Ch 7
"You cannot think that going on another Hogsmeade trip is a good idea, Victoire, I know you're smarter than this!" Teddy ranted, his face red and hair mussed and fluctuating in color as he ran his hand through it, pacing up and down the hallway.
"Look," Victoire tried to reason, "Molly and I can't put our lives on hold just because we were almost kidnapped one time." She rolled her eyes, calmly twisting her loose blonde waves back into a side braid as Teddy gaped.
"One time!" He spluttered, "Tori why do you think Lysander didn't come back after what happened to him this summer? Why do you think Beauxbatons refused to take you?"
Victoire furrowed her brow.
"They didn't want a werewolf attending!" She replied, glaring at Molly's relaxed expression and posture, sitting on the ground, sprawled against one of the pillars and evidently enjoying not being the focus of their Head Boy's lecture.
"That wasn't all of it," Teddy sighed, looking to the ceiling as if it held all the answers, "There were threats, warnings that the attacks were just the beginning, the first step in something bigger and worse."
Molly and Victoire shared a look of curiosity. Why hadn't they heard of this before?
"And Merlin, Victoire," Teddy looked to be near begging, "you know how badly the family freaked out when they heard about the attempt, you saw your parents' and Molly's parents' reactions when they came here to check up on you, they wouldn't want you going!" He pleaded.
"My parents don't want me to be afraid of the world!" Victoire protested, "I've spent enough time being afraid of myself, afraid of what they made me, I can't just wait and hide and fear everything outside these walls!" Teddy took a step back, his eyes wide and hair flickering a few shades paler.
Molly met her cousin's eyes with a reassuring smile, and finally stood up to direct Teddy's attention away from Victoire.
"Ted," Molly began, speaking to him with more compassion than she could ever remember, "terrible things always happen. If we stop living our lives in terror of what else could happen if we continue, Victoire and I certainly wouldn't have ever left our houses, much less come to Hogwarts after the summer we've just had."
Teddy's shoulders lowered a bit at that, his gaze losing some of its fire and hair settling to its neutral brown. Victoire absentmindedly wondered when, exactly, she had stopped thinking of pinks and blues as Teddy's normal hair color and come to accept the muddy brown instead.
"Look," Victoire sighed, "we're just going to the Hogshead for some butterbeer and then over to Honeydukes for some sweets. We'll be around plenty of other students, with our wands on us at all times, and Headmistress McGonagall has already granted us permission, however reluctantly, and said they stepped up security. You can't stop us."
The flush of pleasure Victoire received from finally stepping up and telling Teddy how it was was almost enough to outweigh the bitter bite at the back of her throat from the desperate pain in his eyes that gave way to resignation.
"In Merlin's name," he shook his head, "fine, on your own head be it. Godric knows I've never been able to get through to you, Tori."
Victoire glared, "But have you ever tried to get through to me with something worth hearing?" She shot back, pulling Molly to her side and towards the doorway.
Teddy settled at one of the desks, dropping his head in his hands as the girls left the room, silence echoing.
oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
"You know, I wouldn't have even insisted on going if not for his infernal reaction that we needed to be locked up in a tower somewhere! Obviously we won't actually go, but the fact that he was trying to tell us what to do!" Victoire ranted, Molly biting down on her lip to stop the smile that was twitching at the corner of her lips from becoming a full out grin.
"It's just like we're kids again," Molly sighed, laughing at Victoire's outraged squak of protest. "Teddy trying to keep everyone safe, you doing exactly what Teddy said not to- it's what made your friendship so interesting when we were younger, and what made his refusal to hang out with us after his first year so strange. Teddy always seemed to care too much, and then he didn't care at all."
"So what're you trying to get at?" Victoire argued from her hospital bed, still feeling faint from the full moon the night before and a rocky morning. "Teddy cared all along? Does it really matter if someone cared if they didn't show it, Molls? He blew us off for years and now suddenly wants to step back up now that everything's going downhill?"
"Of course we can't just up and forgive him like that." Molly rolled her eyes, matching Victoire's attitude with equal vigour, "But if he really wants to care, if he's going to change how he acts towards us, are you really going to hold out on giving him a second chance? This is Teddy we're talking about- your childhood best friend, Uncle Harry's godson, Teddy whose first act of accidental magic was cushioning your fall from that tree." Victoire sighed, rubbing a hand against her forehead where a headache was suddenly appearing, wrinkling her nose against an oddly sour scent her still overly sensitive from the full moon had picked up as she tried to articulate the complex idea that was forgiving Teddy Lupin.
