a/n: I'm dedicating this chapter to somewhat lovely, because her reviews make me smile so much and I basically adore her.
inlustrum
look over your hills and be still
the sky above us shoots to kill
- Thistle & Weeds, Mumford and Sons
chapter four : (4275)
It takes two weeks for Rose and Dominique to make up, but when they do it's tearful and relieved and Dominique promises to have nothing more to do with Sebastian Nott, despite the temptation she feels every time he sends a smouldering glance her way, and the two girls become closer than ever and over the holidays Dominique spends a great deal of time with Rose to get out of her house where Louis seems to be crying constantly.
For the summer term she vows to give up boys and – for the first time ever – concentrate on her schoolwork. She does this so successfully that several times Professor Merryweather asks her if she's feeling alright when she actually answers a question correctly in class, and everybody laughs and Dominique feels the foreign but comfortable glow of academic achievement.
She likes it so much, in fact, that she decides to keep it up after the summer holidays. She spends these eight weeks lazing around with her cousins at The Burrow, playing fiercely competitive games of Quidditch and swimming in the river and eating so much their grandmother has to go shopping almost every other day to keep her cupboards stocked.
Teddy Lupin spends his afternoons after work with them, and Dominique develops an enormous crush on him, finally moving on from Alan-the-guitarist-from-The-Warlocks, as he plays Quidditch with no shirt on, displaying a gloriously bronzed, muscled back with broad shoulders and lean hips that even Victoire, staunchly vowing that she's over him, lusts after. He swims with them and chats to them, keeping all the boys in stitches as he describes happenings at work, almost making Lucy swoon when he rescues her trapped kitten, his eyes their preferred blue under his natural brown hair as he hands Crookshanks the Fourth back to her, laughing as the ginger kitten tries to savage his hands.
The Longbottom children spend a week with them, Grace's eyes almost on stalks as she watches Teddy execute a perfect somersault into the river, shaking his wet hair out of his eyes as he dares James and Fred to do the same, teasing them and railing at them until they feel so embarrassed that they have to make their own attempts.
"Put your tongue back in," Dominique teases as she lies on her front in the grass with Grace, "You'll swallow bugs."
"Why have I never met him before?" Grace demands, pushing her sunhat further down on her head to avoid sunburn, "You guys were hiding him from me, weren't you?"
Dominique laughs and winks, "Absolutely. This has all been a massive ploy to stop you from meeting him."
She relents, however, as Grace turns a pout on her, and grins as she says, "He's actually spent a couple of years travelling. He works for the Auror department with my uncles Harry and Ron and so he was away a lot while he was doing some international stuff. He only got home occasionally, for a couple of parties and things. But he's moved up a couple of levels now so he works in London."
"I see," Grace replies, turning a dreamy expression back towards Teddy before noticing that her two little sisters are about to try their luck on the tyre swing Dominique's Uncle Charlie built that is definitely not designed for a five- and six-year-old.
"Isobel! Clara!" she shouts, scrambling to her feet and haring off towards them. Dominique laughs as she watches Grace grab Isobel and start noisily remonstrating with them, but then she's abruptly distracted as she feels herself grabbed by three pairs of wet hands.
"We noticed you were dry," James announces as he helps to drag her towards the river, ignoring her squealing.
"So we thought we'd fix that," Teddy finishes, exchanging a grin with Fred as the three of them draw her backwards before chucking her, screams and dress and all, right into the middle of the river, into the particularly deep spot that never seems to get warm.
"You bastards!" she shrieks as she surfaces, kicking straight towards James, who dove in after her, grabbing on around his neck and trying to duck him. He fights back, and Fred dives in with Teddy following, and soon they're tossing her around between them, laughing so hard they can barely stand up even though the water only comes up to their waists at this point, and Dominique is laughing so hard she forgets to blush when Teddy grabs her and spins her around before dunking her thoroughly, his hands warm and electric on her waist.
They dry off in the sun, and Dominique is almost asleep when James shakes her and informs her loudly that dinner's ready. She falls into step beside Al on the way up to The Burrow and food, and they have a nice conversation about whether Rose has got a secret crush on someone before they discover dinner set out before them and talking becomes obsolete.
