Ch4
Platform 9 ¾ was just as Victoire remembered it, swamped with steam and frantic families trying to ensure their children made it onto the train with all belongings and limbs intact.
Already in her uniform, Victoire stuck close to Bill's side, Dominique practically attaching herself to Victoire's left arm, as they dodged through the crowds, trying to find Audrey, Percy, Molly, and Lucy.
"There you are!" Bill finally called, leading his daughters in one last complicated maneuver around a rather large family saying tearful goodbyes.
"Tori!" Molly greeted, brightening up immediately and grabbing Victoire into a tight hug.
"Where are Louis and Fleur?" Audrey asked, drawing each of her nieces into a hug.
"They decided to stay at Shell Cottage, said their goodbyes this morning to make it less of a hassle here," Bill explained, greeting each of his nieces. Audrey and Percy hmm'ed in understanding.
"Are you ready to see what Hogwarts is like?" Audrey inquired, smiling gently down at Victoire and Dominique. Victoire forced out a small smile, trying to hide the twisting and turning dance her stomach had been doing all morning, tying itself into knot after knot.
"We'll make do," Dominique replied, looking around at the chaos with a raised eyebrow. Victoire elbowed her sister in the side, a firm reminder that they ought to be grateful for Hogwarts' willingness to take them in after Beauxbatons had so rudely refused their return.
A few yards behind Dominique Victoire noticed a flash of a familiar face, turning her head more out of habit than anything else to follow Teddy's movements. He embraced Andrea eagerly, her Ravenclaw blue lined robes complimenting his Hufflepuff yellow nearly as well as their matching Head Boy and Head Girl badges.
From Dominique's derisive snort, Victoire gathered that it was as obnoxious and sickening for her to watch as it was for Victoire, though likely for far different reasons. Dominique had been, for as long as her sister could remember, as uninterested in romance as a person could be.
"I'm sure they'll acclimate wonderfully," Percy's declared, drawing both Dominique and Victoire's attention back to their group just in time for their uncle to turn the conversation over to them. "Have either of you considered which house you think you'll be put in?"
"Gryffindor." Dominique replied without hesitation, her posture and tone daring anyone to further inquire why or question her decision.
Victoire sighed and inwardly rolled her eyes. The entire house system was, in her humble opinion, an outdated method that functioned based on the purposeful division of the student body and used this to turn it against itself so that it was easier for the professors and administration to manage the mass of adolescent witches and wizards. What bearing should a hat's opinion on an eleven year old's primary personality traits have on deciding a large part of their future?
"Slytherin," Victoire finally responded drily, smirking at her uncle's wide eyes and sudden inability to respond, the smirk easily turning into laughter that Molly joined as her uncle's silence wore on.
Bill's glanced at his watch, letting a relieved smile at Victoire's familiar humor unravel.
"You'd all best get on the train now," he recommended, already beginning to herd the Weasley children towards the nearest carriage "wouldn't want to accidentally miss the train."
Percy snorted, much to his daughters' and nieces' amusement, "Only an idiot could ever miss the train, Bill."
The comment spurred even more laughter, Harry, Ron, and Hermione's escapades from their school days were well known and beloved stories to the Weasley children, and served as a positive end note upon which they bid farewell to summer and their parents.
"Adieu, Papa," Victoire murmured, taking one last deep breath in her father's embrace before slipping onto the train and into the carriage that Molly and Lucy had claimed for them.
Dominique followed her sister in a few moments later, sitting close to her side and taking her sister's hand tightly as they watched the train start.
Victoire's eyes were wide, her emotions a mad mess of half fear and half excitement, as she took in the passing scenery, each second taking her closer to the absolute unknown that was starting over at a new school.
oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
Teddy had only stopped by their compartment briefly, waiting until they were drawing near to Hogwarts to peek in and instruct Victoire and Dominique on how they would be departing from the norm upon arrival.
"You'll ride up in the carriages with the rest of the second year and up students, and meet Headmistress McGonagall right before entering, she'll pull you into a side room where you'll be sorted quietly before the first years," He had told them, all cool professionalism in his crisp uniform, shiny badge, and carefully monitored expression, "any questions?"
"No, I think we've got it," came Dominique's sharp reply.
Teddy blinked at her tone, taking a small step back as his eyes flitted from person to person, finally stopping to rest on Victoire.
She turned away, looking out the window, fighting the increasingly familiar itching burn that seemed to crawl over her skin when people looked too closely at her. What scars would they see? And would they be able to see her behind all of them? Or would they just see a poorly stitched back together monster masquerading as a girl?
Teddy sighed and turned on his heel, moving back down the train.
"It's not like he's been friendly or helpful or kind to us at any other point in the past seven years," Lucy snarked, "why would we want him to start now?"
Victoire snorted, and Molly cackled.
"You can catch a carriage up with me, Dom," Lucy offered, "my friend Natalie has a sister who's a second year Gryff."
Some of the anxiety drained from Dominique's shoulders.
"That would be great, thanks Luce." The cousins bumped shoulders.
While Lucy and Dominique grabbed a carriage Victoire and Molly found another, some of Molly's fellow sixth year Ravenclaws jumping in with them.
"You doing alright, Molls?" One of the girls enquired, settling fearlessly on Molly's other side.
"Best as can be expected, considering," Molly responded, one side of her mouth quirking up. Although the girl must have felt the unusual lack of heat emanating from Molly's body from where she sat, she said nothing about it and seemed utterly unbothered, instead reaching across Molly to offer a hand to Victoire.
Victoire shook the other girl's hand hesitantly.
"I'm Abigail Kim," she introduced, her long dark hair swinging along with her smooth movements, "you must be Tori Weasley."
