Why, hello wonderful peoples. I cannot tell you how much I loved last chapter's response. Yes, we all love Neville. How could we not? I am so happy that I have almost reached 40 reviews and I am only on my seventh chapter. Craziness, yo! Your reviews make my life!!!

This is a bit of a filler chapter so just keep that in mind.

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, yet I own this keyboard with which I can write stories to tend to my heart's desire. And yours, perhaps.



Chapter 7

Big Reveals and Bullshit

Vic POV

Two days ago, I woke up in the Hospital Wing to an interesting surprise. First, Teddy was practically attached to my hand. He was holding it tightly, not letting go. This made my heart flutter a little bit. But he was also asleep while holding my hand.

I had no recollection of how I got here, or how he got here. So I smacked the side of his sleeping head. "Teddy," I whispered. He started slightly but resumed snoring. I smacked him again, harder this time.

He groaned in protest. "Five more minutes…"

"Wake up, you nutter," I replied to his babbling. It was after I said this that his head shot up, worry in his eyes.

"Hey," he said softly. "How are you feeling?"

I felt like he was searching my eyes for some unknown answer, and suddenly, I felt extremely stupid. I wasn't even totally sure why I was there. "Confused," I answered.

"Oh, well you sort of passed out… I explained this to you last night, Vic."

"You were here last night?" I asked.

He gave a small chuckle and said, "Yeah. You were a bit out of it, I guess."

"Must've been."

Of course, after a few hints, I remembered exactly why I was there. I drank some dodgy plant juice and got myself in a mini-coma. But it sounds bloody stupid when you say it like that.

So two days later, Teddy, Wood, Lucy, and I were sitting in the common room. There were a couple other people in their armchairs, scribbling on parchment or reading books. It was Thursday afternoon and all the lessons were over for the day. Lucy was holding Quidditch tryouts that night since Teddy and I had detention the next day. But we had a few hours to relax. Since it was the end of the first week of classes, Lucy and I had very little homework to do. But Teddy and Wood, being seventh years with NEWTs coming up, had tons. They just decided not to do it.

And we were all bored out of our minds.

I was counting the number of lions in the rug. Teddy was trying to balance a quill on his nose. And Wood and Lucy seemed to be having a staring contest where blinking doesn't matter. In other words, they were just staring at each other. It was kind of creepy, really. This had been going on for about one hour. Finally, Lucy huffed and said, "Sweet Merlin, this is ridiculous!"

We were all startled by her outburst, having said nothing in the past hour. Her voice seemed unusually loud. "Huh?" Wood asked somewhat stupidly.

"It's so bloody boring!" she said. "I mean, just sitting here is draining me."

"Well what do you suggest we do?" Teddy asked her. But she slumped back down into the couch, obviously wondering the same thing.

I had an idea. "Hey, Luce. How about we play one of those Muggle card games Grandpa likes so much?"

Her face lit up. "Yeah, good idea."

"Wait, wait, wait. You want to resort to Muggle games?" Wood asked incredulously.

"It's not like we have anything better to do," I shot back. He sighed, clearly defeated.

So, Lucy ran upstairs to the dormitory to grab a deck of cards from her trunk. We all spread out on the floor when she came back down. She started shuffling the cards and dealing them out evenly.

"Okay, so Wood, I'll explain the rules to you since you don't have a Muggle-crazed relative and you don't know how to play." We all laughed. "Alright so the games called Bullshit. I deal the deck-"

"Bullshit? Who would name a game Bullshit?" Wood interrupted.

She shot him a look and said, "Shut up, Wood." He put his palms up. "Alright, as I was saying… I deal out the entire deck. It's like a bluff game. We go in order around the circle and put out the number of cards we have for that number. If you don't have any for your turn, you bluff and put down any card. If someone suspects you're lying, they say 'bullshit.' Got it?"

"Yeah, I think so." We started with the ace of clubs and moved on.

"I have one two," Lucy stated. She put her card into the pile.

"Two threes," I said. A couple of the other kids in the common room had put down their books and started watching our game. Then again, most of the girls could have just been stealing looks at Teddy.

Wood studied his cards and said, "One four."

"Two sixes," Teddy said.

"Bullshit!" I accused. He looked at me, incredulous.

"How'd you know I was lying?" I knew I was right.

"You started tapping your fingers. You always do that when you lie." And this was true.

I picked up on little things about Teddy ever since I could remember. He tapped his fingers when he lied. He pursed his lips when he got angry. And when he was disappointed, he ran a hair through his hair so harshly, I was always sure he would pull some out.

Now, after I said this, Teddy was looking at me kind of strangely. He tilted his head to the side a bit and studied me. I did everything in my power to keep me from shrinking under his gaze. Then he just shook his head and picked up the discard pile. "I guess I have no secrets from you," he said.

"As it should be," I replied. "One seven."

"One eight," Lucy continued.

"Two tens."

