A/N: Hey guys here's the next chapter! I really enjoyed writing this for you, so I hope you enjoy reading it :)
This takes place in present time.
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter.
Awkward Situations
Tuesday, January 25th 2022
"A stomach ulcer?" Katie asked Victoire as she looked up to watch the starting chasers' formation on the new play they were practicing.
"Yes, I've got a regiment of three different potions to take too," Victoire replied.
"Three? For a stomach ulcer?" Katie asked surprised.
"One I take about an hour before each meal to coat my stomach so that I'll feel like eating and will be able to keep it down. While I take that, I also take a potion for about four days to kill the bacteria that's causing the ulcer, and then on the last day that I take that potion I start taking a different one to help heal the stomach lining. If I follow this regiment I should be back to normal and fully healed by Friday," Victoire explained.
"Well that's good. But you're not vomiting anymore now, right?" Katie asked with concern.
"Not yet no, thankfully," Victoire said with a small smile.
"That's good," Katie said smiling back.
"Vic's better?" a little voice asked innocently from in between Victoire and Katie.
Victoire looked down and smiled at Brogan, he had been standing in between them and holding a hand from each of them during their conversation. He'd only been able to understand a bit of it though.
"Yes, I'll take my medicine and it will make me all better," Victoire told him as she bent down to kiss the top of his head.
"Try that play again Cassano! Throw it to Gardyner this time!" Victoire heard one of the head coaches yell from his broom up in the air. The starting team was using the hoops and the air while the reserve team was sitting off to the side going through strategy and on the ground training.
"Hopefully Gardyner will be able to catch Cassano's throw this time. I don't think she could chuck that thing harder if it actually was her ex's decapitated head," Katie commented, her eyes still glued onto the chasers above them.
"Is that what's adding the extra power to her throw today?" Victoire asked having noticed during the past two days that Nadia hadn't been in the best mood.
"Yeah, she's definitely better off without him though. He was such an uppity prat when they were dating," Katie told Victoire.
Victoire wanted to say that there were probably much worse men should could have been involved with –the name of Lucy's boyfriend coming to mind- but she just lowered her voice to ask another question, "Who was she dating anyway?"
"Some reserve chaser on the Tutshill Tornados. It was the team that first drafted her as a reserve player, and they met there and played together. She was called up to their starting team and he wasn't and that's when she said he started to turn into a major tosspot. They continued to date and she said their relationship got better when she was traded here and they weren't in the same organization anymore, but I think he's always been jealous of her talent and took it out on her," Katie explained.
Victoire was a little too curious about Nadia's person life than she'd like to admit, but she put it down to the fact that she wanted to hear about somebody's –anybody who wasn't Lucy that is- relationship problems to help her ignore her own.
"Is her ex-bloke still with the Tornados?"
"Yup, still a reserve chaser too. There were rumours going around about him being called up for a game or two so that Falmouth Falcons could get a look at him because they were considering signing him to a starting spot, but I highly doubt that that will happen now that they've broken up."
"Why?" Victoire asked, thoroughly enjoying her gossip session with Katie. She didn't usually like to listen to any gossip that would have been reported on by Witch Weekly, and she usually ignored most gossip about all Quidditch players except for Xavier (she was actually making a scrapbook of sorts of any news articles he'd been in because she knew that it would embarrass him to see them in the future). However, something about hearing the gossip from Katie, and it being about someone that Victoire was actually starting to get to know, made her much more interested than she usually would have been to hear about Nadia's social life.
"They were only really considering him because he was Nadia's boyfriend. They figured someone like her wouldn't be involved with some pathetic, talentless, worm –their mistake of course- and that he should be given a shot to show what he could do."
"Does he have a lot of skill?" Victoire asked.
Katie shrugged, "He's okay when he works hard and practices, but the past few years his stats have gone down. It seems that the higher Nadia climbed in the league, the more he chose to blame his relatively low standing on other people than owning up to his own mistakes."
"Ah," Victoire said beginning to get a –probably very biased- picture of the man.
"Yes, he even used to blame her, the git."
"I take it you've never really liked him?" Victoire asked.
"Nope. His attitude reminded me too much of the many cocky yet rubbish Quidditch players I've seen who thought that they could get by in the league without actually containing much talent, and who had no plans to work for their positions."
"WILD BLUDGER!"