Victoire opened her mouth to try, only to have a hand clap a cloth over her mouth, Nurse Abarca-Brown looming behind Molly as she did the same. Victoire struggled to turn around and see who was holding her down, and barely caught a glance of Andrea's face as she tried to scream, tried to fight, tried to keep her oh so heavy eyelids from closing.
And then there was darkness
oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
Victoire came back to consciousness gradually, her head pounding and dry mouth tinged with a sticky-sweet taste.
The air was cold, and Victoire could see the dimming light of dusk playing out in the sky. She could feel the tight bonds around her wrists, wrapped tightly behind her back, ankles similarly constrained. A full twelve hours at least must have passed, she judged fuzzily.
"Tori!" came an urgent whisper from her right. She turned her head, eyes widening at the sight of Lysander also bound and looking worse for wear.
His skin had greyed considerably since the last sime she had seen him in the summer, his eyes flat and hair dull, frame almost skeletal.
"Lysander?" Victoire whispered in horror, "what did they do to you?"
A sharp cackle came from somewhere outside of Victoire's line of vision, making her twist uncomfortably to look at the terrible woman who had made her as uncomfortable as possible in the Hospital Wing after full moons for nearly a year now.
"We didn't have to do anything to get him like that, darling girl," she simpered, walking closer to chuck Victoire under the chin, "all we had to do was send the right re-animated corpse after him with a grave protecting curse already imbedded in it. It promised a slow, painful death to whomever disturbed the grave and, well, with a bit of clever spellwork on my daughter's part, it was easy enough to direct its vengeance to the Scamander children. Pity we only got one." Andrea stood in the shadows, shifting uneasily throughout her mother's speech, refusing to look at the three bound figures on the ground except to meet Victoire's eyes in a single, fiery glare.
"What the bloody hell do you want with us?" Molly rasped, "You already sent magical creatures out to attack us, what more do you want? You've ruined us politically, Merlin knows we haven't progressed enough to let a vampire or werewolf into high ranking positions, and Lysander isn't going to survive that curse without some extreme help and a good dose of luck, so why take us?"
"There are whispers, whispers that can turn into profitable promises if you listen at the right windowsills," Andrea spoke up, "and after Papá's business went under last year, Mum started listening at the right windowsills. Children of certain prominent figures in the War could be targeted, bring terror and hell upon them and then deliver their corpses for a large sum."
"What is wrong with you?" Victoire burst out, staring at Andrea incredulously. "You're talking about murder!"
"I'll admit," Andrea shrugged, "that I hadn't cared much for the thought of killing Lysander, he's never been much trouble for me. But Molly? Any Weasley or Potter would've done, to be honest, because it's always been your family that's caused Teddy and I so much trouble. He would be so pliant, would play his part in my plans for our lives so perfectly if not for all of you!" She turned her glare back to Victoire, "And you most of all! You had your claws in him so deeply from the moment I met him that it took forever to break him of it- and then each time he's around you it's struggle to put him back into his place. We all have places in life- places we should be and parts we should act and you mess everything up!"
Victoire blinked, gave it a second, and blinked again.
"People aren't dolls!" Molly finally exclaimed, driving Victoire to almost hysterical laughter. Andrea flushed a deep scarlet, drawing her wand and advancing on Victoire with a snarl. Victoire watched, waited, and the moment Andrea bent down to spit something that would have surely been just as nasty as what she had already said, Victoire rocked forward, sending her own head crashing into Andrea's face. There was a satisfying thump sound, and Victoire grabbed Andrea's wand where the girl had dropped it as Andrea crashed to the ground. Victoire felt the wand bend reluctantly to her will and sent a few sloppy spells to severe her bonds, cutting herself in the process in a few places before sending a Stupefy! at Andrea's mother who had been running at them, wand out.
Victoire hastily grabbed Molly and dragged her over to Lysander who took the wand in hand, wrapping himself around the two girls best he could, each of them holding on tight as he prepared to try and apparate them.
Molly unclipped her necklace, handing Lysander the charm at the center.
"That'll apparate us right to wherever Uncle Harry is," she instructed.
"Ready?" Lysander asked, voice shaky.
"I'd rather death by apparation than by crazy murderers for their profit," Victoire shot back with a thin smile, feeling woozy with blood loss, watching Molly tense as her blood undoubtedly served as an additional temptation.
"So reassuring," Molly joked, and then they were spinning.