Notes: Cheesier than your cheeseboard, with the title courtesy of the one and only Mariah. It's getting festive up in here...
Make My Wish Come True | Teddy/Victoire
Very carefully, Victoire hid the mirror inside her (brand new) Weasley jumper and crept down the stairs. She went as quietly as she could, not wanting to drawn any attention to herself. There was, after all, only one thing worse than being pathetic, and that was being caught being pathetic by your younger sister. Again.
"Victoire?" She winced.
Or being caught being pathetic by your father.
"Calling Ted again?"
"No..." she said, blushing. He gave her a look. "Maybe. Yes. It's Christmas!" she added in her defence.
Her dad laughed. "It is," he agreed. "And it's no fun being separated from your one true love at Christmastime, is it?"
"Da-ad!"
"It isn't!" he said. "The first Christmas your Mum and I were together, she came back here for Christmas, and I stayed in England with Grandma and Grandad. It was rubbish!"
"Did you vow never again to be separated on this most festive of days?" she teased.
"Well, next Christmas she spent with us because we were engaged—don't," he added, his voice turning very serious very suddenly, "get engaged by next Christmas."
"Honestly, Dad!" Victoire said shaking her head. "Do you think I'm an idiot? Ted and I are definitely going to wait until the Christmas after that, when I'm done with school!"
"Don't be so cheeky to your old father," Dad said severely. "If you're good, I might be persuaded to keep your siblings and cousins away from your grandparents' study whilst you call your boyfriend in private for five minutes."
"You're the best Dad in the world!" she said immediately. "And not, like, that old."
"Hmpf."
"Fifteen minutes?"
"Ten," he said, and held up a hand to silence her. "We're all supposed to be gathering in the dining room for the first course by twelve, and it's almost quarter to now," he said. "You have to be there—I'll need you beside me to translate. Nearly twenty years I've been married to your mother and I still can't speak a word of French..."
"That's a lie," said Victoire. "You know all the rude words, because you always tell me off for saying them!"
"What—as we used to say even back in my day—ever!"
Laughing, Victoire shut herself in her grandparents' study. It was a warm, cosy room filled with all sorts of magical trinkets, and once upon a time, she'd loved nothing more than hiding out in here with her Grandfather as he told her all about the items he'd collected over his life, or with her Grandmother, as she showed her photographs of beautiful dresses she'd worn over the years. She still liked the room, and, of course, still loved her mother's parents and their home in France with all her heart.
But this year, she'd give anything to be back in England, spending Christmas at The Burrow. They alternated Christmases at each set of grandparents', and this year, the Delacour-Weasleys were in France, visiting her mother's family. And, truly, it was lovely to see the friends and relations they only ever saw during the holidays.
But she would have exchanged them all for Ted.
Dominique said she was pathetic, but that was because Dominique had never been in love. Or, worse, been separated from her boyfriend for an entire term at school, only to be whisked off to France the night after the train had got in to Platform Nine and Three Quarters, having spent barely five minutes with him in the intervening period.
Okay, so maybe it wasn't the biggest Christmas tragedy ever. But it still felt pretty rubbish to her.
Carefully, she withdrew from the folds of the jumper the mirror that had become her best friend. Once, it had belonged to Uncle Harry's father and Godfather. It had been passed on to him, then on to Ted—and so had its partner. With the right incantations, it could be used to communicate with whoever held the other.
She tapped it with her wand and settled back. Dominique might have laughed at her for the amount of time she had spent talking to Ted on it since they'd arrived in France, but she didn't care. She could see his face and hear his voice, and that was the next best thing to having him beside her. Her own reflection dissolved, and she felt that familiar flutter in her stomach in anticipation of seeing him again.
Any minute now, the mirror would show her...a close up of someone's nostrils.
"Um..."
The mirror moved backwards, and her little cousin Lily's face was revealed. "Hello Victoire!" she bellowed. "Guess what? Santa has been!"
"Wow!" exclaimed Victoire, trying not to let her disappointment show. Her cousin was very sweet and normally, she loved having her around. But she had a very limited amount of time to talk to Ted before she had to go and join her family for Christmas lunch, and knowing how seriously the French took their food, this was an event that would take hours. If she couldn't speak to him now, it would be this evening before they saw each other... "You've been good then?"
"Of course," Lily said seriously. "Has Santa been all the way to France?"
"He has!" Victoire said. "Him and his reindeer must have been very busy last night."
"Oh good," replied Lily, looking relieved. "Teddy said that Santa didn't come to France because it was a silly country filled with silly people! And I thought you might not get any presents, and so I was very sad for you."
"No, Santa came, so we must all have been good—even Louis! But d'you who Santa doesn't come for?" Victoire asked, and Lily shook her head. "Naughty boys who tell terrible lies about French people!"
Lily's eyes went wide. "Does that mean Teddy?" she asked.
"It does," Victoire confirmed.
Lily hesitated for a moment, then burst out into gleeful laughter. "I'm going to tell him that!"
Victoire bit her lip, and made peace with saying goodbye to the last of her dignity. "Is he there now? Can I speak to him?"
Lily appeared not to have heard. "Guess what?!" she cried.
"What now?" Victoire said, trying to sound patient. The door to the study had popped open, and she saw her mother, arm-in-arm with Tante Gabrielle, making her way to the dining room. She waved at Victoire, then pointed to her watch. I know she mouthed back. She was running out of time...
"You know how we bought Mummy's scarf?" she asked.