Both Victoire and Katie's heads snapped to the right, where they'd heard the yell come from. Clark was in the air with his hands cupped around his mouth to make his yell sound louder, while Mark sat on his broom a good five metres away looking astonished at his broken beaters bat.
"WHERE IS IT?" The coach in charge of the beaters yelled.
"IT WENT THAT WAY!" Mark and Clark yelled at the same time, both of them pointing towards the hoops at the end of the pitch where an airborne Oliver was supervising Xavier's keeping practice.
"This isn't going to be good," Katie commented as she and Victoire spotted the dark blur that was the bludger heading straight towards the Woods. Katie let go of Brogan's hand and covered his eyes with it instead.
Victoire watched aptly as Xavier spotted the bludger just in time to knock Oliver –who had had his back to the incoming bludger- away on his broom. That left Xavier in the path of the bludger, and right before it would have hit him he tipped backwards so that his body would lie horizontal on his broom. He had a little too much momentum on his movement though, and while he was able to move out of the way, causing the bludger to go whizzing over top of him, the speed of his movement knocked him off balance. His legs, which had been the only limbs still attached to his broom, slid unevenly to the side and for a moment, he fell of the side of his broom.
Xavier had been able to stop his fall by hooking his left knee on the shaft of his broom, and for a minute, he was just dangling beneath his broom, only connected by the one leg lying on the broom. Victoire had picked out his grimace of pain from where she stood across the field, and guessed that he might have jarred a muscle in his leg or maybe a ligament in his knee, in his hasty movement to keep on leg on his broom. Despite the face he had made, Xavier was able to swing himself enough to get the right momentum to pop back up on top of his broom.
He had made another face while doing so, which Oliver, who had flown over to Xavier to see if he needed help on his broom, had caught. Victoire watched the father and son duo exchange what looked like an animated set of words, before she saw the two angle their brooms down towards the ground. They landed shortly after; Mark, Clark, and another head coach flew down themselves to see the pair. A short exchange of words between Oliver and the coach this time led to Claudia being called from where she stood just off to the side of them.
Victoire and Katie shared a look. They nodded to each other and Victoire started towards the group, Katie just a little behind her because she'd stopped to pick up Brogan and carry him instead of walking at his speed. When Victoire got there, Katie hot on her heels, she heard a lot of voices all talking at once.
"I'm so sorry Wood."
"Are you alright?"
"We didn't expect the bat to break Coach."
"Yes."
"Does it hurt here?"
"No he's not."
"You don't have to do that."
"Will everyone just shut their traps and explain to me what happened?!" Katie yelled when she got there.
Everyone went silent and both Clark and Mark were looking at their Quidditch cleats instead of meeting Katie's eyes.
Oliver spoke first since he'd had the most practice with dealing with Katie's rage, "Mark's bat broke so the bludger Clark sent him went haywire. Xavier knocked me out of the way, because I had my back to it and didn't see it coming. He tweaked something trying to dodge it himself but he won't say where exactly it hurts."
"I'm fine," Xavier spoke up from where he was seated on the ground. Claudia was presently prodding Xavier's shin but Victoire knew that her poking around would travel farther north until she found where the problem was.
"Xavier Oliver Wood you will sit still and quiet until Claudia finds what is wrong with you, do you understand?" Katie asked him, one arm holding Brogan to her hip, and the other hand placed on her hip challengingly.
"Oooh, he just got middle-named," Clark whispered not-entirely-quietly to Mark.
"And you two," Katie said rounding on the beaters who were each roughly a foot and a half taller than her, "I don't care that you're out of my training jurisdiction, I'm going to give you laps for your little safety oversight. We're just going to have to wait and see how badly your stunt harmed your keeper though. The worse off he is the more laps you have to do."
"Yes, Ma'am," Clark and Mark muttered apologetically.
"Seriously Claudia I'm f- Ow!" Xavier yelled as Claudia prodded one of the muscles on the inside of his thigh.
Victoire shot Xavier a glare for his words, along with Katie, Oliver, and Claudia.
"That doesn't seem fine. No let me see how far up the injury is," Claudia said moving to place her hand even higher up Xavier's thigh.
Xavier reached out and stopped her, a blush starting to come over his face, "Okay, I'm not fine. But you don't have to keep prodding at me. I think I know what's wrong."
"What's wrong then?" his father asked him.
Xavier's face turned even redder, "I think I pulled my groin."
