When Victoire, Dominique and Louis arrived home from Hogwarts on the first day of the Christmas holidays they found their home to be a small hive of activity. Their mother hurried over to greet them, beaming happily as she embraced her three children all at once and they groaned.
"Maman," Victoire wheezed. "Can't breathe…" Fleur immediately let go of her children and examined them all closely, worry clear on her face as she looked over her youngest child.
"Louis, you're looking skinny," she declared and he cringed slightly. "And here I was worrying that all of zat 'Ogwarts food would have you all bloated when you came back to me. Well, it is no bother – we shall have you looking healthy in no time," she announced and whisked him into the kitchen. Victoire spotted her father and danced over to him, leaving her trunk in the middle of the floor for people to trip over.
"Papa!" She cried and hugged him enthusiastically, giving him a kiss on the cheek as she did so. Bill smiled gently at his eldest daughter and hugged her close. "What's going on?"
"Ah, I have missed you, my little victory," he said affectionately before he let her go. "We're preparing for your Uncle Charlie to arrive – he's staying here this Christmas and we're planning to welcome him with a surprise birthday dinner as he was in Romania for his birthday. He should be here in two hours or so." Victoire smiled and hopped around in excitement – something she didn't do often.
"Uncle Charlie's coming?" She asked excitedly. "I haven't seen him for almost a year!" Bill chuckled as Victoire danced around, twirling Dominique who had been listening to the news as well. It was obvious that Uncle Charlie was a big favourite in the Weasley-Delacour family – probably because he bought the girls exotic clothing and he brought Louis interesting treasures he found.
"Victoire!" The girl in question broke away from her dance with her sister as her mother stuck her head through the kitchen door, looking for her. "Victoire, please come and help me with the cooking? Dominique, go and help your brother and your uncles set up the tables outside – make sure they haven't done too much damage. Bill, darling, could you pop over to the Potters and check that it's Albus making the cake and not Ginny and James – you remember what happened at your birthday, right?" They all shuddered slightly at the memory of the exploding cake that had sent Bill to St. Mungo's.
A few hours later Victoire drew a dish of steaming hot toad-in-the-hole out of the oven and carried it carefully out to her waiting family outside. A small cheer went up when she put it down – her cooking rivalled Grandma Weasley's, especially her toad-in-the-hole. As she sat down as she looked up and noticed she had been placed right across the table from Teddy. Her stomach churned as she noticed the look he was giving her – a frown which clearly questioned why she was sitting there. Victoire wanted to cry with anger as she realised she had made his favourite dish without even thinking about it.
"So, Teddy, who's the girl this time?" James enquired around a mouthful of chicken when the girl Teddy had brought with him disappeared inside to use the bathroom. Victoire scowled at her plate. Teddy brought a different girl with him to every single family gathering they had and everyone had realised he was only doing it to spite Victoire.
"Her name's Eliza, she works in Flourish and Blotts," he said with a slightly boastful tone and Victoire had to bite her lip to prevent herself from scoffing. Yes, Teddy, because an assistant at Flourish and Blotts was so impressive. "I'm going to go and see what's taking her so long," Teddy muttered and stood, ducking into the dark house but not before he shot Victoire a look that said: "Yeah, I'm over you. You can see that, can't you?"
"Victoire, darling," Bill called down the table and Victoire snapped out of her little daydream. "Could you start taking some of the empty dishes inside?" Victoire nodded and sent him a half-smile and then started to levitate some clean plates so she wouldn't break the china if she fell. She was just about to walk into the kitchen when she heard a few moans coming from the room she was about to enter. Anger painted her features and she stormed into the room, stopping in confusion when she didn't see Teddy making out with his latest girl – another thing he did at every family gathering. Then she noticed a shadow on the floor that wasn't hers and turned around slowly to see Teddy pressed against darling Eliza behind the door.
Rather than mutter something under her breath in French like usual, Victoire stood and watched them for a moment. It seemed as if Eliza was rather more feisty than the ones he usually made out with because she was pressing against him against the wall and, despite the fact that they were both fully clothed, Victoire felt rather uncomfortable. But Teddy didn't actually seem to be enjoying himself very much; his eyes were open and he was staring over Eliza's head at her.
Victoire immediately felt sick, and very sorry for Eliza. Teddy was doing this purposely to make her jealous – he didn't care for the girls he brought with him at all. She had lost count of just how many he had brought with him for one dinner and then broken up with over the smallest of things. She gazed at him, shaking her head in disbelief, and then ran from the house.
"Don't you say a word," Victoire hissed at Teddy, glaring furiously at him. He turned away from her, staring out of the small window in the kitchen. "Nothing you can say will make any of this better – especially not the fact that you are using girls just to irritate me!" Her voice was low but very angry; various members of the Weasley-Potter clan were asleep in the living room and she didn't want them to wake to the sounds of an argument.
"Victoire…" Teddy trailed off when he noticed the murderous gaze she was directing his way.
"No! No matter what you say, no matter what charming words and sweet compliments you use, you will never make me forget that this is just how it happens now. I wonder… does it make you happy to think that I wake up every morning crying out your name because of how you've treated me. You didn't even try and get me back, Teddy! Instead you just started with your girl parade!" Victoire bit her lip in an attempt to stifle her outburst, having had no idea where it had come from. After she'd left his house that morning she hadn't seen him until Harry's birthday party and to say that had been awkward would be an understatement.
