If there was one thing that Victoire just could not tolerate, it was bullies, which was ironic since she often bordered on being a bully herself. She liked to justify it as being completely necessary considering who she was dealing with. Victoire of course said this because her only other option would be admitting that she actually had a functioning heart inside of her. And the worst kind of bully, at least in her eyes, were the older kids picking on the younger ones.
It never really occurred to Victoire that it was even possible to bully a Potter or a Weasley, she had spent her whole life surrounded by magical people trying to kiss her ass that the thought just never occurred to her. Unluckily for her younger cousin Lily, who wasn't as good as disappearing into the background as Albus was, or as tough and loud as James, she was stuck attending muggle elementary school.
Muggle children didn't know who Harry Potter was or what he had done, and they most definitely did not know about Victoire Weasley. If they had, then Lily would most assuredly not have been going home bruised and scratched. When the force of Harry Potter did not keep others away, the force of Victoire did.
Victoire had written her final exam when she got an owl from one of her parents explaining the entire situation to her. Victoire requested a few days away to be able to see her cousin in order to assess the situation before deciding to end someone. Naturally, it was granted, she had finished her year end exams so it wasn't as if there was anything that was really keeping her at Hogwarts for what remained of her days there.
Victoire left a note for Donna and Poppy before leaving for the Potter household as soon as she received the okay. It became clear that she was not the only one who was going to deal with the problem at hand as only seconds after she fell out of the fireplace in the Potter kitchen, Teddy came tumbling out after her.
"What are you doing here?" Victoire asked in surprise.
"I came to see which asshole I have to beat up for harassing my cousin, why else would I be here?" Teddy asked as he slapped at his robes to get the soot off.
"Oh good, I'll have someone for an alibi then," Victoire said before marching off through the house in search of her aunt and uncle. After yelling, "Aunt Ginny? Uncle Harry?" for five minutes, she managed to locate them in their living room.
"What's this I hear about someone bullying my dear cousin Lily?" VIctoire asked, claiming one of the soft cushioned chairs available to her. Teddy took a seat close by Victoire but without the anger that was radiating off of her in waves.
"It's nothing to worry about, we're handling it," Harry tried to assure his niece but Victoire wasn't fooled.
"Really, so that means the bullying has stopped then?" Victoire asked, crossing her arms in front of her and raising an eyebrow.
"Well, no, not yet," Harry replied.
"So then you haven't handled anything," Victoire said, and she was mildly aware of how rude she was being but she was too angry to care. There was someone out there trying to hurt her little cousin and nobody was dealing with it in a way that she approved.
"When does Lily finish school?" Teddy asked. He had taken a position next to Victoire, his arms crossed in front of him in a similar fashion.
"Pretty soon, in about an hour I should say," Ginny replied, checking her wristwatch.
"Great, we'll be picking him up this afternoon," Victoire said, and before Harry could protest Victoire's decision, she had snatched the car keys out of Harry's shirt pocket and tossed them to Teddy.
"Are you sure you don't want to be an Auror, Victoire?" Harry asked. "With reflexes like that you'd probably be one of our best."
"Of course I would be the best, I'm the best at everything, but that career is not suited for me, Teddy, let's roll," Victoire added with a sharp flick of her head towards the exit. Teddy followed Victoire without a word, the two of them walking side by side so seriously it looked as if they were going on their biggest crime bust of the decade instead of rushing to their cousins aid.
Unfortunately, their dramatic exit was ruined by the fact that Teddy had to go back to Harry and acquire an address as to what school Lily was attending.
Teddy was the one to drive all the way to Lily's school as Victoire did not know how to operate a car. It had been suggested to her by her Aunt Hermione but Victoire failed to see when in her life she would ever be unable to simply Apparate out of a situation or fly a broom if both Apparition and Floo were out of the question.
Teddy parked the car on the side of the road and he and Victoire commenced spying on the school playground to see if they could spot Lily and figure out who was picking on her. Unfortunately for the two of them, the hour they spent keeping their eyes glued to the school were in vain as nothing happened. The only people that showed up at the playground was a small group of boys closer to Victoire's age than those of the kids at school.
To Victoire, it didn't seem strange, after all, at Hogwarts, the older kids regularly mingled with the younger ones, it was hard not to considering everybody had to live with each other for ten months out of the entire year. Victoire decided to wait around for a few minutes to give Lily enough time to say goodbye to her friends before going to pick her up, she didn't want to embarrass her, not that Victoire thought she could embarrass anyone by just being present. On the contrary, she considered people quite blessed if they were in her presence, she was great.
After five minutes of waiting, Victoire decided that she had had enough. "Stay here, I'll deal with this," Victoire said to Teddy and got out of the car before he could protest.