;;
Back for third year, Dominique with James leads the storm of wild applause as Molly gets Sorted into Gryffindor. She looks pleased as punch as she scurries from the platform and joins the other new first years, blushing as James leans across to hug her, his tie falling in his pumpkin juice, before his friend Jenny drags him back and tells him to concentrate on the headmaster's speech.
Dominique sleeps well that night and gets up to start lessons the next morning in a cheerful mood that even an argument with Scorpius over whether jam is nicer than marmalade cannot drag her mood down.
This mood persists through the first couple of weeks until Quidditch trials roll about. An enormous Seventh Year boy called Henry Wood is captaining, and Dominique is so nervous the morning before she can only manage one slice of toast in place of her usual four.
She lines up with the other Gryffindors trying out, knuckles white around the handle of her broom, a Firebolt 3.2 – her uncle Harry and aunt Ginny get given all the latest models of broom despite the fact that they're both happy with their original Firebolts, so they dole the brooms out fairly amongst their children and nieces and nephews. She glares as James and Fred proceed to have an almost perfect tryout, scoring every single time against the trialing Keepers, high-fiving and looking so pleased with themselves that Dominique wants to hit them both.
"G'luck, Dom!" James calls after her as she takes to the air a little unsteadily, feeling none of her usual confidence even once she's up feeling the breeze on her face.
Her Chaser trial isn't too bad – in fact, it's one of the better ones – but the next morning the list of the team goes up and Dominique's name isn't on it. James and Fred have both made Chaser, along with a girl named Claudia Spinnet. The captain, Henry Wood, is playing Keeper and Dominique's friend Isaac Greene is Seeker. Dominique is so disappointed she doesn't notice that only one Beater position has been filled, and as she turns away she spots James crowing with victory in a corner.
"I hope you fall off your broom!" she shouts across the room at him, partly in response to him getting on the team again and partly because she suspects he's the one who hexed all her underwear brown the day before.
"Chin up, Dom!" he calls back patronisingly, tossing an apple at her to try to make her laugh. In a sudden burst of fury, Dominique grabs a discarded Beater's bat off the nearest sofa and gives the apple such a smack that a chunk comes out of it and the remainder goes flying back towards James and clobbers him in the head.
And, just like that, Dominique fills the spare Beater's spot on the team.
Their first match is against Slytherin, and Dominique's not sure whether she's more nervous about the fact that she'll be playing against Sebastian Nott or about the fact that James will be playing in a team against Lily, who is the new Slytherin seeker. There is a very good reason that James and Lily are never allowed to be on opposing teams when the family plays Quidditch, and Dominique doesn't really want the rest of Hogwarts becoming witness to two Potters trying to kill each other.
They behave themselves, however, and Dominique can't help but feeling satisfied as she sends a bludger speeding towards Sebastian, nearly knocking him off his broom and forcing him to drop the Quaffle – she's been hearing rumours about him and Caroline Peakes and broom cupboards – which is then picked up by Fred, who with James and Claudia's help proceeds to score for Gryffindor.
Dominique is only marginally bitter when Lily catches the snitch and wins the match for Slytherin – Gryffindor finished only twenty points behind in the end, and it's nice for Lily that she's proved her worth as more than just a famous name on the Quidditch pitch.
The mood is subdued in the common room that night, but Lysander Scamander soon cheers them all up by accidentally (he claims) knocking a pilfered bludger through the wall of the common room, making a hole right through a water pipe and causing a flood in the corridor outside that drips down two floors and makes the Transfiguration classroom unusable for a couple of days while the teachers dry it out.
Dominique vows to beat Hufflepuff in their next match and forces the other Gryffindor Beater, a sixth year called Andrew Somers, to practice with her almost daily. She continues with her vow of celibacy in order to practice her Quidditch and stay on top of schoolwork, and besides her crush on Teddy leaves almost no room for anything else.
However, after the Christmas holidays, she's all dressed up for her fourth ever trip to Hogsmeade with Saoirse and Tristan and Lysander when Jake, blushing furiously, waylays her when she's alone going back up to Gryffindor Tower to clean her teeth and asks her if she'll go with him.
Dominique considers for a moment, but he looks so expectant that she'll say no that she can't bear to, so she agrees and smiles and nips off to warn the other three before returning to Jake with clean teeth and an extra spray of perfume and surprises herself by having a really good time.
