'The Next Generation Musical Competition' on the HPFC forum. Each contestant was given five songs by a particular artist (in my case, Melissa Polinar) and had to write five different stories based on them about the same next generation characters. Mine, as you can see, are Teddy Lupin and Victoire Weasley, and this oneshot incorporates lyrics from the song 'Say You'll Stay'.
This is the first one-shot of my five, and actually my first attempt at tackling this pairing. As such, all feedback, both positive and constructively critical, is more than welcome. I hope you enjoy!
Kisses,
Ciara
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Victoire wasn't quite sure how the fighting had started. For as long as she remembered, she and Teddy had been nothing but compatible. They seemed made to fit with each other, perfect companions. Teddy was two years older than her, and by right he should have been closer to her cousins Fred and Roxanne growing up. Fred played Quidditch with him, and he and Roxanne were in the same year at Hogwarts. The two of them had a knack for jokes and pranks, and they were good friends. But for some reason, he and Victoire had always been drawn to each other.
Teddy was the one Victoire chose to confide in when Lorcan Scamander broke her heart, and Victoire was the one who helped Teddy when he was struggling with his Potions essays. Teddy helped her to break into the Gryffindor Quidditch team after three years as a reserve player, training her all summer in the paddock behind Shell Cottage. When they finally succeeded in securing the Quidditch Cup in his sixth year and Teddy got completely and utterly bladdered on some of Fred and Roxanne's smuggled Firewhiskey, Victoire was the one who sat on the bathroom floor with him and massaged his back while he expelled the contents of his stomach into the toilet. And in the summer before Victoire's fifth year at Hogwarts, their companionable friendship had changed when Teddy dragged her away from the rest of her family at her Grandma Weasley's birthday party and kissed her out by the chicken coop in the back yard of the Burrow. Victoire had been by turns shocked, frightened and delighted. At first she had resisted, thinking this was one of Teddy and Roxie's jokes, but when she realised it wasn't she gave herself over to the kiss willingly and passionately. And that, as they say, was that.
They had been together ever since, inseparable and very much in love. Dom and Louis teased her mercilessly about their relationship, but they had nothing on Uncle Ron and Uncle George, who Fred had been only too pleased to supply with details. Victoire didn't mind though, and neither did Teddy. Their romance became something of a talking point at school; Teddy was something of an enigma, being the orphaned son of a werewolf and a Metamorphmagus, so it was rather astounding to hear that he was in a normal, loving relationship with Victoire Weasley, of all people. They had stayed together, even after Teddy graduated from Hogwarts, and now six years later they had a small apartment together in Muggle London, overlooking the river Thames. Victoire was training as a Healer at St. Mungo's, and George had been only too happy to take on Teddy at Weasley's Wizard Wheezes when he left school. For the first year or so, things had been nothing short of blissful. And then the cracks started to show.
Their schedules conflicted, as did their ambitions. Victoire was always snowed under with work at the hospital, and by the time she got home she was always too tired to do anything more than soak in a hot bath and then crawl into bed. Teddy, on the other hand, worked only a handful of hours in the middle of the day and spent his leisure time slobbing about the house and pulling pranks on Victoire. At first, it hadn't been a problem; they had known for a long time that they were different people who fitted together because of, not in spite of, their subtle nuances. But as time went on, and the time they had to spend together lessened, they both began to get irritated. Playful squabbles over dinner were taken one step too far, and silly disputes over where to spend Christmas turned into blazing arguments that lasted for days. Tempers frayed, and Victoire was beginning to wonder if there was any light at the end of the tunnel.
And so, inevitably, it was with a heavy heart that Victoire let herself into the apartment after finishing her shift at the hospital. She and Teddy had argued that morning before she left, and she just wanted to fix things. She loved Teddy, but sometimes she wished things were more straightforward with them. Just once, she wished a day would go by without the two of them fighting or snapping at each other. She wished they could be the same happy-go-lucky Teddy-and-Victoire they had been in school.
"Teddy, are you home?" she called, dumping her handbag and wand on the hall table. "Teddy? We need to talk."
She found him sitting on the sofa, listening to a Cannons match on the vintage-looking wireless Grandma Weasley had given her as a flat-warming present and nursing a tumbler of Firewhiskey. He glanced up blearily as she coughed from the door of the living room and grimaced.
"Really, Teddy?" Victoire said waspishly. "Drinking this early in the evening? Isn't that a bit immature, even for you?"
She recognised her voice, but the words came from somewhere else entirely. Was this really what they had been reduced to?
"I'm going to have a bath, and then I'm just going to go to bed. There's no point talking to you when you've been drinking Firewhiskey."
Victoire turned on her heel and left him sitting there. Teddy stared sadly after her. He glanced at the glass of Firewhiskey he was holding, made to raise it to his lips and then thought better of it. He took the glass and the accompanying bottle and emptied the contents of both down the sink in the postage stamp of a kitchen.
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Victoire was lying wide awake in their bed when the bedroom door creaked open and Teddy flicked the light on.
"What are you doing?" she asked tonelessly. Teddy didn't reply immediately; instead he came to perch on the edge of the bed next to her.
"You were right," he said quietly. "We need to talk. We can't keep going the way we are."