"Yes..." Victoire said. Her cousin had been saving her pocket money since the summer to buy her mother a new scarf for Christmas, and Victoire had been roped into going with her ("Because," Lily had said, "Daddy is really really bad at clothes," and Victoire, who had seen Uncle Harry's enormous collection of nineties knitwear, was forced to agree). She had been dragged by her cousin around thirty-two shops—muggle and magical—in search of the perfect scarf, but in the end Lily had been satisfied with the first one they had seen, a beautiful red number made of the softest wool. Watching her laboriously count out the Galleons she'd saved to pay for it would have been enough to melt the hardest of hearts, and Victoire had to agree that if anyone deserved such care and attention paid to them, it was Auntie Ginny.
But right now, she was finding it very, very hard to pretend to be interested as Lily rambled on, telling the story of how she'd found it, as though Victoire hadn't been there already.
"Anyway!" Lily said, finally coming to the end of her long speech. "I gave it to Mummy this morning and she really really really really really liked it!"
"That's great, Lils," Victoire said, peering at her watch in some desperation.
"And I told her about how you came with me to get it and she said thank you very much," Lily said solemnly.
"Aww, tell her she's welcome!" replied Victoire. "Now, Lily, can you do something really important, and go and fetch Ted for a sec? I really want to talk to him, but I'm running out of time."
"Why?"
"Why what?"
"Why are you running out of time?" Lily asked.
"Because I have to go and eat Christmas dinner with all my family in two minutes, and I wanted to talk to him before then," she said.
"Oh," Lily said. "Your French family?"
"Yes," Victoire said, a touch desperately. "We do every other Christmas with them, you remember. Is he there?"
"Who?"
"Teddy!"
"Oh!" Lily said. "He gave me the mirror. Just to look after."
"That's nice," Victoire said through gritted teeth. Though young, her cousin was not normally this obtuse. "Can you find him for me?"
"I don't know," Lily replied.
Victoire bit back a scream of frustration in the knowledge that today of all days was not a good time to become the Evil Cow Cousin for Making Poor Lily Cry.
"Look, Lils," she said, "I have to go now, because we're about to start lunch." Someone knocked on the study door. "I'll be out in a second!" she called, without looking round. "But can you tell Ted that I called, and that I'll speak to him later?" she added to Lily.
Lily beamed back at her. "Tell him yourself!" she said.
"No—Lily—please—can you pass the message on? Please? I'll bring you back a special present if you do," she wheedled. She was not above bribery, it seemed.
"Tell him yourself!" Lily repeated.
"Hello," said a familiar voice from behind.
Victoire spun around with a shriek, dropping the mirror onto the sofa she was sat on. Ted was standing right where he shouldn't be: in the middle of the study of her Grandparents house in France. She gaped at him.
"Er...Merry Christmas?" he offered.
"You!" she said. "How did you get here?!"
He grinned. "Magic." She pulled a face. "I missed you," he said simply.
"I missed you, too," she replied at once.
"And because I was missing you so much, Gran had a right go at me for moping around with a face like a wet weekend—her words, not mine—and she said if it bothered me that much that you were gone, I should do something about it," he continued. "And I said that I couldn't exactly kidnap you and bring you back...and then I figured out that there was another option."
Victoire tried not to smile too much. "You mean you had this planned all holiday and you let me be all depressed about not being with you for Christmas?!"
"Not all holiday," he said. "More like over the last three days. It took a little while to organise. I wanted to be sure that Gran would be okay with me not being there—she's still going to The Burrow with Harry and Ginny and the rest—and then I had to find a Christmas Day Portkey—"
"How did you do that?!" she asked.
"I have this really great contact at the Ministry," he said. "Uncle Percy. He...maybe bent some rules a little and got me something last minute."
"You got Uncle Percy to bend the rules?!"
"Me! I helped!" came a voice from the floor. Victoire exchanged glances with Ted, then picked up the mirror. "I told Uncle Percy that Teddy really wanted to go and see you. Then I did the I-am-an-angel-and-you-should-do-whatever-I-want face that you taught me. Like this!" Lily made a face of such sweetness and light it was almost possible to believe that she wasn't the kid her older brothers had to join forces together to beat at Quidditch, pranking, and just about anything else.
Victoire laughed again. "Lily Luna Potter, when I get back, I will buy you the biggest, best Christmas present in the world," she said.
"Yay!" Lily said gleefully.
"What about me? Don't I get a present for coming here? I had to write to your parents for the address and get their permission and everything..." Ted said, quirking an eyebrow at her.
"Mum and Dad knew?" asked Victoire. "Ugh, I can't believe they've been teasing me about missing you so much. They're awful."
"Not awful enough to say no, though," he replied. "They gave permission for me to stay here until you go back in three days. So. What's my gift for sorting all this?" he asked smugly.
Victoire narrowed her eyes, but couldn't stop her smile this time. "Me," she said. "I'm your gift."
"Just as well, then, that all I want for Christmas is you."
"Ughhhhhh," groaned Victoire, but she went over and wrapped her arms around him anyway. "With moves like that, it's a good job you're so loveable."
Ted kissed her. "Do you think?"
"Ahem! No snogging in front of minors! That's me!"
Victoire exchanged looks with Teddy. "Lily," she said firmly, readying her wand. "I truly appreciate all your hard work getting Ted to me. And I do mean what I say about buying you a present as a reward. But for now—"
"Goodbye!" she and Ted said in unison, as she flicked her wand at the mirror. Her cousin vanished.
"What now?" asked Ted, as the clock began to strike twelve.
"Well, technically, lunch is served," Victoire said, and his face fell. "But...I think we can afford to be a bit late..."
"Doing what?"
"Oh, you know," she said, managing to shrug and draw closer to him in one move. "Whatever you fancy, really."
"I know exactly who I fancy," he said, and he kissed her again. And again and again and again.
It was, she reflected later, definitely one of the better Christmas presents she'd ever received.