They return to the common room late in the afternoon, and Dominique pauses at the bottom of the stairs up to her dorm, feeling shy for the first time in a very long while as she gazes at Jake. He's blushing again, so Dominique takes pity on him and closes the gap between their faces, giving him a quick kiss on the lips to much catcalling from the other people in the room.
Without a single outward display of embarrassment, Dominique grins at Jake and then disappears up the stairs to her dorm, falling backwards onto her bed and trying to work her feelings out. Kissing Jake didn't feel the same way as kissing Sebastian, and feeling his touch when they sat close together in the Three Broomsticks didn't feel the same way as Teddy's casual, brotherly touches – but there's something much safer about the way Jake makes her feel, and she thinks that safety's definitely something she could do with right now.
;;
Dominique and Jake go out for a whole two months, and then break up just before the Easter holidays, a couple of weeks after Dominique's birthday. She'd just spent it with her best friends and her family this year, and she has to wait for the holidays to get her presents from her grandparents and her parents and sister.
She arrives at the station and has to hang around for an extra half an hour before her father swings up, looking harried, and spells her stuff haphazardly home before apparating her himself.
"Your sister's in a bit of a state," he warns her as they start up the garden path, "She hasn't stopped crying for an hour."
Dominique has to stifle laughter at the long-suffering look on his face, but when they reach the kitchen and find Fleur trying to comfort a wailing Victoire while one-year-old Louis bawls in his cot in the corner, Dominique understands her father's reluctance to return to the crisis.
"I'm on it," Bill says as he abandons Dominique in the kitchen, dropping a kiss onto Fleur's forehead and grabbing Louis out of his cot, tossing him playfully in the air and babbling nonsense to him as he bears him out of the danger zone.
"What's the matter, 'Toire?" Dominique inquires, gingerly taking a seat next to her sister, "Dad says something bad."
Victoire heaves out something incomprehensible between sobs, and Dominique looks to her mother in confusion.
"Your sister eez pregnant," Fleur tells her, looking only marginally disapproving as she pats Victoire comfortingly on the shoulder in response to a fresh wave of sobs.
"But that's great news," Dominique says uncertainly, "Isn't it?"
"No," Victoire gulps, turning bloodshot, puffy eyes on her sister, "Because it might not be Matthew's."
Dominique has to blink to take that in, and her initial fury that Victoire would cheat on Matthew wanes to be replaced with pure curiosity, "Who's might it be if not Matt's?"
Victoire whispers the name first time, so Dominique has to get her to repeat it.
"I said Teddy, can't you listen?" Victoire snaps, and then buries her face in her hands as a fresh wave of embarrassment floods her and she starts crying again.
"But I thought you really liked Matthew," Dominique presses nervously – Victoire doesn't lose it often, but when she does you never want to be close by – and glances at her mother for reassurance.
"I do," Victoire gasps, lifting her face, "But it's Teddy and he was gah all summer with you lot and his stupid showing off and stupid kindness and I was over at Uncle Percy's just after Christmas tidying up and making him food – he's barely eating now Aunt Audrey's cleared out with that Healer – and Teddy pitched up with all this food that he'd spent hours making and, Merlin, you know how good-looking he is and he was trying to cheer me up after a lousy day and he took me back to his place for drinks and then… and then…"
Dominique has to take a moment to assimilate this sudden rush of information, and she wishes she could hate Teddy or Victoire but frankly she just feels a little impatient.
"So are you going to tell Teddy?" she inquires slowly, tilting her head as she regards her sister, "Seeing as it might be his?"
"No," Victoire says firmly, "Unless this thing comes out with rainbow hair I'm not telling him. It's more likely to be Matt's – the Healer's think I'm far enough along for it to be – and I've told him already. He's not speaking to me but I'm doing everything I can to make him come around. I even took Veritaserum before so he knew that I still loved him and Teddy was a mistake."
Dominique meets her mother's eyes and she can see that Fleur is equally at a loss.
"Well, I think you've got it all under control," Dominique says, slapping her hands on the table and giving Victoire a quick comforting hug, "I reckon you'll work it out."
