"Morning mate!" cried Collin as Teddy dropped into his seat at the Gryffindor table for breakfast the next morning. "How did you sleep last night?"
"I didn't," Teddy sighed as he began loading his plate with everything edible in sight. "I think I'm more or less nocturnal. Who said nights were for sleeping anyways?"
Teddy rubbed his eyes before digging into his giant stack of waffles, barely listen to Collin and Ned discussing their schedules for the new year. Truth be told, he hadn't slept at all because his mind wouldn't stop racing with thoughts of her arrival.
It was real then, it wasn't just some horrible, ongoing nightmare; Victoire was here to stay, along with her obnoxious attitude and acerbic wit. It was if they had never been apart, for the argument they had had was just as it had always been between them: filled with insults and ending with both of them highly annoyed. She was just as he had expected she would be...well, except for a few minor details, which was exactly the reason his yawning was so frequent this morning
It's not as if he expected Victoire to look exactly as she did when they were ten, of course It would have been quite weird if she was under five feet with her two front teeth missing as a fifteen year old. He just hadn't been anticipating for her to be so...
"...Definitely shaggable, she sure is a looker ," he heard Collin say between bites of bacon, making Teddy become tune into the conversation.
"Who?" he inquired as he finished off his breakfast.
Collin contorted his face into that of a suave French man. "Victoire," he replied with an over exaggerated French accent, making Ned laugh. Teddy, however, rolled his eyes.
"She wishes," he muttered and shoved a piece of toast in his mouth.
"Oh come on, Theodore!" Collin cried and smiled in disbelief. "You'd have to be blind not to see how captivating she is!"
"So what if her face isn't completely hideous? She's evil, and no amount of veela genes can disguise that. Don't you agree, Ned?" Teddy argued and stared at the shyest of their trio. Ned instantly got red and ran a hand through his blond hair.
"Blimey, Teddy, she is pretty good looking," he shrugged in apology, but exchanged a grin with Collin.
"Face it Ted, your little childhood pal is bloody attractive," Collin smirked and Teddy made a face.
"She was never, nor will she ever be my 'pal'," he snapped. "I would never befriend Satan's mistress."
"I'd happily become the devil if that's her profession," Collin winked and Teddy made a face of unamusement.
"Now's your chance Col, here she comes now," Ned informed them, glancing at the entrance of the Great Hall. Accompanied by Bex and Leah, Victoire entered the hall talking animatedly. Teddy held back a groan as they sat down right next to them.
"I'm sorry, do you mind?" he asked through gritted teeth, turning his head while keep his body forward to tell the group off.
"No, it's alright, you're not bothering us," Victoire replied without missing a beat and reached for a piece of bacon. Bex and Leah giggled into their robes while Collin and Ned stared at him, wondering how he would reply. Teddy fumed with anger and turned to face her.
"Well you're bothering us!" he snapped and said the first excuse that came to him. "We're discussing top secret quidditch plays and can't let any big mouths listening in."
Victoire turned to glare at him. "Then you have nothing to worry about, your secrets are safe with us."
"They weren't that time you told my Grandma I was the one who shattered her Christmas vase!" Teddy cried sharply.
"Oh, bring that one up again! I told you a million times it wasn't me! If you consider the logistics of the situation there is no way I could have told her, " Victoire insisted, rolling her eyes dramatically. "Honestly if you were any less intelligent we'd have to water you twice a day."
"Are you questioning my intellect?" Teddy demanded, enunciating every word to intimidate her.
Victoire smirked and widened her eyes. "No, I'm denying it's existence."
Teddy opened his mouth, ready to curse her all the way back to France, but a forceful hand clamped down on his shoulder, breaking him away from his fury.
"If you'll excuse him, our dear old captain does have work to do," Collin interjected kindly. "So say goodbye for now and you two can continue insulting, hopefully hexing, each other into oblivion later."
"You're Qudditch captain?" Victoire raised an eyebrow with genuine surprise, ignoring Collin's childish tone.
"Is that so astonishing?" Teddy gripped the fork in his hand so tight his hand started to turn white.
"Well, at least you tried," Ned muttered to Collin as he sat down in defeat while two went back at it.
"No, but you must have been practicing a lot since we were kids," Victoire admitted with a giggle.
"Like you were so good, Weasley!"
"I was," Victoire grinned confidently and bit down on her toast.
"She still is!" Bex added fiercely.
"How would you know, you've never seen her fly," Leah giggled.
