Those Christmas Lights
by Shealtiel
Rated: T for kissing, coarse language and mature themes.
Summary: 'When you're still waiting for the snow to fall, it doesn't really feel like Christmas at all.'

Pairing: Ted/Victoire
Time Period: Christmas of 2015.
Christmas Elements: Christmas Eve/Day, Christmas gifts, Christmas lights, Christmas tree.

A/N: A bit of a companion piece to Green and Red Striped Hair, which is about Ted's parents. Enjoy. Sorry it's not Christmas.

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Ted Lupin sat by the fire, staring intently into it, as if waiting for something to appear in the flames. He was leaning forwards, perched on the edge of the armchair with his elbows on his knees, his hands clasped in front of him. His hair was a dull brown, his eyes a colourless grey.

Every Christmas, it came back to him. He was lucky, he knew, to have his grandmother and the loving network of Potters and Weasleys around him, and as much as Harry had been a brilliant father figure in his life, he couldn't help but think of that Christmas Eve seventeen years ago, when he was still safe inside his mother, where Harry wasn't his dad and Gran wasn't his mum.

The moisture in his eyes stayed where it was; he hadn't allowed himself to cry over the parents he'd never known since he was a child. It wasn't worth it, he told himself, and yet, every Christmas he sat staring into this fire, tears in his eyes, as he wished things were different.

"It won't help you know," a voice said from the doorway into the lounge. Teddy jumped and looked around. Harry was leaning against the doorway, his hands in his pockets as he contemplated the seventeen year old in front of him. "Thinking about them, feeling sorry for yourself."

Teddy sighed and looked back into the fire. "What do you know about how I'm feeling?" he'd said, before he could stop himself. When he'd realised what had come out of his mouth he looked up at Harry, shame-faced.

Harry pushed himself away from the door and came to sit across from Teddy. "Look, there's nothing wrong with thinking about them, missing them, but wallowing in self-pity won't change anything. I tried that. So did your dad."

"My dad…?"

"Well, he was a werewolf." Teddy nodded. "You know that. And sometimes, he lost sight of things. He lost sight of who he was and concentrated too much on what he was. But you know what?"

"What?" Teddy said dismally.

"Your mum helped him realise that he was being an arse." Teddy laughed. "Honeslty Teddy, having been through, in my own head, what you're thinking now, having thought through every possibility of things being different, I can tell you that there's no point dwelling in the pit of everlasting what-ifs and could-have-beens." Harry patted his knee and stood. "Think about it."

"Yeah. Thanks Harry."

"Don't worry about it Teddy," he said. "Really." Harry turned and walked from the room.

Teddy turned his attention from the floor to the fire once more. The clock struck midnight. 'Another Christmas alone,' was what crossed Teddy's mind and a second later, he felt ashamed of the thought. Harry was right. Teddy was far from alone.

"Merry Christmas," said a melodious voice from the doorway once more. Teddy looked around and saw Victoire walking towards him. She sat in the recently vacated seat opposite him. "Moping around again? Like last Christmas Eve?"

"Come to tempt me out of it again? Like last Christmas Eve?" Teddy replied, smiling wryly. "I was moping, anyway. But I just realised I'm being a dick."

"Yeah. Did Harry tell you that?"

"Pretty much, yeah."

"It's kind of true," she said, smiling. "So can I pretend that my tactics worked this year?"

"Um, sure, if it means that much to you," he said, turning his attention back to the flames.

"What is with you and staring into that fire? I've always been told I'm attractive, and yet, here you are, not able to keep your eyes off those damn flames!" Teddy laughed and looked back at her.

"You're gorgeous," he said plainly.

"Then why are y–"

"Because I'm a dick. I thought we already decided that." Her answering laughter sounded like the peeling of a bell, it was so clear and pure. Before he even knew what he was doing, he'd reached out and tucked a piece of hair behind her ear.

"Sorry," he amended quickly, yanking his hand away. She smiled sweetly.

"No, thank you, it was bothering me."

He laughed. "Right. Thanks for the reassurance, but you don't have to be nice to me. I'm kind of an idiot."

"No, you're just a little lonely, that's all."

"But I have Harry and Gin and their kids and you and all your family and my Gran and… I'm not alone."