"You're blowing this out of proportion," Teddy muttered and she frowned at him, even as she pondered his statement. Was she really over-thinking it? He hadn't actually cheated on her and she had declared that they were on a break – did that give him the right to parade other girls in front of her? In some twisted universe far away it was probably alright but they weren't in that universe, they were in Victoire's and, more importantly, they were in her childhood home. She would not allow his disrespect here.
"Don't look at me like that," she snapped upon seeing his despondent puppy-dog eyed pout.
"Look, Victoire," he said, his voice soft and she sighed, preparing herself for the worst, "I don't mean to hurt you but you hurt me…"
"So, what? You're getting some sort of twisted revenge by hurting me in return?" Victoire scoffed.
"I'm not trying to hurt you on purpose!" Teddy shot back, getting louder. "You're mine – I would never do that!" A deadly silence met his words and Teddy's eyes widened as he realised what he'd said. "Victoire… wait, no, I didn't mean that…"
"Get out," she said, her voice quiet but lethal. He looked completely nonplussed – clearly he hadn't been expecting that.
"What? Victoire…"
"Get. Out. Of. My. House," she snapped each word clearly. "I belong to no one." When he didn't move, or reply, she pulled her wand out of her robes and started tapping it menacingly on the counter top. "Papa won't hesitate to cause you serious harm if he finds you're here against my wishes." Teddy's eyes widened at the thought of a confrontation with an angry Bill and he turned quickly and disappeared outside without a word.
Victoire wandered aimlessly through the house, wondering what was wrong with her. She'd had no idea what to say to him, really. What are you supposed to say to your sort-of ex on the subject of his making out with other girls to make her jealous? Was she even supposed to be jealous? They had broken up, for Merlin's sake, or they were at least on a break. She doubted Teddy would exactly be happy if she did something similar. Eventually, she decided it was alright for her to be angry – it was just plain wrong that he was using girls like that. Of course, it was only alright because her feelings weren't concerning herself… were they? After all that he'd done… she couldn't still love him. Could she?
She shook her head, trying to clear her thoughts, but it was no use. She highly doubted she'd be able to forget Teddy's unnecessary possessiveness. Or the look on his face when she'd told him to get out…
"Vic?" Victoire was jolted out of her thoughts by Al who was curled up at the end of the largest sofa in the living room. The rest of the sofa was taken up by Scorpius who had passed out there are some point in the evening, after trying too much Firewhiskey and discovering he was a lightweight. He was now lying with his head hanging partially off the end near Albus, his mouth wide open as he snored quite loudly. Victoire suppressed a giggle at the sight of the usually composed boy and turned back to her cousin.
"What's up, Al? Need a hangover potion?" She asked, seeing the dark circles under his eyes. He shook his head and blinked owlishly at her.
"I'm fine, I had one bottle of Butterbeer – I just couldn't sleep because Scorp was kicking all night." He paused in his sentence to send a dark gaze in the direction of the still-snoring boy. "But don't worry about me – are you alright? I heard you and Teddy arguing in the kitchen. You weren't being as quiet as you both thought you were. Plus, you've got your deep thinking face on. What're you going to do?"
"I don't know, Al," Victoire said helplessly, plopping into one of the vacant chairs and looking at him hopefully. "What do you think I should do? You're good with advice. I don't know how much longer I can stay here if he's going to be around all the time…" There was a weird choking sound as Scorpius woke up and nearly fell off the sofa. He barely caught himself and had to roll onto the floor rather than pulling himself back up.
"Won't you stay?" He asked, trying to act as if nothing had happened but Albus was bright red in the face from laughing – silently; he didn't want to wake up the rest of the family. Scorpius shot a glare at his best friend who just laughed harder at the forlorn look on Scorpius's face as he regarded Victoire.
"No," she said decidedly, after giggling quietly at the entire sequence. "No, I don't think there's any way I can stay with the way Teddy's been acting – always making out with other girls. I think I'll go and stay with Gabrielle in France, just for a while." Albus couldn't control himself – he burst out laughing at the look of pure depression on Scorpius's face. The younger boy swore at his friend and turned back to Victoire, a calculating smirk on his face. Victoire prepared herself for his latest scheme.
"You know, you could always give him a taste of his own medicine," he suggested evilly and Victoire forced herself not to roll her eyes – the normal Scorpius was back. "You know, if you needed someone to make him jealous with I'm free anytime." Albus didn't bother holding back on the eye-roll, he pushed Scorpius off the sofa he'd just sat back down on. Scorpius appeared unruffled and blew Victoire a kiss from his new position on the floor.
"I mean, the amount of times I've caught him with a different girl – especially when he blatantly puts himself in a place where I will find him – is getting to a point that I really do not know what to say: to him, to the girl, to anyone! This morning he came over just to get some leftovers from last night – the cheek – and I may as well have just told him to leave but I didn't because he started that argument!" Victoire raged, and then winced and lowered her voice as she remembered that there were other people still asleep in the house.
"So you're definitely going then?" Albus asked sadly and Victoire nodded decisively. "I'll miss you."
"So will I," Scorpius said earnestly as he pulled himself up into a sitting position on the floor. Victoire and Albus both looked at him with shocked faces, curious by the lack of sarcasm and sneer. "What?" He asked innocently and they both sighed.
"It's for the best," Victoire sighed.