disclaimer: EVERYTHING belongs to Rowling
Five
Twenty-four hours later Victoire was in the guest room at the Burrow sorting through her things to decide what she wanted to take to America and what she was going to throw away or leave behind.
"Ten more minutes, Vicky!"
"Yeah dad, I'll be right down."
In ten minutes Victoire and her father were going over to Shell Cottage to gather her things and let Victoire say farewell to the house she was raised in.
Though Shell Cottage was where her immediate family lived, Victoire wasn't very fond of it. For some reason it was too quite for her. She liked the Burrow much better, where there was always a lot of noise and activity.
Victoire picked up a copy of The Tales of Beedle the Bard: the published version that Hermione had translated from runes. Victoire had read it many times on her own, as well as in school as a textbook. It was interesting how a collection of wizarding fairytales held such important information.
After throwing her notebook full of school notes in the 'discard' pile and her Gryffindor prefect and 'Head Girl' badges along with The Tales of Beedle the Bard in the 'take to America' pile, Victoire got up and descended down the stairs into the vacant sitting room.
Today, the Burrow was almost empty as everyone had either gone to work or to their respective houses to check how things were going before they came back to the Burrow to help with the very final wedding details.
Victoire went over and hugged Granddad and Mamaw. "See you at dinner," she said.
"Ready?"
"Yeah, dad."
Victoire and her father pulled out their wands and turned on the spot. They Apparated to their house located on the outskirts of Tinworth, Cornwall, England. Victoire's eyes adjusted to her surroundings as she breathed in the salty air.
Shell Cottage was isolated on a cliff overlooking the sea. The walls were embedded with shells and were whitewashed with a garden in the back. However the place was extremely small. It was probably a very romantic place for a couple to live, but after her parents had had three children, Victoire didn't understand why they hadn't moved.
Don't get her wrong though: Victoire loved the place. Shell Cottage held many of her childhood memories and the memories of the endless days she had spent sitting on the cliff overlooking the open sky, adoring the sea's radiant colors and letting her hair fly behind her as the salty wind hit her face. There was no better feeling in the world, and Victoire knew she was going to miss it. As she walked over to the door, the history of the beautiful cottage flashed through her mind.
The house had once served as a sanctuary for members of the Order and their allies. This was the place Harry, Ron, Hermione, Luna and the others had fled to after escaping the torture at Malfoy Manor.
Victoire turned her head to look over at the large white rock placed out to the side of the cottage. "HERE LIES DOBBY, A FREE ELF" it read.
Victoire had never known Dobby, but she knew about the things he had done to help Harry and his friends, and she respected him for it. She wasn't even alive when all those events took place, but she knew them. Victoire knew everything that had happened by heart.
After making Harry, Ron, and Hermione recite their experiences to her numerous times, and after reading about it in the textbooks at school, Victoire knew everything as if she too had been fighting to defeat Voldemort alongside her family.
"Zere you are," Fleur called out as they entered the house.
"Where are the kids?" Bill asked after greeting his wife.
He looked over at their grandfather clock. The famous Weasley clock had exploded when hands for every member of the family were being added on the clock.
"Well, looks like its capacity was only up to twenty family members. Too bad we have twenty-five," Granddad had said after the explosion.
Now each of the smaller branches of the family had their own clocks. The one in Shell Cottage had hands for Bill, Fleur, Victoire, Dominique, and Louis.
Right now, three of the hands pointed to 'Home' while Louis's pointed at 'Work' and Dominique's was at 'Traveling'.
"Dominique iz out with Matthew," Fleur said, explaining their youngest daughter's hand.
Bill nodded, picked up a copy of the Daily Prophet from the breakfast table, and settled onto his couch to read it.
"Oh, look Gin's written another article on the Holyhead Harpies. Funny how even after so many years they've managed to find players whose names all start with a 'G'."
Ginny had been professionally playing for the Holyhead Harpies for several years. But after she became pregnant with James, she quit the team, and started working as the Senior Quidditch correspondent for the Daily Prophet, her love for the game keeping her near it.
Everyone knew Ginny may have left the team, but her heart still longed to play. Her dark green robes with the golden talon emblazed on the chest, (the uniform that she wore when she played Chaser for the Harpies) still hung in her closet, protected by charms.
Fleur nodded in agreement to her husband's words then turned to her daughter. "You go ahead and get starzted, Vicky. I'll make you some lunch," she said.
Victoire ran up the steps, and pulled open the door to her room. Her eyes were embraced with the familiar lilac colored walls, and the smell of her favorite flowers filled her nostrils.
Victoire slumped onto her soft white bed, craving a nap, but knowing she should get to work. There was a lot of stuff in this room that needed sorting.
Victoire enjoyed the low tumbling sound of the sea as she pulled open the first drawer on her nightstand. As she rummaged through its contents, she found hair clips, hair ties, a few abandoned quills, letters from Hogwarts, and another stack of letters from Teddy.
She set aside Teddy's side of the letters that she and Ted had written to each other while Victoire was in her seventh year at Hogwarts. The two had just admitted their feelings towards each other that very summer and a year apart had felt like torture.
Victoire pulled open the second drawer which contained pictures she had taken over the last couple of months. Victoire's room had an entire wall devoted to pictures of her friends and family, and she had planned on putting these up there too but just never got around to it.