"But you are lonely," she said, staring at him disconcertingly.

"I don't know how to stop being lonely! I have all these people that I love, people that love me, but I can't help sitting here feeling sorry for myself!"

His frustration startled her into silence for a minute. Finally, she said, "You choose to be lonely Teddy. You let yourself feel this way. No one's going to deny that you've lost a lot, that you've missed out on certain things. You shouldn't forget that. It's sad. But you have to enjoy what you have. You can't spend your whole life mourning what you never had. You have to embrace the things you do have. You have to remember that there are people who want you to be part of their family, and you're ignoring them."

He sighed once more. "You're right."

"I know," she said with an air of superiority. He looked into her eyes for a moment, but found that the intensity there scared him a little. He reverted his attention to the fire.

"Ugh!" she burst. "Will you stop staring at the damn fire and look at me for two seconds?" He was startled into staring back at her.

"I-I'm sorry. I didn't mean to…" he trailed off, not knowing what to say.

"I just don't get you! You say that Harry's come and put you in your place, but then you go on about how dejected and downtrodden you still feel, so I try and help you and you say I'm perfectly right, and then go back to moping about your tragic, lonely life! What is your problem?"

Teddy's eyes were wide. He didn't know how to answer that. "Um," was all he came up with, and she sighed in frustration again and this time turned her own attention to the fire. He found, however, that he couldn't take his eyes off her this time. The way her sheet of blonde hair fell in front of her face as she stared at the dancing flames, the way her bright blue eyes reflected the orange light, even the way her lips protruded slightly as she rested her chin in the palm of her hand.

"Victoire," he said in a whisper, not able to garner any more volume than that.

She looked around at him again. "What?"

"You are beautiful." He smiled at her and, reluctantly, she smiled back.

"You… you've never said that before."

"I should have." Before he could think up some chicken reason not to, he leant forwards and captured her lips with his. It was an innocent kiss, but his vibrant yellow hair betrayed his ecstasy. After only a few seconds, he pulled away, but it was enough.

"Thank you. For making me see how lucky I am." He stood and walked to the door, but stopped there. "Merry Christmas Victoire."

Before he could take another step, she stood too. "I bought you a present," she said quietly. "Would you like to open it now?" He smiled in answer and stepped back into the room, going to sit on the floor by the tree, where she was settling herself now.

She looked through the presents for a moment before finding a small package wrapped in plain brown paper, a beautiful green ribbon around it that seemed to change to red when you weren't looking at it. The note declared simply, "To Teddy, Merry Christmas. From Victoire".

Without saying anything, conveying it all with his eyes, he began to undo the ribbon and then the wrapping.

When he'd nearly got it open, she said, "It's not much. I wasn't sure what to get you for a while, but I saw this and I just thought… maybe…" She trailed off, looking nervously at him. He turned his eyes to the gift and finished unwrapping, finally laying eyes on a little glass case with many different compartments. A few of the compartments were already filled with light, silvery bits of gossamer thread. Except that it wasn't really thread. The tears Teddy had held in earlier were threatening to spill over once more.

"Is this…" He couldn't finish.

"It's to store memories. I thought if you wanted to collect some memories of your parents or… something. Those few in there are some memories from my parents and Harry and some other people. If you… don't like it I can…" She looked crestfallen.

"Are you kidding?" he said incredulously, looking up at her. Her face lifted. "This is the most incredible… the most thoughtful… I can't even…" He was lost for words. Victoire seemed to glow with joy. "Now I know you're not going to like what I bought you. It doesn't even compare to… to this!" He pulled a present from under the tree and handed it to her. It was wrapped rather messily with magazine and newspaper clippings of photos containing everyone Victoire loved. The Potters, the Weasleys, Ted and his Gran, even a couple of old photos with Fred and Remus and Tonks. There was a photo on top of everyone from last Christmas. She turned it over to read, "To Victoire, Thank you for being part of my family. Love, Teddy". She started crying immediately.

"Oh, Teddy!" She threw her arms around him, leaning across the distance between them awkwardly.

"Vic, you haven't even opened the present yet," he said, chuckling. She pulled away, wiping her eyes as she laughed.

"Sorry. I just… I don't even feel like I need to. Thank you so much." She finally began unwrapping the paper gingerly, wanting to keep the pictures of her family intact.