Victoire gave a small smile and nod.
"Oh, Molly talks about you all the time," one of the other girls spoke up, "we've all wanted to meet you for years!"
Victoire laughed, "Well I hope what you've heard has been entertaining." She and Molly shared a smirk at that, their adventures were nothing if not entertaining.
"They certainly have been," the girl said, giving a warm smile, "I'm Katherine Acker, but most people call me Kat." She had wildly curly dark hair, and dark blue eyes, with freckles smattered across the bridge of her nose and high on her forehead.
"I'm Taj," the boy leaned forward with an easy, slow smile, "and this is my twin sister Teja." They both seemed very friendly, Teja amusingly short in between the boys on her side of the carriage. She sent a hefty elbow into the other boy's side, startling him from his dazed, daydream like state.
"Oh!" He exclaimed, jumping in his seat and hastily pushing his glasses back up his nose from where they had slid down, "I'm Tomas Dominguez," he said, nearly throwing himself across the carriage to exuberantly shake Victoire's hand, "I'm most excited to be friends with a vampire and a werewolf- my mother, you know, works internationally with humanitarian organizations pushing for better treatment and improved laws for magically affected people and highly intelligent beings that are all too often lumped in with magical creatures." Tomas seemed to ramble without paying much attention to the people around him's reactions, because Victoire and Molly freezing up at the words "vampire" and "werewolf" didn't stop him at all.
"Tomas!" Teja scolded, thwacking him upside the head, "I'm so sorry for him," she apologized, "his mouth is constantly getting ahead of his mind."
"Sorry if you didn't want me to mention that," Tomas ruffled his dark hair nervously, "I just figured it out earlier and then I was saying it and I figured it might be easier to just throw it out there that we knew but, er, sorry!"
Molly gave Tomas a reassuring smile, "I think we just weren't expecting it, with how quiet our families have kept things and how the media doesn't know much." Victoire nodded, her rapid heartbeat slowing more at the realization that these people didn't seem to care much that she was a werewolf, that she was the kind of monster that haunted people's nightmares. How were they so unphased?
"Don't worry about it," Victoire ventured, trying her best at a tremulous smile, and was rewarded with the rest of the carriage beaming back at her, and Molly wrapping an arm around her shoulders to give her a squeeze.
When the carriages arrived, Molly walked her to the Headmistress and left for the Great Hall with her friends, all of them giving her well wishes for her sorting.
"How was everyone in your carriage?" Dominique popped up out of seemingly nowhere.
"They were," Victoire paused, searching for the right words, "Very interesting, and very kind." Dominique gave Victoire a fond smile.
"I'm glad."
"This way, Weasleys," McGonagall directed them, guiding them into a small room.
Dominique took a seat first, the hat sitting on her head for all of two seconds before crying out "Gryffindor".
Victoire gave her sister a shaky smile before the hat was placed on her own head.
Hmmm the voice mused.
You would do well in most houses, it can't be denied, because your greatest hurdle to face will be on the inside.
Victoire tried not to think of the pull of the moon, and how close her first turn loomed.
Then what house will you place me in? She thought.
If confronting these misheld ideas is what will make you stronger, I'll put you with others fighting the same battle, with ambition and loyalty and drive to match.
"Slytherin!" The hat proclaimed.
oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
Victoire drew Dominique in a tight hug before they slipped into the Great Hall, around the group of anxiously waiting first years, and split apart.
Victoire felt the curious eyes of the hall on her, and the whispers that erupted as she drew close to the table at which sat students similarly garbed as her, in silver and green.
She froze briefly, as she scanned the table for an empty seat or a mildly friendly face. A call from a few yards down caught her attention, wrenching her out of her panic.
"Oi, Weasley!" A girl with long dark hair and dark eyes in sharp contrast to the pale of her skin waved an arm enthusiastically, forcing the boy seated next to her to make room between them in self preservation.
Victoire hurried over and took the seat quickly, hearing the whispers from the other tables increase at her action.
"Thank you," she spoke quietly to the girl, fighting back an embarrassed blush at all the attention, forcing herself to keep her head high and ignore what other people were saying, ignore that infernal burning sensation creeping along her neck and back.
"I'm Becca Nott," the girl introduced, seemingly unaffected by the attention they had garnered, "I'm the only other Slytherin girl in our year."
At Victoire's look of shock, the boy at her other side spoke up.
"I'm Matt Williams," he introduced, dark corkscrew curls bouncing around his face as he turned to talk to Victoire "and there are five of us boys in Slytherin in our year. There's still a rather pervasive negative idea about our house, unfortunately, so you'll find many people are adamant about not being sorted into it."
"Ahh," Victoire replied, still fairly bemused about the drama that surrounded the divisive housing system.
"I'm Todd Davis," the boy sitting directly across from Becca offered a hand, unphased by the Headmistress beginning her welcome back speech, "I'm on our Quidditch team, and we've got quite a few open positions this year, if you play?"
"I do," Victoire admitted, "chaser."
"Perfect!" Todd declared.
"'M Henry Ellis," the boy sitting across from Victoire piped up, giving a short wave before turning back to the speech, a shiny Prefect badge on his chest, matching the one on Becca's.
"And I'm Andrew Michaels," the last boy spoke up, giving a shy grin, "I'm one of the chasers for the quidditch team."
Apparently satisfied with the introductions, Becca jerked the conversation back.
"So, how does Hogwarts compare to Beauxbatons?"
As the night progressed and the conversation flowed on, Victoire found herself settling down and feeling more hopeful than she had in a long time. Hopeful that, perhaps, she could find some peace here, with these people who didn't ask too many questions about what had happened to her or what was wrong.