There was a beat of silence before Victoire heard Clark and Mark start to laugh. They quickly moved their hands up to try to muffle their laughter but they couldn't hide all of it.
"Well that's easy to fix," Claudia said in her –getting to be nauseously sounding- bright tone, "Even Victoire will be able to fix that!"
Xavier's eyes went wide, "No she will not!"
Victoire rolled her eyes and kneeled down beside Xavier, "It will be simple to fix. We just have to find out which muscle you tweaked. It could be the Sartorius, or the Adductor mangus, or the Adductor brevis, or the Adductor longus-"
"No. Seriously Vic, don't," Xavier said firmly.
Victoire's eyes narrowed, "And why not?"
His face went red again, "Well I know that to fix muscles that the magic has to be applied directly to the skin of the area over the muscle and . . ." he trailed off not wanting to complete his sentence.
Katie and Oliver both bit their lips so not to let out a laugh, "We can get Steven to heal you if Vic doing it would make you feel . . . uncomfortable Xavier."
"Steven's inside dealing with one of the reserve players. Heidi Schuler knocked heads with another chaser and he's checking her for signs of a concussion," Claudia told them.
"Well I guess we're done tiptoeing around the subject then," Victoire said giving Xavier a significant look, "Just let me heal you already."
Xavier shook his head stubbornly, "No."
Victoire sighed. She wasn't going to lie and say that it wouldn't be awkward for her to heal his pulled groin. She had rather hoped to make it through the day without any Xavier Wood nudity, partial, or full as healing a pulled groin would need. However, her job was to heal the players, not to worry about being embarrassed around Xavier, or him being embarrassed around her.
"Xavier you have a game in two days," Victoire reminded him.
"I know."
"Well then let me heal you for Merlin's sake!"
"No!"
Victoire decided she needed to point out the obvious, "It wouldn't be the first time I've seen you naked Xavier."
Xavier's face had surpassed red and was verging on a light shade of purple, "We swore never to bring that up again Weasley."
Behind her, Victoire could hear Clark and Mark whispering intently back and forth, "We were fourteen Xavier, get over it. I already have."
Before Xavier could reply, Clark spoke up, "Now Victoire, would that be because you weren't very impressed with what you saw or-"
Victoire waved her hand and sent a silencing charm in Clark's direction without looking, "It was an accident!"
"You accidently walked into the boys' changing room?" Xavier shot back sarcastically.
"Well, no. I knew I was walking into the boys changing room. But I didn't expect you to be-"
Katie interrupted their bickering because she would actually have rather not hear the rest of the story. She'd never heard it before, as it had clearly happened some time ago at Hogwarts, and she would rather not hear it now, "Xavier will you just let Vic heal you already?"
"Fine," he answered petulantly. Oliver lent down to help Xavier to his feet so he could start his trek back to the healing room in the training complex.
"Wait," Victoire said thinking quickly, "I might be able to heal it without having to go inside."
"O-kay . . ." Xavier said a little uneasily.
Victoire knelt down in front of him, ignoring Clark and Mark's sudden wolf-whistles, and she pulled out her wand. She rolled up Xavier's shorts slightly, and then took a deep breath before sliding a hand up the leg of Xavier's shorts.
He jumped a little, and then mumbled something out about Victoire's hand being cold. Victoire was going to make a comment about how she could heat it up with Veela flame if he'd prefer, but then thought better of it. Next, she felt her way up Xavier's inner thigh until she felt his muscles start to spasm in pain with her prodding.
Victoire stopped her hand's movement and silently thanked Godric Gryffindor that she didn't have to end up going higher. Victoire removed her hand, and then placed her wand tip on Xavier's inner thigh where the pulled muscle was, she muttered the spell quietly more to distract her mind from dwelling on how awkward the situation was, than for any other reason.
She withdrew her wand as soon as the spells were complete, "I put a healing spell, anti-inflammatory spell, and a cooling spell on it so that should get you through the rest of practice. If it's still bugging you after practice you should take a full anti-inflammatory potion."
"Alright," Xavier said letting go of his dad's arm and taking a hesitant step with his newly healed leg, "Thanks."
"Not as awkward as that time in fourth year, was it?" Victoire asked with a small smile on her lips.
Xavier's face went red again, "Why couldn't you just wait outside until Teddy came out of the locker room? Did you really have to barge right in?"
