This was written for ladyoftheknightley's Bechdel Test Competition over at HPFC, with the pair Victoire/Dominique.
There was a gentle knock on the door. Victoire looked up from the notes she had been jotting down on her sheet music and said:
"Come in!"
The door creaked open and Dominique slipped inside. Avoiding the harp that was standing in the middle of the room, where Victoire had been practising before she decided her piece would sound better with a sol at that particular place, she went to sit on the neatly made bed. Victoire scrutinized her younger sister; she was fidgety, playing with the hem of her flowery summer dress and with a strand of her strawberry blonde hair. The rest of her hair was gathered up in a loose bun, held together with a pencil. To observant Victoire, this indicated a very recognizable chain of events: Dominique had been trying to study, but hadn't been able to concentrate; so, she had tried to calm herself by playing the cello (hence the bun, Dom hated it when her long hair got into the way when she was playing, so she had probably put it up with the first thing she could find: the pencil, as she had been studying before). Apparently, whatever it was that was bothering her hadn't faded with the music, because here she was, in Victoire's room. Dom and Victoire had a bit of a love-hate relationship, and Dominique only ever came to her older sister for advice when all else failed.
Victoire dropped her quill and swivelled on her bureau chair, facing her sister.
"What's wrong, Dominique?"
Dom tucked the strand of hair behind her ear and looked up into clear blue eyes so much like her own.
"How did you know you were in love with Teddy?"
Victoire laughed inwardly. Typical. Dom had never been one for preliminaries.
"I guess it was the little things. The way I felt when he turned his hair azure to match my dress at the Yule Ball in my Fifth Year, because I had been abandoned by my date and he wanted to cheer me up. That time when I had helped him with his French during an entire summer so he could get that Auror internship in Paris, and when he got it he ran through the whole garden and picked me up and twirled me around, and the smile on his face made me swear all I wanted to do in my life was making him smile like that. How, when other girls flirted with him, I wanted to murder them brutally. The gratitude I felt when he stood up to those salauds who called you those horrible horrible names..."
"Slut, whore, skank, bitch, wench, harlot..." Dom murmured.
Victoire shuddered: "Don't you ever believe a word they said, Dom. You're not like that."
Dom shrugged: "Sure."
Victoire sighed. There was no reasoning with Dom about this kind of thing. Beautiful, sexy, attractive Dom was convinced she was just that, and nothing more. She forgot intelligent, talented, loyal, caring Dom, and so other people didn't see that side of her either, except for those who made the effort to look. When you're convinced you're just a body, and act accordingly, other people are going to assume the same thing.
Victoire had learned not to argue with Dom about the image she had of herself, as Dom was stubborn as hell and cynical beyond her years. Instead, she reverted to the previous subject:
"So why did you ask that, Dominique? Boy trouble?"
Dom chuckled joylessly: "Oh, if only..."
Puzzled, Victoire asked: "What do you mean?"
"I mean I don't have boy trouble, Vic. "Girl trouble" would be more appropriate."
"Oh... Are you crushing on a girl, Dom?"
"I... I don't know. If she was a boy, I would call this love. But it can't be! I've only ever had feelings for boys! Then again, compared to this, my male crushes were so insignificant and I... I'm just so confused, Vic! I don't know what to do anymore! I have proven those jerks who called me names right, because I've been a shameless slut, sleeping with too many boys in the hope that they would cure me, but they didn't, because I kept imagining it were her hands, her lips, her... Merlin, Vic, I just don't know!"
Victoire sat wide-eyed for a second, then pulled herself together.
"Dom, remember Aurélie, during our last holiday in Toulouse?"
"Yes..." Dom answered, clearly having no idea of what her sister as getting at.
"She had a boyfriend, Alexandre, right?"
"Yes..." said Dom, still confused.
"Did you know her previous lover had been a girl?"
"What? No, I didn't know that. Really?"
"Yes, indeed. Her name was Mélissa, and they had met in college. When they both found a job afterwards, they drifted apart, and then she met Alex."
Vic paused for a moment, then proceeded: "The point that I am trying to make with this story is that bisexuality is real, Dom! Don't freak out because you're falling for a girl: you're falling for a person, and their gender is only one of their many characteristics. Most people (including me) simply lack the imagination to look beyond that particular trait."