"Vic, you're a Witch. You can just mend them afterwards."

"Oh," she blushed. "Right." Tearing the rest of the paper, she revealed a plain box. She lifted the lid from the box and saw about five or six individually wrapped packages. They were wrapped in more clippings with pictures from as far back as the Triwizard Tournament, her mother at seventeen beaming up at her from the pages.

"Where did you get all these pictures and stuff?" she asked him.

"Can you just open the gifts?" he said, laughing. He still looked nervous. She pulled one small package out and unwrapped it quickly to reveal a brand new Sneakoscope.

"Wow, Teddy, this is great!" She looked genuinely pleased with the simple gift.

"Yeah, I thought it would be a cool think to have, especially with your Uncle George around." She laughed and beamed at him. Setting the Sneakoscope back in the box, she picked up the next package.

"Wait, you have to open that one last," Teddy said.

"Oh." She placed it back in the box and picked up another one.

"Wait, that one has to be second last!" he burst again.

She laughed. "Which one can I open?"

He looked in the box. "Um… that one." He pointed to one of the two remaining packages and she picked it up. It was a little bigger than the others. She carefully removed the paper and surveyed the three pieces of mirror glass in front of her. One had foggy images in it. The other two looked completely normal.

"Um…" She stared at the mirrors, clueless.

"Okay, this one here –" he held up the one with the foggy shapes – "is a Foe Glass. It shows your enemies, and you know they're close when they become clearer, and when you see the whites of their eyes, that's when you really have to worry." He smiled. "It's just a small one, but I've always thought they were really cool. You can hang it in your room or in your dorm at Hogwarts or somewhere."

"Wow. How did you even get a hold of this Teddy?"

He grinned and ignored the question. "These," he continued, picking up the other, smaller mirrors, which were identical, "are Two Way Mirrors. You keep one and give the other one to someone you want to communicate with, and you say each other's names into the mirror, and then you can talk to each other. These are really rare." Victoire's eyes were wide.

"Teddy…"

"Just don't ask," he said, grinning. "Open the others."

She picked up the other package she hadn't touched yet and began to unwrap it. Inside was a flask containing a clear liquid. She looked up at him, expressionless.

"You've always said you wanted to be able to change your appearance like I can," he said simply. She looked back at the liquid.

"This isn't Polyjuice Potion, I know what that looks like. This looks like water."

"It's the blood of a Demiguise. Hagrid sold it to me. One drop of that stuff and it'll be as if you were a Metemorphmagus for twenty-four hours. Even turn yourself invisible if you like." Her mouth dropped open.

"How come I've never heard of this?" she said.

"Because it's basically unheard of. Demiguises are not common, or at least, we don't know if they are, because they spend most of their time invisible. It's illegal to kill them for their hair or blood though, so the stuff's not common." Teddy smiled. "Do you like it?"

"It's… amazing!" Victoire's eyes were wide now.

"Open this one." He picked out the one he'd stopped her from opening earlier. She unwrapped it and gasped.

"Teddy! How did you get this?"

He grinned again. "I told you not to ask me that. Don't worry, I didn't get it illegally. You have a licence for it as well. There are a million terms and conditions to its use, but I'm sure you already know all those."

"But… I thought they all got broken," she said, staring in awe at the Time Turner in her hand.

"Not all of them. Here, open the last present." He couldn't stop grinning now. She opened the last gift to reveal a second flask, this one full of a molten liquid.

"Felix Felicis," she said, looking up at him. "Did you make this?"

He smiled modestly. "Yeah, I did." She placed it back in the box, staring at the other items lying in it.

"Thank you so much Teddy." She hugged him once more, then gathered up the wrappings and placed them in the box also, replacing the lid.

"Anything for you, Victoire. You've given me everything that I could ask for and more; it's the least I could do. It's not enough." He smiled again and raised himself up onto his knees, leaning forwards to kiss her softly once more.

Without another word, he stood and walked out of the room, leaving her sitting by the Christmas tree, staring after him.

On making her way up to her room a few minutes later, she found her last Christmas present. Christmas lights strung with fairies fluttering inside prisons she couldn't see, a vase of red and green charmed roses, and a note that read, simply, "Thank you."

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