Victoire crossed her arms over her chest, "He told me to come find him the minute I'd made my decision on whether I wanted to join the team or not. If anyone's to blame for the whole incident it's Malcolm. He told me that Teddy was the only one in the changing room and that he wasn't doing anything but looking for a playbook he'd misplaced. How was I supposed to know that you and Teddy had actually been for a run and had planned to take showers afterwards?"
"Why would Malcolm have told you that Teddy was just looking for his playbook?" Xavier asked momentarily distracted. Back then, his cousin had known that he and Teddy had gone for a run and had planned to clean up afterwards.
"I don't know . . . but you know what? Now that I think about it he did have what could be classified as a devious looking smile on his face when he told me that I could find Teddy in the change rooms," Victoire mused.
"Hmmm," Xavier mused with her.
"Is that actually all there is to the story?" Mark asked suddenly. Victoire and Xavier jumped a little because they forgot that the beaters were near them.
"Yes."
"Well that's not as much fun as we'd hoped," Clark pouted.
Victoire rolled her eyes at his words. A minute later, the three starting players were instructed to get back into the air to finish their practice.
It was about five o'clock when Victoire got back to her flat that evening, and thanks to the potions she'd been taking to help with her stomach ulcer, she was starving and went straight to her kitchen. She pulled out a bag of baby carrots to nibble on while she made dinner. Her pot of water was almost at its boiling point when she heard a knock on the door of her flat. She went to her foyer and opened her door.
"Um, hi."
Victoire sighed. She nodded her head at her visitor and stepped aside so that she could walk in.
Lucy stepped into the flat hesitantly, and stopped in the foyer before getting to the living room. Victoire just walked around her so that she could get back to the kitchen to check on her pot of water, and gestured for her cousin to follow her.
"I wanted to talk about what happened on Sunday," Lucy said hesitantly.
Victoire wanted to pinch the bridge of her nose. She didn't want to talk maturely about what happened on Sunday. She didn't even want to sit an complain about what happened on Sunday either –she'd done enough complaining that night to Ally while they were in the apothecary looking for the potions for her ulcers. All she wanted to do was go on with her life, and pretend that it never happened.
She couldn't do that though. She was the elder cousin and therefore it was up to her to make the better, more mature choices.
"Alright, what do you want to say?"
"I want to apologize for what I said about no one else having a boyfriend. I didn't mean to encompass you in that statement and I especially didn't mean to insinuate that just because Teddy isn't here that it means that you and he don't have a relationship."
"Thank you for your apology," Victoire told her sincerely, "I'm sorry that I stormed out like I did, I was just tired and not feeling well and I didn't think that I could handle the rest of the family dinner."
Lucy frowned, "You're not being honest with me."
Victoire sighed and turned to her pot of now boiling water. She added the pasta and turned the temperature of the water down a little.
"Yes I am, I can honestly say that I accept your apology," Victoire said turning back to her younger cousin.
"That's not what I'm talking about. You wanted to leave because I brought Austin with me."
Victoire bit her lip, but then decided to lay it all out there since Lucy had asked for honesty, "What do you want me to say Lucy? You know that Pennington and I don't have the best history. How did you end up dating him anyway?"
"We ran into each other a few months ago in the lobby of the Ministry, he was there to visit a friend. He asked if I wanted to get a cup of tea with him sometime and catch up and I agreed. One date turned into two, and so on. And I know that you and Austin have a history, but don't you think that you could get over it, for me?" Lucy asked pleadingly.
"Lucy he put a love potion in my pumpkin juice when we were in our fifth year," Victoire reminded her.
"You never ended up drinking it, and Teddy beat him up because of it!" Lucy retorted, "He was a stupid, hormonal, fifteen year old, don't you think you could just let it go? It was six years ago."
"I could get over that one incident, but what about the fact that he has consistently been a prat for all the years that I've known him?" Victoire asked.
"People change Victoire! You haven't seen him since you graduated four years ago. Heck, you even get along with Colton Knott now and you always hated him more than Austin anyway!" Lucy replied.
"I do not get along with Colton Knott now!"
"Fine, but you do act civil towards him now," Lucy amended.
"For Dom's sake," Victoire clarified.
"Yes, for Dom's sake. So, don't you think that you could act civil towards Austin for my sake?"
