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Sorry for having almost disappeared from the site for so long. I had my flat being repaired, a new work project, and a failed try to have a holiday at the sea. Almost no time for reading and writing fanfiction. Sorry.

Chapter 4

Dominique Weasley

When they meet new people, they inevitably thinks that they are twins – they look the same age, they resemble each other very much – in fact, they resemble their mother – and they are in the same year at Hogwarts. But they are not. Twins, that's it. Dominique is born in September, eleven months earlier than Louis. Is it so difficult to remember? Obviously, it is. She loves pointing out at Louis that she is older than him – that makes her feel better about being so much younger than Victoire. She is the older one and she wants everyone to know that, but they keep forgetting, so she feels like it is a very special secret – a secret that she doesn't want to be a secret at all.

When she was little, she was desperately jealous of Victoire. Vickie was so much older than her, three whole years, she was taller than her, and she did not have to take an afternoon nap. Dominique did not want to take one either, but no one listened to her. It isn't fair, she often thought indignantly. Only because I am still small! Nobody treated Vickie as a child, although, technically, she was a child. No, for the adults Victoire and Teddy were 'the big ones'. It was not Dominique's fault that she had been born a few years ahead of every other child in the family, but still, a few years behind Teddy and Vickie!

And Victoire had Teddy. He was so big and cool, and he wore his hair blue. Not that Dominique would ever trade her best friend, Louis, for Teddy, but it would be nice to be given the chance to choose! But no, Teddy always preferred being in Vickie's company. He was nice to Dominique, all right, but he seemed to consider her a baby, which she supposed she was. No, it was not fair and that was it!

While they are sitting in the Hogwarts Express for the very first time, she and Louis are so nervous that they pick a quarrel. This is hardly their first quarrel and Dominique has trouble believing it would be their last, but this time, everything is different. They are going to Hogwarts, for Merlin's sake! They are about to be Sorted! What would happen if the dragon or whatever made the choice felt their hostility towards each other and decided to put them in different Houses? Too bad that she has come to think of it now, when it may be too late.

Then, the Hat cries out "Gryffindor!" and Louis, grinning from ear to ear, plops down next to her and says, "I told you we'd be together, didn't I?"

Yet, there is something in his voice that makes her think that her secret fear might not have been so secret, after all.

All her life, Dominique has known that she's beautiful – just as beautiful as Victoire and more beautiful than most girls. It isn't just vanity – it's the truth, as it is told by her mirror. Later, when she turns fourteen, she finds out a different type of mirrors that she wholeheartedly prefers – these are the male mirrors. The man-mirrors. It is the dazed looks that guys get whenever she walks past them in the corridors. Yes, at age fourteen, Dominique Weasley finds an unsuspected talent within herself – she is a minx. Guys like her and she likes them. For a first time in her life, she's really grateful for being part-Veela, because her coquetry does not extend to spending hours obsessed with improving her looks, as many of her classmates do. All she needs is taking a shower, combing her shining silver hair and smiling widely – and she has all the boys she could wish for chasing after her.

She doesn't take it seriously, of course. How can she? It is just for fun. She wants to enjoy herself, to flirt with boys and tease them, until she finally finds the one who is meant for her.

And then, in their sixth year, Robert Laurence asks her in his soft, shy way if she wanted to go to Hogsmeade with him. Before she could tell him that no, he was her friend and that she never dated her friends, because all that would come out of it would be complications, he keeps on talking and Dominique is shocked to find out that he had liked her for years! She was just trying to find a way to cut him off as gently as she could – she had to get rid of him before everything went out of hand!, - when it dawned on her that she did not want to get rid of him. That she was mad about him. Talk about madness, ha-ha! Well, it was not as if someone expected of Dominique Weasley to be sane anyway, so two weeks later, the two of them are officially a couple.

Still, she will never tell anyone that if Robert hadn't gained the courage to ask her out, she would have never considered the possibility of asking him out. She will keep it a secret, because there is no need for the others to know just how stupid she might get.