"You're right," Victoire said, a note of resignation in her voice. "We can't. I'm going to take a couple of days leave from work and go to stay with Dom and Roxie for a bit."
"You mean you're... you're leaving?"
"I have to, Teddy. I'm not happy here. I hardly ever see you, and when I do we just fight... Everything's out of control, Ted, and there's nothing I can do about it except get out before I lose my mind altogether. I've made up my mind."
"You can't just... just run away because you're afraid of something that feels out of control!" Teddy exclaimed, a note of hysteria in his voice. "Vic, I said I'd talk to you so we could fix this, fix us."
"What's left to fix?" she whispered brokenly, running a hand through her sheet of strawberry blonde hair agitatedly. She took Teddy's hand and looked him right in the eye. "What's left of the us we used to be?"
"We are! We're still us Vic, we're still Teddy-and-Victoire. We're not the ones that changed, it was our circumstances. But we're still here, me and you. The same silly teenagers that fell in love too quickly and rushed into being with each other because we couldn't imagine life any other way."
Victoire smiled ruefully at that and squeezed Teddy's hand slightly. As though to remind her of those heady schooldays of stolen embraces and kisses behind the greenhouses, Teddy turned his hair from the mousy colour it had been earlier to a vibrant, lively teal. She gave him another watery smile.
"I'm just so tired of fighting, Ted," she sighed, pulling the duvet up to her chin protectively. "Those memories, they're lovely, and I cherish them, I do. But what are we now? How can we possibly fix what we've done to each other, to us?"
"I don't know," Teddy said hopelessly. "We can just... we can take it back to the start, strip our relationship down to the basics. We can take our time, just give it a try. There's no harm in taking it slow, right?"
"That does sound nice," Victoire said quietly. She poked at a hole in the pink quilted duvet cover. "But I don't know if it's enough Teddy, I really don't. I don't know if it can stop me from wanting to cry when I look at you, or wishing I could just disappear in the evenings instead of coming home. I feel sick to my stomach all the time and I'm just so tired."
"Me too," Teddy said with a wry smile. "I feel all those things too, Vic. But maybe these feelings are trying to tell us something? Maybe we feel this way because there's something here we need to find, because we can figure out what we are, eventually. Maybe it hurts so much because it's a sign. A sign that we shouldn't give up on us."
"How do you know?"
"I don't," he said honestly, gingerly edging up the bed towards her. He put a large hand on either side of Victoire's face and rubbed a silvery tear from her feathery lashes. "I don't know. All I know is that I want to be next to you Victoire Weasley, as long as I live. And I want you to want me back."
"I do," Victoire replied. "Don't you see, I do? But I'm just not sure we can fix it. I-I'm going to stay with Dom and Roxie in the morning, Teddy, and-"
"Vic, please don't do this. Stay with me, please. Don't throw us away. We were perfect together before, and I know we can be again. Just give us another chance. Take your leave from work, and we'll go somewhere, just the two of us. No work, no interruptions, and we'll get back to what we had. I love you more than anything Victoire, and I'm not ready to give up on us just yet."
"Teddy-"
"Kiss me!" he exclaimed desperately, his eyes wild and fearful. Victoire just looked at him, and he nodded his head enthusiastically. "Kiss me, and if you can honestly say you don't feel any of the old feelings, you can go stay with Dom and Roxie and I won't bother you again. I promise."
"I-"
"Do it, Vic. Just do it."
She shook her head weakly and leaned in close to Teddy, who cupped her face gently and pressed his lips to hers. For a moment, Victoire just felt sadness and regret, and then she forgot herself. Teddy tugged gently on her lower lip with his own and her lips seemed to part of their own accord. She felt his tongue enter her mouth and felt him crush their lips together more forcefully. A gasp slid from her and she began to reciprocate, kissing him back for the first time in what seemed like forever. Teddy's hands found her body, gliding over her skin through the thin fabric of the threadbare Harpies t-shirt she wore to bed. Victoire pressed herself closer to Teddy and ran her hands through his short, teal locks. She breathed in his scent gratefully. She had almost forgotten how much she loved it, so long had it been since they had been intimate. He smelled of new parchment and chocolate, and something Victoire was pretty sure was gunpowder, an unusual combination which seemed to suit him perfectly. She kissed him with more vigour, eager to drink it in.
After too brief an embrace, Teddy pulled away. He was panting with exertion, his cheeks were flushed with colour and his hair had turned a red as bright as the Muggle phone booth on the street below them. He took Victoire's chin in his hand again and forced her to meet his gaze.
"We don't have to worry," he said desperately. "I know it, I know. It's all going to work out in the end, Vic, if you'll just stay. Please, say you'll stay."
Victoire stared at him, glassy-eyed and breathless. She ran a hand through her hair, rumpled and out of place.
"It's not going to be easy," she warned him.
"I know."
"It's going to be hard work."
"I know."
"We have a lot to fix."
"I know. I know. Just say you'll stay, please."
Victoire bit her lip and then kicked off the covers, crawling across the bed and into Teddy's strong arms. She buried her face in his shoulder, and was not ashamed of the tears spilling down her cheeks.
"Let's start with that holiday and see where that takes us," she whispered huskily into his shirt. Teddy nodded and kissed the top of her head firmly.
"I'll take that."