Victoire though Lucy's request over. She wasn't asking her to get all buddy-buddy with Austin, she just wanted her to be polite to him, "I was civil to him Sunday night."
"You yelled at him about the stress-causing-ulcers-thing," Lucy pointed out.
Victoire grumbled, "Sorry, but a pet peeve of mine is people saying that something causes something else, when really it's just a correlation at most. Correlation does not equal causation."
"He's not in healing field like you Vic, he didn't know that."
"Well then if he doesn't know anything about it he shouldn't have opened his mouth and said anything."
"He was nervous Vic! It was the first time he ever met Mum and Dad, and he was meeting almost all of my family in one evening. He just wanted to sound smart and impress everyone," Lucy defended.
"Well he should have stuck to a topic that he actually knew something about. Besides, there are a lot of us but we're not that intimidating. He'd already met me, Ally, Dom, and Molly before anyway," Victoire reminded her.
"And you, Ally, Dom, and Molly all dislike him because of how he used to follow after you at Hogwarts. They were already biased about him, and he was afraid that they would make everyone else biased about him too. Also, our family can be very intimidating. We don't think much of it because we grew up with them but having dinner with his girlfriend's very famous family was causing Austin to be very nervous," Lucy said.
"Teddy and Xavier have made it through Sunday night dinners without sounding like total tosspots," Victoire muttered. She hadn't meant for Lucy to hear her, but since they were the only two in the room, her voice carried.
"Teddy's been a part of the family since before any of us were born. Hell, he's been a part of the family since before my mum and dad even met! And Xavier? He was around all the time growing up, and his family is famous in their own right so he knows how to deal with those feelings. Austin is an outsider, and the only people who actually knew him in our family prior to last night already hated him."
Victoire sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose, "I'll try to be civil to him from now on Lucy, but he really gets on my nerves. I mean, are you really telling me that you don't realize that he has a tendency to be very pompous and condescending?"
It was Lucy's turn to sigh, "I'm not blind to that Victoire. I know he can be a little . . . much . . . sometimes. However, the other ninety percent of the time, he's a really nice bloke and he cares about me. Not everybody can be perfect like Teddy."
"Teddy's not perfect," Victoire replied quickly.
"Really? Then name one thing he does that bugs you," Lucy challenged.
"Whenever we have garden salads he steals all my cucumber pieces."
"You hate cucumber," Lucy reminded her.
"Yeah, well . . . it would be annoying if I liked it."
"But you don't, and Teddy knows that."
"Well . . . he can be really overprotective," Victoire said blurting out the first thing that came to mind.
Lucy rolled her eyes, "Overprotective? Victoire how many times were you almost killed and kidnapped in your seventh year? If Teddy's overprotective then it's not without good reason."
Victoire couldn't argue with that kind of intelligent Ravenclaw logic, "Okay, okay, but we're not talking about Teddy and I. We're talking about Austin and you, and yes, I will admit that I don't like the idea of you dating him . . ."
Lucy opened her mouth to protest but Victoire spoke over her.
"It's not because I don't like him. I'm just worried about you. This is your first real relationship and I'm just worried that you might be over your head a little with him."
"What would make you think that?" Lucy asked crossing her arms in front of her.
"Well he is older than you-"
"By two years," Lucy interrupted, "Correct me if I'm wrong, but Teddy's two years older than you is he not?"
"And even two years," Victoire continued pretending as if she didn't hear Lucy's interruption, "Can be a lot in the terms of life experience. I'm not saying that you shouldn't date him just because he's a little older; I'm saying that you still have to be mindful of the fact that not only is he older than you are, but that he enjoys feeling like he has power over others. I don't want you to be in a situation where you're not in equal partnership with him."
Lucy looked as though she was actually considering Victoire's words, "Did you and Teddy find the two year age gap difficult?"
"At the beginning," Victoire replied honestly, "I always looked up to him and would, nine times out of ten, do what he told me to do because he was older and therefore wiser. It took us a while to figure out the right amount of give and take, but we did figure it out. You just have to keep it in mind; I don't want you to go into this relationship and be afraid to talk things out with him because you're afraid to 'rock the boat' or whatever."
"I can handle myself Vic," Lucy told her quietly.
Victoire smiled, "I know. But you're still my younger cousin and I still feel like I need to give you advice even when it's not wanted."
Lucy smiled back.
"Which brings me to the next topic. This is your first 'real' relationship, but I'm fairly certain that it's not Austin's."