And yet, although she has Robert and despite all her previous boyfriends, she can't help but feel a little desperate when Louis gets his first serious girlfriend. It isn't as she isn't happy about him. She is. It's just that she's used to being his almost-twin, his best friend, his accidental confident and so many other things. She's used to being the most important woman – well, a girl still – in his life and she isn't happy to be pushed aside by another girl (well, Jess is a friend and a classmate but it's the principle that matters!)

It is her most shameful secret, because she knows how unfair it is – after all, if it were fair, she wouldn't minded she and Robert being put under the same estimation, but she, in fact, does mind. Strongly.

She can't feel more proud of her parents. Her mother is often underestimated as a beautiful face, a blondie with great sexual appeal and no brains, but she is so much more than that. You need a good head to manage to take part in the Triwizard Tournament and survive, to deal with leaving your home country behind, to raise three crazy kids, while having a professional career, and a good one at that, to become a member of a family like the Weasleys, all that without going mad. Which, for the record, Fleur Delacour Weasley did.

And her Dad's scars are not horrible. Well, obviously they are, but they are not repulsively horrible. They just show how brave he is and always has been. Dominique even admires them. And if anybody at Hogwarts have a problem with that – or with anything about her family, actually – they'd better keep it for themselves. After all, she is Aunt Ginny's niece and she knows some very nasty hexes. Reference: Stephen Nott.

When she realizes that Victoire actually considers Teddy as a potential boyfriend, she is convinced that her sister has gone crazy. Why would she do such a thing, taking Teddy as her boyfriend? Doesn't she treasure what they have? Boyfriend a girl can get at every corner, but a real friend was something so rare and so much more valuable. Vickie should acquire a boyfriend – Merlin knows that she has enough guys following her like lovesick puppies – and keep Teddy as her friend.

But then she sees the way they look at each other and realizes that these two can never be friends again, not the way they have been. Still, she doesn't think it right. Maybe it's just the old jealousy, Dominique thinks with secret remorse.

But no matter what she thinks about the perspective of Teddy and Victoire being together, she can't stand the way this awful Wilkins girl keeps wrapping herself around him like ivy. Really, can't she feel that she is playing a lost game? Teddy is already Victoire's – well, at least almost. But no matter how stupid Janet Wilkins is – and Teddy does have a taste for picking up stupid girls, probably because they are more easily led to admire him because of his shapeshifting – she isn't a complete idiot and she must feel that the situation is getting out of control – or at least, out of her control. Dominique is really mad at Teddy for not dumping her directly, but trying to find a way to be gentle, as if by some miracle, one morning he would wake up blissfully Janet-free and ready to ask Victoire out. If anything, this behavior only served to strengthen her obsession with him, hence the ivy thing. She had recently started even to attend Quidditch practices, only to keep him under control. If it was up to her, Dominique would happily leave Teddy drown into the river that he has so stupidly entered – a man should act like one, after all! – but unfortunately, Victoire is involved and Dominique has recently starting to realize that Vickie has fancied Teddy forever, no matter how strange it sounds to her young ears. So, she takes measures by slipping an almost harmless laxative potion in Wilkins' pumpkin juice. When, after being forced to excuse herself and leave the common room for three times in a row in less than an hour, she finally goes to her dorm for a rest and Teddy immediately grabs his chance to take Victoire outside for a walk. About two hours later, they return beaming. Not that Dominique has spied on them, of course.

She is a little ashamed of what she did to Janet Wilkins and wouldn't like for anyone to know about this, but generally, it is a thing that she quite enjoys. If it had been up to her, she would have snatched the guy right out of the obsessive bird, but unfortunately, Victoire isn't the type to act cruelly even when she needed to, and Teddy is not the one to upset women. Even when it is for the best of everyone. Even when they are obsessive and feather-brained.

Years later, Dominique will say that adores children and especially Victoire's children. It's true – she has adored them ever since her newborn Metamorphmagus nephew was first placed in her arms and he opened his eyes and purred contentedly, his hair changing to gentle green in the process. But she is so happy, she always adds, that the whole baby mess is not in her house. It's just too noisy and too responsible for her to deal with.

During the seven long years of waiting and examinations, the results of which are so delightfully normal, showing that in theory, there aren't any obstacles for conception, but in practice, it doesn't happen, she would give everything for having such a mess in her home.

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So? Am I forgiven for not updating sooner? Tell me!