"I can just tell. Victoire is a star chaser-"
"Seeker," Victoire corrected her, not breaking eye contact with Teddy.
"-A star seeker, she is. Way better than you'll ever be!" Bex cried indignantly.
"I'm a keeper, so it doesn't matter," Teddy said, giving Victoire one last glare before reaching down to get his bag from the floor. "Thank you for your input Bex. Very informative, however pointless."
"Until next time, ladies." Collin winked at them as the boys left. Ned waved shyly behind him and the three of them left for class.
Victoire crossed her arms; her facial expression significantly less confident than before the boys had left. "'However pointless'? What the hell is that supposed to mean?" she grumbled.
"It may have something to do with the fact that the Gryffindor team hasn't had a girl on it for a decade," Leah thought a loud.
"WHAT?" Victoire exclaimed, gaining the attention of some of the students sitting near them. "That's preposterous! That's gender biased! That's-"
"Hold on there, Ms. Feminist." Bex held out a hand with an amused look on her face. "It's not that they haven't made it, nobody has tried out."
"But why?"
Leah shrugged. "Nobody's had an interest I suppose."
"I know we haven't known each other very long, but if I had to, I'd bet ten galleons that that is your 'determination' face," Bex inferred, noticing Victoire's rigid jaw and squinted eyes.
"When are tryouts?" she asked suddenly, not changing her facial expression.
"Next Saturday, according to the poster in the common room," Leah announced. "Don't tell me-"
"I'm going to try out for the team," Victoire declared.
Bex sighed. "Now I wish I had made that bet."
"Are you metal? You'd be the only girl!" Leah affirmed.
"Wouldn't be the first time."
"You'd have to listen to Teddy!" she tried again.
"Not if I'm good enough!"
"You're not going to change your mind, are you?" Bex smirked.
"Not in a million years." Victoire winked at her and stood up. "Now come on, we'll be late for class."
"She's stubborn, bossy, and incredibly cheeky," Leah pointed out with a joking smile on her face as she hooked an arm around Victoire's shoulder. "Why did we become friends with her again?"
Victoire laughed as Bex stroked her chin, feigning deep thought. "The girl's got spunk."
0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0
The air was crisp, a telltale sign of the upcoming fall weather quickly approaching. The sky was clear and the wind was almost nonexistent; perfect conditions for accessing the skills of potential teammates.
"Listen up, you lot. I'm going to call out the names written on the sign up sheet, see if all of you listed here have bothered to show up. Then we'll do some drills and hopefully, we'll have ourselves a new chaser and seeker by the end of the day," Teddy announced, not bothering to look up at the students standing in front of him, nervously clutching brooms. He was too busy organizing all of the papers in his hands and handing out the copies of the list to the other team members, who would be returning this year, helping him evaluate. Once he finally got it all sorted out, the process began.
"Ables?"
"Here!"
"Adler?"
"Here, Sir!"
"Booker?"
"Here, Sir Teddy, Sir!"
"That's not necessary, but I appreciate your intention. Caius?"
"Here, Lord Lupin!"
"Boys, really, you don't need to address me with anything other than 'Teddy'. Copper?"
He continued down the list of names, and he must of read off about twenty before he got to the final one. Before even reading it, Teddy could tell something was off. Instead of messy scrawl, the handwriting was in elegant cursive that made you want to take a calligraphy class.
"WEASLEY?" Teddy shouted with more force than he had with the other names. He lifted his head and searched the crowd, finding the blonde head in the very back with her arms crossed and beaming smirk on her face.
"Here, Captain," she replied pleasantly, ignoring the stares of the younger boys gazing at her in awe.
"Is that a girl?"
"Are girls even aloud on the team?"
"Have you ever seen her before?"
"You think if I had I'd forget?"
"QUIET!" Teddy roared, silencing the whispers of the group, continuing to stare Victoire down. "Boys, go take a lap around the pitch. Emphasis on BOYS."
Grumbling, the students took off on their brooms while Victoire stood where she was, still smirking. He wanted nothing more than to wipe the look off her smug face. Teddy marched over to her, making sure his team was not in ear shot before whisper-yelling at her. "What the hell do you think you're doing?"
"Trying out for the team, of course!" she exclaimed. "I believe the position I wrote down on the sheet says 'seeker'."
"I can read, Weasley," he snarled through gritted teeth. "This team isn't a joke, and even if it is just a tryout, it's extremely disrespectful for you to treat it as such."