Lucy sighed, "Vic, we've already had a little bit of the exes talk, I don't think-"
"And because he has," Victoire continued talking over Lucy once more, "He might be used to . . . how should I put it? A faster pace of a relationship. I just want you to know that you have a say in how . . . fast your relationship develops and that if he doesn't respect your boundaries then-"
Lucy's face went red when she realized where Victoire was taking her speech, "Oh no. No way. We are not going to have this discussion Vic."
"But I think we really should talk about-"
Lucy stuck her fingers in her ears and started backing out of the kitchen, "La la la la la I can't hear you."
Victoire frowned, "Lucy it's important that-"
"I am not having this conversation with you Vic," Lucy said firmly as she made it to the foyer.
"And why not?" Victoire asked following her.
"Because knowing you you're going to use examples and I don't want to hear about that!"
"But you need to talk to someone about-"
"Which I will," Lucy promised as she opened the door, "But it's not going to be you."
"Don't forget to be safe!" Victoire yelled out as Lucy opened the door and left her flat.
Victoire stood in the foyer and glanced down at her watch.
"If I had known that that's all it would have taken to get rid of her I would have broached that topic fifteen minutes ago."
Victoire turned back to her now empty apartment and tried to think back to what she had been doing before Lucy had showed up. She swore when she realized that she'd had a pot of pasta boiling for the last ten minutes and that she hadn't stirred it once. She ran back into her kitchen and peeked into the pot only to find that all of the pasta had congealed into one blob on the bottom of the pot. She sighed, waved her hand to empty the pot, and turned the element off. She looked back down at her watch and shrugged her shoulders.
It was five-thirty on a Tuesday night and Victoire was almost one-hundred percent certain that Dom would still be in her office at least until six. So, she figured that she'd either stop by and go out for something with her sister after she finished work, or Dom might have ordered in food to eat in her office, and that Victoire could just steal some of that. Either way, she'd made up her mind to visit her sister because they hadn't had much of a chance to talk on Sunday; she pulled out her muggle cell phone so that she could send Dom a text to tell her that she was coming to her office.
Victoire double-checked that she had turned off her oven, before leaving her flat.
"I'm here to see Dominique Weasley," Victoire said to the receptionist on the floor of the building that Dom's office was located on. She was pretty sure that it was the same woman she'd had to deal with a week ago when she came to see her sister, but it seemed that the woman didn't remember her.
"Miss Weasley is very busy tonight, may I ask who you are and what your business with her is?" the receptionist asked.
"I'm Victoire Weasley and I'm here to steal her take-away," Victoire replied with a tight smile. Dom had texted Victoire back when she'd entered the lobby and told her that she had a few containers of Chinese take-away up in her office with her.
The receptionist looked utterly puzzled and Victoire opened her mouth to say something else when she heard the sound of the elevator doors opening.
"Ahh, Victoire, pleasure as always. If you're here to see your sister you can follow me, I'm on my way to talk with her also," Colton Knott said as he stepped out of the elevator and began walking past the secretary and down the hallway. He hadn't stopped so Victoire was only able to shoot the still confused receptionist a small smile before she jogged after Colton.
"Are you actually still here? Isn't one of the perks of being the boss the ability to leave early?" Victoire asked eying the file he was holding.
"Yes, and I will be leaving very soon if I can hand this work off to your sister."
"Ah, so you're going to leave early by giving my sister your work, and then she's going to end up staying here half the night."
"No, I'm going to make sure that one of the older associates kicks her out if she stays past six-thirty. She can get scarily into her work though. Yesterday she threw her shoe at me because I interrupted her and told her to go home early when she was trying to work on a case file," Colton said with a small smile.
"What type of shoe?" Victoire asked interestedly, he must have really come in at the wrong time if Dom had dared to treat one of her precious shoes that way.
"Some scary high-heeled death-trap shoe with a bow on the front."
"Most likely."
"So . . . how are you feeling?" Colton asked her as they turned a corner to go down another hallway.
"Why?" Victoire asked giving him a suspicious look.
"Well Dominique did tell me that you were sick and found out that you have a stomach ulcer . . ."
"Seriously?" Victoire asked in disbelief, "You were gossiping about me again?"
Colton shrugged, "When we run out of small talk you come up because you are a mutual acquaintance."