"Remember, murder is a crime Victoire!" Teddy yelled after her, very unsubtly. His statement attracted quite a few looks from the parents on the way to pick up their kids.
Victoire passed by the group of older boys that she had seen earlier, completely ignoring the looks that they gave her as she passed by. She reached the school the same time that Lily left with her head hanging down, and her shoulders hunched, as if she was trying very hard to disappear and go unnoticed.
The last time Victoire had seen Lily, she had been bouncing all over the place, always excited to be trying new things and to hear about what Victoire had been up to. The anxious looking girl in front of her didn't look like her cousin at all, Victoire almost thought it was a Lily look alike.
"Lily?" she asked, unsurely. Lily looked up with a start and looked around to see who was calling her, and when her gaze landed on Victoire's, she paled considerably. Victoire frowned down at her now pale-as-a-sheet cousin, she should've been glad to see her, she was there to save the day, maybe set someone on fire.
"Victoire, no," Lily said before she could continue.
"You don't even know why I'm here?! You're not even wondering why I'm not at Hogwarts right now?!" Victoire exclaimed as Lily walked past her.
"It's exam time and I'm guessing you're all done yours, otherwise you wouldn't be here, and second of all, who snitched?" Lily demanded, glaring up at Victoire. Now she was beginning to act a lot more like she used to.
"I'm not telling you who snitched, I'm just here to fix the problem, who is it?" Victoire demanded.
"I'm not telling you, I can handle myself Victoire," Lily replied. Victoire rolled her eyes at Lily's turned back.
"Yeah, that's why you were walking like you'd just gotten your ass beat, because you can handle yourself, okay," Victoire said and watched as Lily reddened in the face.
"Alright Lily, whose ass are we kicking?" Teddy asked grinning, he held up his hand for a high five but Lily simply ignored him and crossed her arms instead. Teddy looked to Victoire, the grin sliding off his face, but she simply shook her head. They were just going to have to spy on Lily and watch out for who picked on her. The car back home was silent and the only thing Victoire said before Lily escaped from the car was,
"Hey Lily, you don't have to solve all of your problems on your own, I mean, look at your dad, he didn't defeat Voldemort all on his own, he had Aunt Hermione and Uncle Ron there to help him," but the only response she got from Lily to that was a slam of the door.
The next day, Victoire was back at it, except instead of leaving after she dropped off Lily at school in the morning, she and Teddy sat in the car all day, a Magnifying Charm cast on their eyes to keep a close eye on Lily whenever she was within viewing range. Victoire expected to see someone around Lily's range maybe teasing her about her hair or for causing weird stuff to happen around her, but as far as Victoire could tell, everyone liked Lily and liked being around her.
What Victoire did see, however, was the teenagers that she had seen yesterday when she had picked up Lily from school, sneak up on her until they had isolated her from her friends, and push Lily to the ground. Victoire looked around for a teacher but found no adult in sight to put an end to what she was seeing.
Lily wasn't going down without a fight, that much was obvious, she tried to get up and but she was simply pushed back down, and although Victoire couldn't hear what the teenagers were saying, she was fairly certain it wasn't anything pleasant judging from the jeering looks on their faces and how red Lily was turning. Her friends couldn't do anything although they sure looked like they wanted to, and judging by the terrified looks in their eyes, VIctoire had a feeling they'd been dissuaded from telling any teachers about what was going on.
Victoire was ready to jump out of the car and go kick ass right there and then but Teddy stopped her before she could get herself arrested for assault and her wand snapped for breaking the Statute.
"Teddy look at what they're doing to her, I can't just sit back and watch!" Victoire yelled as she angrily pushed at the car door in an attempt to open it which had had the foresight to lock knowing how Victoire could get. "Unlock the car!"
"Victoire I'm not letting you exit this car until you've calmed down and those feathers stop sprouting from your skin," Teddy said looking down at her arms. Victoire stopped aggressively rocking the car trying to get out and began taking in deep breaths. She couldn't go out punching people if she looked like some lab experiment.
After a few minutes of silence, Victoire managed to go back to looking normal, the car covered in her feathers. "I'm okay, I'm okay, I'm calm," Victoire said, her hands clenched in her lap and her shoulders sitting near her ears.
"Victoire you're shaking," Teddy pointed out, staring at her balled up hands which were indeed shaking with anger.
"Please, for the love of any deity you wish to believe in, shut the up," Victoire growled and Teddy held up his hands in the universal sign for surrender.
The two of them sat and waited for the rest of the day, Victoire refused to be removed from their position in case Lily's situation got worse. Once the time came for Lily to be dismissed for the day, Victoire was out of the car before Teddy could blink and striding towards the school.