The wall was an elaborate collage of moving pictures. Moments from her graduation at Hogwarts and her engagement to Teddy lined the upper boarder of the wall. The rest of the pictures were placed randomly, depicting scenes from her years at Hogwarts or time spent with her family.
Victoire went over to add the remaining pictures in her hand. Magically making some pictures smaller, she added the new additions so that they could all fit. She decided not to take along any of these pictures: they would remain in her room where they belonged.
Out of the corner of her eye, a picture caught her attention. Victoire walked around to take a closer look at the large scene.
It was a picture of her and Viktor back in their fifth year. Victoire had the Hogwarts Quidditch Cup which Gryffindor had just won. She had snatched it from Viktor when he received it, and had run around the Hogwarts grounds, swinging the cup above her head like a baton. Viktor, the Gryffindor team Seeker and captain, was wearing his Quidditch robes and running after Victoire to get back his prized possession.
Victoire watched the two run around for a long time, laughing at the memory. Saying goodbye to her best friend was going to be a very hard task.
"POP!" the sound of people Apparating distracted Victoire from her thoughts.
Maybe Louis or Dominique had come back home, she thought. But then she heard another familiar voice, "Where is Vicky? We 'ave come to see 'er before the wedding."
Victoire dashed down the stairs, and flew into the arms of Monsieur Delacour.
"Papi!" Victoire hugged her grandfather tightly. "What a pleasant surprise! It's been such a long time since I last saw you and Grand-mere."
Victoire walked over to giver her grandmother a hug as well.
"You look so lovely! Ahh, your beautiful Veela 'air, and sparkling eyes! It feels like just yesterday when you were a leettle baby, and now look! You're all grown up, almost married off!" Apolline Delacour gushed.
Victoire let go of her grandparents, giving her father and mum a chance to greet them.
"Maman! Papa!" Fleur rushed over from the kitchen and hugged them. "You could 'ave at leazt let us know you were coming! I would have prepared something nize for you to eat!"
"Fleur, we are not 'ere to eat. We are 'ere only to talk to our beloved granddaughter. Now if you will excuse us."
They each grabbed one of Victoire's arms and led the way to the sitting room, much to a flustered Fleur.
"So," Apolline said, sitting down on one of the sofas. "How do you feel?"
"Um, nervous I guess," Victoire said a little awkwardly.
"Right. Well that's bound to happen. But you must also be excited."
"I am. I'm both excited and nervous, and even a little scared."
"What is there to be scared of?" Monsieur Dealcour's low voice asked astonishingly.
"Leaving Europe. I've never left Europe, let alone my entire family. I'm just afraid I'm going to miss everyone."
"Well of course you will, honey. It would just be unusual and very selfish of you if you didn't!" Victoire smiled at her papi's try at humor.
After a great long talk, her grandparents hugged her once again, and promised to be back the day before the wedding.
Later that evening, when Victoire arrived back at the Burrow, she found it full of her family once again. After dinner, she decided she wanted to talk to her grandparents on her dad's side as well. It would help release some of her emotions and built up tension like it had while talking to Papi and Grand-mere.
When most of the family had fallen asleep, Victoire walked over to her grandparents who were sitting at the table talking in hushed voices.
"Granddad, Mamaw? Can I talk to you for a sec?"
"Sure, Vicky," Granddad replied, patting the seat next to him. Victoire watched as the old age lines across his forehead, which had been scrunched together, spread apart and relaxed. "Come have a seat."
"You know, we were just talking about you," Mamaw replied.
"Really? What about me?"
"You know, just how fast you grew up." Mamaw looked sad as she continued. "You're our oldest grandkid, Vicky. We love all our grandkids equally, but deep down inside we know for a fact that we love you a little more."
Mamaw didn't look ashamed as she said it; in fact her kind warm eyes were full of honesty and truth.
"And now that you're leaving, it's going to be hard for us. Harder than it was when any of our kids got married. You see, all their houses are here in England. Their visits are constant. But the thought of you so far away makes us feel like a piece of our heart is leaving us to go to America." Granddad said soberly.
By this time, tears were running down Victoire's face and she spoke through sobs.
"I wouldn't go, Granddad. I real-ly don't wan-tt to. But Ted-d got this really good-d job at the American wizarding hospital, even better than at St. Mungos and…"
"We know, Vicky. We know. Ted is a great Healer, and we would never want him to miss an opportunity like that. And we're not asking you to stay behind. We know you have to start your own family, start a new life. We're not going to stop you at all. It's just that our heart won't accept the fact that you're going to leave."
By this time both Mamaw and Granddad had tears in their eyes, and Victoire went over to sit between them, letting them cry on her shoulders as tears descended from her own eyes.
"I'll be back, I promise. Ted and I will visit every year. We'll come here to spend the holidays. It'll be fine."
Victoire was trying to reassure her grandparents, but she knew inside she was also trying to reassure herself. She would be fine.
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Ok, so this story is getting sadder and sadder as the chapters go on, but that's just the topic of the story… anyway, the next chapter is a lot lighter, and there's even a surprise visit from Ted!! Enjoy and don't forget to review! :)