"What a great way to describe our relationship," Victoire muttered as they reached the closed door to Dom's office. Colton opened it up, and ever the pure-blooded gentleman, he gestured for Victoire to go through first.
Victoire walked in and right up to the desk her younger sister was sitting behind, which was covered in a small assortment of white Chinese take-away boxes. If Victoire had been less hungry, she would have wondered why exactly Anastasia was sitting in one of the chairs across from Dom's desk and what they were talking about when she'd walked in. As it were, Victoire's first concern was taking the container of food and fork out of her sister's offering hands.
"What if I was going to eat that?" Dom asked as she raised a perfectly plucked eyebrow.
"Well," Victoire said stabbing some noodles onto her fork, "You were obviously gossiping with Colton about my illness, so my stealing your food is just payback."
"Oh how are you feeling Victoire?" Anastasia asked from her seat to her right.
Victoire fell back into the other seat in front of Dom's desk, container in hand, "Was she gossiping with you too?"
Anastasia shrugged her shoulders, "I've been waiting here for about twenty minutes waiting for Colton to come and meet me. We're supposed to have dinner with my parents in fifteen minutes."
"And we will leave as soon as I hand over this very important file into Dominique's very competent hands," Colton said dropping a kiss to his wife's forehead.
Dom held out her hand to accept the file from Colton, "You could have given me the file like an hour ago."
"I needed to review it before giving it to you," Colton said holding his hand out to help Anastasia up from her seat.
"Or you were hoping that you'd find something wrong with it so you could stay here longer and miss dinner with your in-laws," Dom said perfunctorily flipping through the file.
Colton answered carefully under his wife's watchful eyes, "Of course not."
Victoire snorted into her take-away. Colton noticed and turned his attention to her, "Well your stomach must be better if you feel well enough to chow down on greasy Chinese food."
Victoire shrugged, "Potions can do wonders for tears in your stomach mucosa lining."
"Good to know," Colton said helping Anastasia into her winter coat.
Dom set the file down and opened one of the other containers of food, "So how come you came here to get some food instead of making your own?"
"Lucy came to talk about Pennington and what happened on Sunday night and distracted me," Victoire replied before stuffing more noodles and vegetables in her mouth.
Colton and Anastasia were on their way out the door when they stopped.
"Pennington?" Colton asked them.
"Yes, he and Lucy are 'dating' now," Victoire said using her hands to make air quotes.
Colton and Anastasia sat down on the couch in the corner of Dom's office, "We want to hear this."
Victoire shot the both of them an incredulous look, "Don't you have a dinner to get to?"
"They'd probably prefer to hear whatever gossip you have," Dom said taking a bite of chicken.
"Yes," Colton and Anastasia said at the same time.
Victoire leant forward and grabbed one of the still closed containers of food. She tossed it a few feet to Colton who caught it, "If you're going to stay here to listen to this I'm not going to talk over the sound of your rumbling stomach."
Colton nodded and Anastasia summoned two forks so she and he could eat out of the take-away container, "Go straight to the good parts please."
Victoire shot Dom a look, "Do you actually not find this awkward?"
Dom shrugged, "Anastasia's pretty much the only one in the office who I can stand to talk to."
"What about Leif?" Anastasia asked Dom with a sly grin.
Colton laughed, "Leif's an idiot. Dominique wouldn't be able to stand having a not-so-intelligent conversation with him."
Anastasia rolled her eyes at her husband, "I'm talking about the fact that Leif fancy's Dominique, Honey."
"Who's this Leif person?" Victoire asked twirling some noodles around her fork.
"Just another intern who works here," Dom answered.
Colton snorted, "He's only here because his father is an old friend of one of the Cunninghams."
"He barely speaks English," Dom said waving it off.
"He does too speak English, just because he attended Durmstrang doesn't mean that he can't," Anastasia replied.
"What's this Leif bloke's full name?" Victoire asked ready to make a mental note of it.
"His last name is-" Anastasia began, but Dom interrupted her.
"Don't! She only wants to know his name so she can try to get the deets on him later when she writes a letter to Konstantin Krum," Dom said.
Victoire didn't bother to deny it. That was exactly why she wanted to know the intern's name.
"You don't need to bother Krum with that Victoire. I have background checks on all of my employees in my desk," Colton told her.
Victoire's eyes lit up, "Mind if I look at it?"