Then she flees to her room and floos straight to her cousin Rose's house. She needs Rose's cool head and practical outlook at this point. She waves a quick hello to her Uncle Ron, who looks quite surprised at the sight of one of his nieces – she's certain he gets them all muddled – falling out of his fireplace.
She takes the steps two at a time, yelling, "Rose!" on her way up and crashing straight into her cousin's room without knocking first.
"Fucking hell!" she shrieks as she discovers Sebastian Nott shirtless and lying on top of Rose, kissing her like his life depends upon it.
"Dominique!" Rose exclaims, grabbing the duvet up to her chin and dislodging Sebastian as she sits up hurriedly. "What are you – I was just – I can – it's not what it looks like! I can explain!"
Dominique, with her hands over her eyes, backs slowly out of the room, trying not to fall over anything.
"I highly doubt that," she replies, her eyes still screwed tightly shut as she gropes blindly for the doorway, "What was it you said to me that time? Something about crucifying James?"
"I'm sorry," Rose calls, trying to grab Dominique to get her to stand still, "I was wrong and I didn't know how I felt about him and he kissed you to make me jealous and I was, I was so jealous, and I took it out on you and –"
"Save it," Dominique commands irritably, and then she whirls and opens her eyes and rushes downstairs and into the floo connection as quickly as she can.
"Nice seeing you!" she calls to her uncle as she disappears in a whoosh of emerald green sparks. Ron, from his armchair, wonders how many of his nieces are currently in his house, or if there's just one slightly crazy one. Unconcerned, he returns to his newspaper and doesn't even flinch when his daughter appears, looking flustered, in the doorway in just her bra and a pair of shorts.
"Your mother says to tell you that dinner is in twenty minutes," he informs her from behind the Quidditch results pages, "And that if your friend is going to stay she needs to know so she can lay an extra place."
"Alright, thanks Dad," Rose says casually, disappearing back upstairs to Sebastian before her father notices her state of undress.
Dominique, back in her room, paces for a good hour. First Victoire and Teddy, now Rose and Sebastian – she doesn't like it when people don't behave like she expects them to. The people she trusted most appear to have shown their ugly sides, and she doesn't dare go to find any of her other friends or relatives in case they're going to do something else to set her adrift.
Eventually she settles on trying to find the one person who she can always count on to be exactly the same – James is patronising and arrogant and caring, no matter what time of day you call upon him at, so she floos over to the Potters' house.
She finds it almost completely empty, and she shouts out hellos as she wanders around downstairs, smiling at the laughing photos of the family before heading upstairs and peeking into James' room. There's nobody around, so with hopes disappointed she closes James' door and goes to return slowly downstairs.
"Breaking and entering, Weasley?" a sardonic voice inquires out of nowhere, nearly giving her a heart attack as she spins on the spot, breath leaving her in a gasp. She drags it back in as she takes in Scorpius leaning nonchalantly against the doorpost of Al's room, looking the picture of innocence.
"Ditto," she snarls back, heat rushing into her cheeks as she tries to get her breath back without making it too obvious that he frightened her, "Thought you were a bit high-class for burglary."
"I'm staying here for a week," Scorpius informs her idly, tossing a tennis ball from hand to hand, "But they've all cleared out to visit their grandparent's graves. It's a tradition or something. Al tried to explain it to me but I wasn't listening."
"As usual," Dominique mutters with an eye roll, turning to go back downstairs. Most days she'd wait, but she really doesn't feel like dealing with Scorpius at the present time.
"Leaving so soon?" he calls after her, following her down the stairs, and she clenches her fists as she turns back to face him.
"Oh, sorry, I didn't realise my company was such a delight to you," she says in as light a voice as she can manage, matching his nonchalance, "You know, seeing as we've always got along so well in the past."
"Sarcasm doesn't suit you, Weasley," he informs her airily, moving past her and dropping into an armchair in the sitting room as though he owns the place, "You're too ginger."
"I'm not ginger, I'm a redhead," Dominique corrects automatically, moving stiffly into the sitting room after him and folding her arms as she sinks onto the sofa opposite him, not willing to back down, "And since when did hair colour dictate proficiency in sarcasm?"
"Big words," he mocks in a falsely-impressed voice, still tossing the bloody tennis ball between his hands, "Didn't think you had it in you. Wasn't your sister the Ravenclaw?"