Victoire was just going to threaten Lily's bullies into fearing her family before Lily came out of the school and caught her at it. She waited, and sure enough, the group showed up again, probably hoping to get in another shot at Lily. Victoire scowled at them when they stared at her as they walked by. Her arms crossed in front of her chest, Victoire strode towards them. They stopped and looked her over, as people often did whenever she gave them all of their attention.
She stopped in front who she assumed was the leader of the gang and glared at him.
"Can I help you?" he asked her, going for what she assumed was supposed to be a charming grin.
"Yeah, actually, you can, I want you to stop harassing my little cousin," Victoire said sternly.
"I don't know who your cousin is."
"Yeah, you do, she was the one you were pushing around today," Victoire snapped at them, her temper spiking again. She wanted to Veela out and kick the dude in the face or maybe transfigure him into an ant and step on him, but she couldn't do that if she didn't want to be banned from the wizarding world.
"Oh, you mean the little Potter twerp," the boy said, smirking at Victoire. She slapped him across the face hard enough that it attracted the attention of some of the parents waiting for their children.
"Her name is Lily, thank you very much, and you're going to leave her alone, starting today," Victoire said. She hoped that she was provoked, she very much hoped that this boy would foolishly push her so that she could have a reason to punch him in the face.
He did not fail to deliver.
"Right, and what are you going to do if I don't?" he asked, literally speaking down at her as if she were a child.
Victoire moved so fast, the boy didn't even have time to move away from her. She gripped his face with one hand, her nails digging into both of his cheeks as she kept his face in place for a moment, and then pulled him closer. "You don't want to see what I'll do if you don't stop bullying my little cousin, and I can assure you it will be very painful for you, and do you know what the best part is?" Victoire asked, tilting her head and smiling icily. The boy in her grip shook his head.
"I'm going to be able to get away with it, stay away from my family" and Victoire let go. She turned around and was prepared to make a dramatic exit with a swing of her hair when she heard a burst of laughter behind her.
"Man, that was really good, you had me going there for a second," the boy said, pretending to wipe away tears from his eyes. Victoire was in front of the boy again before he could so much as blink and her fist was swinging, making contact with the boy's face, and then he was dropping to the ground unconscious. She turned to address the rest of his entourage, all of whom had taken several steps away from the girl practically spitting fire.
"You want to test me?" Victoire practically growled at them. And now they were taking her seriously, now they weren't laughing at her and treating her like a child. Lily's bully might have been unconscious but whoever was left could deliver the message to him just as well as she could. Every boy left standing around her shook their heads.
"The only thing worse than bullies, are bullies that pick on people smaller than them, weaker than them. Do you get some satisfaction out of it? 'Look at me beat up a defenseless ten-year-old for being different,' do you think that's cool? You think that makes you look cool? It doesn't, it makes you look pathetic. If I hear one more word about Lily getting picked on, you and I are going to have a problem, and you don't want to have a problem with me, do you understand me?" Victoire asked.
"Crystal clear," everyone muttered, avoiding eye contact with her.
"Good, then you're going to apologize to Lily, and I never want to see you around here ever again, okay?" Victoire replied, her smile sweet as syrup. The unconscious boy was escorted away by his friends while the rest stayed behind to apologize to Lily once she came out, and come out she did a few minutes after everyone had calmed down.
She first spotted Victoire and then the group of boys standing behind her. Lily's pace slowed down considerably as she approached VIctoire, who smiled down at her as if there was absolutely nothing wrong in the world.
"Uh, Victoire, what are you doing here?" Lily asked, eying her bullies warily.
"Well, I'll be going back to Hogwarts for the last few days left and I thought I'd come and see you one more time before I left again," Victoire said, throwing an arm around her and ruffling her hair.
"I think there are some people that have something to say to you," VIctoire added quietly to Lily. When the group of boys stepped forward, Lily instinctively moved closer to Victoire and took a small step behind her.
"Potter, we just wanted to say that we're sorry . . . about picking on you," the boys said quietly, glancing at Victoire as they did so. There was a moment of silence and then Victoire cleared her throat, staring at the boys intently.
"Oh, and uh, we won't be bothering you or coming around here any time soon," they added, looking down at the ground.
"Thanks," Lily said, and she grabbed Victoire's hand and led her away from the group of boys without looking back.
"Victoire I know this is all because of you," Lily said.
"I have no idea what you're talking about," Victoire insisted, raising her eyebrows innocently.
"Victoire, I've seen the looks on their faces before, that's usually how people look after you've had words with them," Lily said, looking up at her cousin with a raised eyebrow.
"Yeah, okay, I did something, so sue me," Victoire said, dropping the innocent act and shrugging.
"Thanks, Victoire," Lily said, squeezing her hand.
"No problem," Victoire replied, smiling down affectionately at her cousin.
"But you should really see a therapist about your aggression and anger problems, you don't handle things very peacefully."
"Let's not ruin the moment."