Wood looked down at his cards again. "Five jacks."

"Bullshit," we all called out. I shook my head and Teddy rolled his eyes.

"How did you all know that?" Wood said. Lucy sighed.

"There's only four of each number in the deck, you idiot," she explained.

"Well how was I supposed to know that?! Merlin!"

"Just pick up the bloody cards and put them in your hand."

"I'll tell you where to put them…" Wood grumbled.


"HOW COULD YOU DO THIS TO ME, LUCY?"

"I'm sorry! I didn't know I was going to get picked for captain! It just sort of happened!" Lucy said to Wood.

"But I asked you! A bunch of times! Why would you keep something like this from me!" Wood shouted.

We were at Quidditch try outs- and it was getting ugly. Lucy and I made our way to the pitch about twenty minutes earlier to see all the team hopefuls already there. One of which, being Calum Wood.

I shot an anxious look at Teddy, but he looked just as scared as me. As soon as Wood saw the Captain's badge pinned on her robe, all hell broke loose.

At first, Wood looked like he'd been slapped. Lucy just looked at him, waiting. But then, he got angry. Really angry. He started telling Lucy in hushed tones that she lied to him.

I didn't lie, she said, I just didn't tell you the truth.

Even I knew that was the wrong thing to say. Soon the hushed voices got louder and louder until they were yelling at each other.

I wasn't even sure they were making sense at all. But seeing as there were about twenty team hopefuls witnessing this, looking very scared, I started the try outs myself.

After about ten minutes, a very flushed Lucy came over, taking deep breaths and repeating a mantra of, "He'll get over it. He'll get over it."

But by the end of try outs, Wood and Lucy were not speaking to each other. At all. Sure, she'd had the decency to give him his rightful spot on the team- and Teddy and I had also kept our spots- but she was still barking angry.

Lucy and Wood rushed back up to the castle on opposite sides of the grounds. Lucy walked straight to the front doors and Wood made his way all the way to the entrance by the greenhouses where he knew he could avoid confrontation with Lucy. I had never seen either of them so mad, much less at each other. I had a raw feeling in my stomach and a lump in my throat. But I swallowed the lump and shook off my uneasiness.

But Lucy and Wood going to their neutral corners left me to walk back up to the castle with Teddy.

We talked about the try outs for a few minutes, making conversation about how Lufkin was still a great pick for Chaser and the new fourth year named Welmington had the best reflexes that we'd ever seen in a Bludger.

Finally, Teddy glanced sideways at me and said, "Well, I think he took that rather well."

I didn't have to be a genius to know he was talking about Wood. The funny feeling in my stomach came back. I realized then that I was worried about Wood and Lucy's friendship, all of our friendship. I swallowed again.

I wasn't quite sure what to say. "I guess so."

"Do you think they are going to be okay?"

"Oh, I'm sure. They just need to cool off. From what I know, Lucy is probably divulging in some new book she has and Wood's probably punching his pillow."

"I mean, I don't know how else he would have reacted," Teddy mumbled.

"Well, it's not like they are going to talk about it…" I replied.

"But shouldn't they? I mean, they don't want to pretend nothing happened."

As soon as Teddy said this, I had a flash of a few nights ago at the Quidditch pitch. We were sitting in the dew covered grass, talking. Just talking. That is, until we weren't anymore. Then Teddy had to go ruin it and he started to lean in. Our perfectly good conversation was drowned out by how loud my heart was beating in my ears and my thoughts of how his hair looked nice when it was brown. And him leaning in.

But then the next day, we just went back to routine. The best friends routine. And that's exactly what we did: we pretended nothing happened.

Something most definitely did happen.

I looked over at Teddy in the corner of my eye, wondering if he knew I was thinking about this. But he was staring intently at the ground. Were we even talking about Lucy and Wood anymore?

"Maybe she doesn't want him to think differently of her." When I said this, I heard the defensive tone in my voice. But I wasn't defending Lucy, I was defending myself.

Then Teddy stopped walking and looked me in the eyes. His stare was impassive, cold. "Maybe he was just surprised that it happened." Okay, now I was sure we weren't talking about Wood and Lucy.

I narrowed my eyes at him. "What, so you think he made a mistake?" Did Teddy think he made a mistake by almost kissing me?

But then he subconsciously started tapping his fingers on the side of his jeans. And then, quietly, he said, "I don't know."

I took one step closer to him and said, coldly,

"Bullshit."

Then I turned around and walked up to the castle doors, feeling Teddy watch me leave.

I could have been worried that Teddy lied to me, but I wasn't. He did know that he made a mistake. But what did worry me was, I didn't know the real answer. There were two possible.

Yes, he made a mistake by almost kissing me?

Or no… he didn't make a mistake at all.

--

Sorry, this chapter was kind of short. I'm really tired and am getting this up super late. And sorry if there are editing mistakes. I looked through it kinda quick.

I'd really like some feedback.