"That's exactly it, Vic! It's abnormal, it's wrong!"
"Dom, don't! Love is never ever wrong. The way love is acted upon can be wrong, but love in itself is never wrong. And besides, any person, boy or girl or even hermaphrodite for all I care, should be grateful and honoured that a wonderful person like you has those kinds of feelings for them. If they think it's in any way wrong or disgusting, they are simply not worthy of you."
"You have an amazingly naive view on life, ma chère soeur." Dom mocked.
"Dominique mon chou, why don't you take a leaf out of Rose's book for once and adopt her personal motto - which I have to admit she has taken a bit far, but still - : "Those who mind don't matter, and those who matter won't mind.""
"Because Rose, as much as I love her, is so self-assured she could probably become transsexual and engage in polyamory with Malfoy and his father, while making a living as an erotic pole-dancer, and still not give a damn what anyone else thinks. And let's face it, I'm not that confident."
"Well you should be. You have every right to. You're intelligent, talented, beautiful, sweet, and so much more, and that girl of yours would have to be blind not to notice that. Who is she, by the way? Si je peux me permettre?"
"Ah, well, yes, her identity might present another eeny meeny tiny little problem..." Dom sighed.
"How so? Unless she's homophobic, married, and/or old enough to be your mother, I really don't see what could be the problem."
"Er... she's kinda related to me."
"Ah. Well, in a family as big as ours, I guess that doesn't really come as a surprise? I mean, as if Molly's crush on Fred last year wasn't obvious as hell. Besides, here, it might be positive that you're both girls, because there is no actual scientific reason for stigmatising the union between female cousins. It's not like you can have kids together anyway, so the main reason for forbidding it, namely the chance for genetic aberrations, disappears."
"And now you sound scarily technical. And slightly premature. I'm not talking about having babies here!"
"Alright, alright. Désolée. Now, who is it?"
Dom mumbled something unintelligible.
"Articule, chérie!"
"Roxanne."
Victoire burst out laughing.
Dom, understandably, looked utterly astonished: "What the fuck are you laughing at?!"
"Language, young lady!" Victoire chided, still chortling, "I'm laughing because seriously, what are you worrying about? Roxanne is so obviously a lesbian that I really have no idea how you were able to miss that. And judging from the looks she keeps shooting you, and Fred's not-so-subtle elbowing whenever she mentions your name – that guy is really pants at keeping a secret –, she's obviously interested."
"How the hell was I supposed to notice that? And I seriously don't believe she likes me, even if she indeed likes girls."
"Dominique chérie, you have issues. Serious issues. And she's a lesbian because she never ever showed any kind of interest in boys, and her only ever celebrity crush was Gwenog Jones, while seriously, Jimmy Peakes, girl! I mean, any straight or bisexual girl that has any kind of interest in Quidditch in general and Beaters in particular goes for Jimmy! Seriously, have you seen those arms? And abs? The only reason you'd ever ignore that is because you're more interested in other body parts."
Dom was flabbergasted: "You know, Vic, I think I like you better as the proper, ladylike kind of girl. I'll never be able to look at Jimmy Peakes the same way. Or Roxanne, for that matter... Or Teddy! The poor guy, to think you daydream about some bulky Quidditch player when you're with him!"
"Hey, I don't! He fulfils my needs perfectly, thanks a lot! And stop being such a hypocrite, you're the sex-crazed one here. And about how I know she likes you: I'm observant, remember? I've seen the way she looks at you, the way she lights up whenever you praise her, how you can make her day by cheering her name a little louder than the rest during a Quidditch game, when you dance with her instead of with Alice, even though Alice's a better dancer, when you learn to play a song she requested, when you help her with her Astronomy homework or tell her that she's better than you at Charms. Besides, you know she tells Fred everything, and he's really very unsubtle whenever lesbians or your name are mentioned. Which means she told him about her feelings for you and he's being the idiot that he is by being utterly unable to keep his metaphorical mouth shut."
Victoire could finally see hope slowly dawning on her sister's face. Before she had the time to change her insecure mind, Victoire patted Dom's knee and exhorted her: "Now, go get your girl."
TBC. Reviews make me update quicker :-D