"None of your business," she retorts from behind clenched teeth, willing him to just spontaneously combust. Unfortunately, he does no such thing, but he does glance up and meet her eyes as though drawn by the obsessive force of her loathing.
"You really do hate me, don't you," he comments in what sounds like mild surprise, one eyebrow arching coolly.
"Obviously," she grinds out, and he stares at her for a few moments longer before tossing his head back in laughter, showing off a row of perfect white teeth, and he doesn't stop laughing for a good few minutes.
"What have I done to deserve that?" he inquires finally, something a lot lighter than his usual cynicism dancing in those cold grey eyes, looking about as arrogant as it is possible for a fifteen-year-old boy to look (very, if you were wondering) as he stretches his long legs out and eyes her with interest.
"What haven't you done?" she demands, temper flaring hotly and leaving her leaning forward on her sofa, "You're an arrogant, callous, boorish, supercilious prat with too much money and too few manners."
"Goodness," he replies after a short silence, looking very relaxed as he lounges opposite her, very aware how much it is winding her up, "Someone has been swotting up on the dictionary."
"Oh, for Merlin's sake," Dominique hisses, and before he has a chance to get another word in she's hurled a handful of floo powder savagely into the flames and returned home.
Victoire is no longer crying in the kitchen, and Dominique halts in surprise at the sight of the empty kitchen, and then proceeds through to the conservatory warily. She hesitates, transfixed, in the doorway, astonished to see her mother and sister laughing joyously together, mugs of tea in each of their hands as they rejoice.
"Um, what…?" Dominique begins nervously, and Victoire turns to her with one of the biggest smiles Dominique's ever seen stretching across her face.
"It's Matt's, Dom! Mum and I did a test with this potion she has from when she had Louis, and I'm definitely too far along for it to be Teddy's. Isn't it great?"
"Uh, yeah, that's brill," Dominique congratulates, moving further into the room and flopping down onto one of the spare cushions littering the floor, suddenly exhausted from the emotional rollercoaster her day has been, "You must be so relieved."
"You have no idea," Victoire sighs, and as their eyes meet Dominique realises that she probably doesn't. She may make all these pretensions to adulthood with her scepticism and socialising and using big words, but she really doesn't have a clue what things like this mean and how to react to them.
"I was just at James' and Al's and Lily's," Dominique ventures when the silence has stretched out too long for her liking, "They were out. They left Scorpius Malfoy there by himself, can you imagine? I wouldn't leave him alone with anything I valued for more than thirty seconds."
"Why do you 'ate 'im so much?" Fleur presses curiously, and Dominique grins suddenly, her whole expression transforming instantly into something much sunnier.
"He asked me that. I wouldn't know where to begin."
Victoire laughs and shares a look with their mother that sets Dominique's nerves on edge. She leaps to her feet, mood blackening instantly, and stalks from the room, too bad-tempered to endure their fierce happiness.
This foul temper persists through to the end of the Easter holidays, and she ignores her parents' mutterings about hormones and tries instead to focus on how she's going to deal with the whole Sebastian-Rose fiasco. She has no lingering feelings for Sebastian Nott, that's for certain, but she is still utterly furious with Rose for what she said and did and for the way she made her feel on her thirteenth birthday.
Even Dominique isn't vengeful enough to just tell James, however, so she eventually capitulates to the realisation that she needs help and makes a floo call to Saoirse.
"Well, it's perfectly simple," Saoirse informs her friend as she sits cross-legged in front of Dominique's head in the flames, munching on a pear, "You need to make him see what he's missed and make Rose jealous. More jealous than you've ever made her before."
"But how do I do that, Finn?" Dominique inquires unhappily, shifting as her knees start to go dead back in her bedroom, "It's impossible, Rose has everything."
"Rose isn't one-eighth Veela," Saoirse replies pointedly, and then grins ferally and adds in a low voice, "Evie, me, Stasia if she'll consent to it – we're going to… help you realise your full potential."
"What do you mean?" Dominique asks uncertainly, gazing up in confusion at her friend.
"You'll see," Saoirse replies mysteriously, adding, "Come to my house the night before school starts and you'll find out."
Bewildered, Dominique agrees and returns to her own room, wondering what on Earth Saoirse is on about.