Victoire's pupils appeared to turn to slits at his words. "I'm not treating it as a joke, and I'd hope you wouldn't do the same to me either. You know I can play Qudditch Teddy, better than the others combined!"
"I haven't seen you play for six years." He shrugged exaggeratedly. "So I'll have absolutely no bias during this tryout."
"Fine, make sure you keep an eye on me, then," Victoire leaned in, getting close to his face. She could feel his staggered breath on her skin. "You have a lot to catch up on."
The other students landed at this point and Teddy turned around to face them, his expression completely natural and unrevealing of the conversation they had just had. "Well done, good flying. Chasers, you're going to head over to the rings with our two other chasers, Max and Collin."
Collin raised an eyebrow suggestively, questioning the interaction. Teddy shot a fierce look back, mouthing, "GO".
"And the seekers will be evaluated by me and the beaters," he finished.
"Wouldn't it make more sense if you, as our keeper, evaluated the chasers?" said a voice from the back of the group.
It would, obviously, but Teddy would never let anyone point that out. "Shut up and follow orders, kid."
He ignored the smile on Victoire's face, letting her know that his decision wasn't based off of her at all.
"But-"
"Okay people, let's get going before the sun sets!"
Nope, she didn't influence it one bit.
0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0
"She wasn't that good," Teddy insisted.
"Mate, are you blind? She was the best one by far!" Nigel, one of the beaters, cried.
Teddy furiously flipped through his notes, trying to find someone who he could compare her too. "Well, erm, Booker had exceptional broom skills."
"He didn't catch the snitch once. She caught it all four times, in less than five minutes for each!"
Teddy sighed dramatically and ran a hand through his hair. If he were to be honest with himself, he would agree that Victoire was bloody fantastic. She made it seem so easy. It was interesting to watch her; Teddy hadn't taken his eyes off of her the entire tryout. But could he really stand her being on the team the entire year, no matter how beneficial she would be?"
"She needs work," he said, clucking his tongue, unimpressed.
Nigel rolled his eyes. "Just do Gryffindor a favor and put her on the team!"
Teddy looked over to the other side of the common room, where she was doing her homework with Bex and Leah. They were all whispering, of course, and one of them would look over at their table every now and then.
"Fine," he sighed. "Thanks for your help today. I'll tell her now."
Nigel smiled. "See you later, Ted!" When he had left, Teddy ran a hand through his hair and sighed. Here goes nothing, he thought.
"Weasley, a word," he called and Victoire immediately shot out of her chair and strode over to his table, taking a seat.
"Yes?" she asked innocently, obviously trying very hard to contain a smile.
Teddy looked at her for a long time, trying to decide if he could still back out or not, before exhaling loudly. "You made the team."
"YES!" she cried, jumping out of the chair and twirling around. Her smile was so enchanting Teddy found it difficult to say the words that might make it fade.
Wait, what?
He shook his head of the odd thoughts that had just appeared before interrupting her happy parade with absolutely no lament. "On two conditions!"
Victoire stopped and slowly sank back into her seat. She crossed her arms and raised an eyebrow. "Oh?"
"First off, your attitude needs work. I'm your captain and you must treat me with respect with no back talk or you will be kicked off the team," Teddy said with a slight smirk.
Victoire exhaled sharply. "Fine."
"Good. And secondly, just because you were the best of the tryout does not mean you're that good," he lied, avoiding her eyes. "You're required to take additional, private lessons so we can get you up to speed."
She stared at him in disbelief. Teddy thought for sure she was going to make a scene of it, but she merely sucked in her pride and nodded.
"Excellent. I'll get someone to teach you. You're first lesson will be next Wednesday," Teddy stood up and held out a hand. "Welcome to the team, Seeker."
Victoire did the same and grasped his hand firmly. It was small, very soft, and had pleasant warmth. Her hand fit...quite well in his. "Thanks, Captain."
Updates make me happy :D
OH MY GOODNESS THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR YOUR REVIEWS
Up next: Teddy ends up having to give Victoire her private lessons himself. Could it lead to a change of heart that Teddy doesn't want to happen?
QOTC: What's your favorite HP book (at the moment)? I'd say mine is Chamber of Secrets but it changes every week hahaha
YOUR MOM REVIEWS MY STORIES so you should too :D
**Thanks to HogwartsDreamer11 for pointing out a mistake the in previous chapter. I meant to say James instead of Albus in order to stay canon. I'll change that, maybe…procrastinators unite