Ch2

Victoire let out a gigantic sigh the moment she stepped out of the fireplace, finding immediate reprieve in the familiar surroundings of home. The Burrow was wonderful, yes, but Shell Cottage had always been her own home and held a higher place in her heart for that fact, and in this case it had also served as a much needed escape from Teddy's judgment and the tiresome dance of responding to Andrea's nasty commentary without drawing more of Teddy's ire than she already seemed to naturally receive.

"Why don't you go pick some blue vervain to add to our chamomile blend to help you decompress?" Fleur suggested, drawing her eldest into a gentle hug before moving on to herd the younger two children up to bed.

Bill gave Victoire a tired smile as she moved past him in the kitchen to grab the gathering basket, her father stopping briefly to press a kiss to her forehead.

"I've just been notified of an emergency at work," he explained, throwing his coat back on and shoving a rumpled piece of parchment in his pocket as he went "so have a good night."

"You too, Papa," Victoire replied, making her way outside after her father apparated. She hummed as her feet traced the familiar path down to the garden, perched on the top of their cliff, looking down over the ocean.

She easily found the small plot where the bright indigo flowering plants were thriving, picking a small bunch out and dropping them into the basket by her side, wandering the slightly damp dirt packed aisles of the garden to check on a few of her favorite plants, pausing occasionally to scrunch her toes in the soil beneath her feet and enjoy the salty ocean breeze.

Victoire had only just turned back and made it to the edge of the garden, Shell Cottage a bit of a distance to her right and a bit back from the cliff's edge with a single light upstairs illuminated, when she paused suddenly, tilting her head to the side to try and catch the faint noise that had drawn her attention.

She strained her eyes in the dusky lighting, the full moon casting not nearly enough light for her to see clearly into the brushy area that lined the far side of the garden and stretched out along the cliffs to the north.

Victoire took a steady step back, keeping her eyes on the dark brush, before the snarling growl roared from the shadows. Victoire threw her body around, sprinting for the outline of her home and opened her mouth to scream, but the moment the shriek left her mouth, the ear splitting noise was joined by the sudden clenching, cutting pressure of something biting down on her neck and shoulder, soon joined by sharp ripping to her left arm and leg.

And then, for Victoire, there was nothing. It was as if the world was obscured in a haze.

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Later, Victoire's memories would be, at best, a fuzzy jumble of burning pain, her mother's horrified screaming and the bright streaks of the flurry of spells she sent at her daughter's attacker. Later, Victoire would barely be able to recall being apparated in her mother's shaking arms to St. Mungo's and the gasps of everyone there.

Her clearest understanding of the events that followed her attack, however, came from the graphic images on the front page of the Daily Prophet, laid across her lap in her bed in St. Mungo's, captured in the very same lobby a matter of days previously. Victoire absently noticed that her knuckles had gone white from her grip on the sides of the paper when Dominique stepped up from hovering in the seat beside her bed to hover standing beside her.

"Tori?" Dominique ventured, gently tugging the paper out of her sister's grip while Louis watched from Victoire's other side with a wary gaze "Maman and Papa didn't want you to see, but I thought you deserved to know."

Victoire fixed her gaze on her hands, now clasped in front of her on her lap, her left hand covered in bandages, which continued all the way up that arm, down that side and leg. That wasn't even mentioning the swath of bandages on the right side of her neck and shoulder and collarbone area, all attempting to force her body to accept the healing salve.

Not that a healing salve could eradicate lycanthropy.

Victoire's hands shook frantically at the thought; she had been attacked by a monster, a werewolf, and now she was one. Now she was a monster. Now she was a werewolf.

"How's Molly?" Victoire eventually forced her first words in several days from her lips, trying to force herself to break the horrifying, hated series of thoughts of what she now was that had played on loop in her mind since she had awoken.

"She's alive," Dominique spoke carefully, "but she's also suffering from some changes from the attack." This was more information than had been offered to Victoire since she had awoken, and she quirked an eyebrow at more information as to what had happened to Molly the same night Victoire had been attacked.

"Vampire." Louis spoke simply, his little eyes far too solemn in Victoire's opinion. She tried to give him a reassuring smile, but found her own reflection in the blue of his eyes too disturbing, "Monster" a voice in the back of her head whispered. Louis was still young, still innocent, still human.

"Two monsters in the family then?" She attempted to joke, breaking into coughs from the dryness of her throat.

Dominique tsk'd, practically jumping across the room to grab a resting glass of water and then helping her older sister drink it.

"Neither of you are monsters," Louis said before carefully leaning in to give his sister the tightest and most careful hug he could manage.

"We'll see," Victoire replied with a shaky grin, trying not to think about how she would never be able to look in a mirror again without seeing evidence of what she was, how the terrible thing that she had become had also been permanently etched into her skin.

The world would see, yes, but they had already seen, and would eventually move on from the catastrophe that was the attack on the Weasley girls by magical creatures. Victoire would have to live with this, forever, a permanent reminder that she was the very thing that she most feared.

It made her wonder how a person could exist in such a conflicting duality.

A/N:

Okay, here's the second chapter! This, that is, Victoire's struggle with lycanthropy, is the central plotline of the story, with Teddy and Victoire's drama kind of playing second fiddle to that. Buckle in for the ride.