"Not at all," Colton said. He looked like he was about to stand up to get it but Anastasia pulled him back down.
"Do you have a background check on me?" Dom asked him interestedly.
"Definitely, it even has a pros and cons list," Colton told her.
"What's on the cons list?" Dom asked.
"The fact that you were a Gryffindor and that your sister is a pain in the arse," Colton said shooting Victoire a charming smile.
Victoire rolled her eyes and shoved another forkful of food into her mouth. Dom started to fill Colton and Anastasia in on a brief summary of what happened during their family dinner, and Victoire watched the three interact with interest and thought: maybe people can change for the better.
A/N: So, what do we think? Did we like Vic and Lucy's heart-to-heart? Do we like Vic, Dom, Colton, and Anastasia's gossip session?
Next Update: Should be in a week unless something comes up.
Next Chapter: Will be present time and we'll see some more of Vic's work at Puddlemere, some adorableness from Brogan, Vic and Xavier have a little chat about Ally, and we get to see Puddlemere's first home game with Vic as a medi-witch. :)
Teaser for next chapter: 'There was silence for a few moments before Xavier spoke, "Do you really think that I should start dating other people?"'
Thanks to everyone who has followed, favourited, read, and especially reviewed! Also, if you want to follow me on twitter to see exactly when I update, just search for TryandTriAgain.
A very BIG thanks to:
frankieu, TheFantabulousPotterHead, Brook-Lucas-Fan-23, Infinity Lily, TheSlytherinQueenbee, no cure for crazy, givemepotter, Undersirable no.1, WizardDemonHunter, Oddliver, jeremiah123, Seher Syed, carbo21, AlwaysNevermoreForever, lovesTTA, reheni, Encypher, RoLouG, clessard, ntlpurpolia, maxie210, Imightjustwishiwasaweasley, NicoleTheSmith, Weasleygirl14, nifflerstorm17008, MuggleCreator, ChrisfromSK, zvc56, brilliant incandescence, Break This Spell666, Last Ride Of The Valkyries, and .7739.
Infinity Lily: I hope it was every thing you expected it to be
givemepotter: Victoire's ulcer wasn't full blown so she's not too bad. Some ulcers can be very bad depending on how much damage their is (if someone is vomiting blood, etc.) however most of them are easily treated with drugs, although very serious ones may need surgery. If you want to know more the Wiki page on peptic ulcers is a pretty good source.
Undersirable no.1: I hope Vic and Ally's conversation explains why Austin wasn't very knowledgeable about ulcers, as for the bonding moments, how did you feel about this one?
Oddliver: *My literal response to your review* *reads it* 'Hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!' *brother looks at me like I've lost my mind*
jeremiah123: I hope it read okay!
carbo21: Awww, t'anks *blushes*
AlwaysNevermoreForever: We will hear form Teddy, but it will be in a few chapters because we have a lot of stuff that's got to happen before that.
lovesTTA: You will see then, but we have to be patient because it will be in a few chapters.
Encypher: Don't worry, you weren't the only one who had that problem.
RoLouG: Love the rambling reviews, keep them coming ;)
clessard: Thanks for the editing note, I'll find it some other time, as for baby names let's not get into that right now. (Although the ones you suggested had lovely sentiments :)
ntlpurpolia: You're right, I definitely wouldn't make it that easy, if she was actually pregnant none of you would see it coming before I let it out. As for the word schadenfreude, I'm glad you asked. It is a German word and it's definition is 'the feeling of deriving pleasure from other people's pain/misfortune/etc.' It is a word, that now you know their is a word for it, you will use it because it perfectly explains that feeling.
Imightjustwishiwasaweasley: Thanks :)
NicoleTheSmith: She kind of already knew, but as you would have read above, Lucy rationally explained it all away.
ChrisfromSK: Gloominess? Definitely not, as vic told Katie she just has a rather simple (or not so simple) regime fo potions to take and then she'll be better in about a week.
brilliant incandescence: Good that;s the reaction I'd been going for. Did you do the snapping thing too?
Last Ride Of The Valkyries: Sorry, I started doing research for where Teddy is and I didn't pick the moon. You should have suggested it to me before ;)
Hey everyone, I hope you liked this chapter,
Please leave a review telling me what you thought of it,
Until next time, DFTBA!
P.S. Who's planning on seeing The Fault in Our Stars movie when it comes out on the 5th and 6th?