Victoire stood on the sidewalk of a quiet suburban street staring between two houses; wondering which door was the one she was looking for. She had only been to Whit's house once before and she hadn't realized how similar all the houses in this neighborhood actually looked. In fact, the only thing that indicated that one of these two homes was Whit's was that Victoire recognized two strange plants that sat on either side of one of houses. She had remembered looking at the same plants before, but she couldn't remember whether or not the plants had belonged to Whit's family or her neighbor.

She wiped her face and took several steps towards the house on the left. She hoped she was choosing the right one. The last thing she wanted to do was explain to someone why a distraught looking teenage girl was turning up on their door step at this time of the evening. She knocked on the red front door and waited apprehensively as she noticed bodies moving around through a nearby window. She shivered suddenly as she heard the door click and open.

"Victoire?" said Whit once she appeared on the other side of the door. "What are you…?" She looked her up and down and suddenly looked concerned. "Are you all right?"

She sniffled. "I've been better. I'm not disturbing you, am I?"

"Not really, no," she said as she stepped aside and gestured for her to enter. Victoire entered and managed to glance into the living room where she noticed Jack sitting on the sofa, wondering what was going on.

"Who is it?" said a woman's voice from some other part of the house.

"It's Victoire, Mum," Whit called back. She was still staring at Victoire.

"I didn't mean to interrupt," Victoire said, pointing towards Jack.

"What's wrong?" Whit asked with concern.

She took a deep breath. "He read the letter."

"Who read what letter?"

"Ted read the letter I wrote back around his birthday," she said. "The one telling him how I felt."

Whit's eyes went wide as she turned away and looked at the wall. "How did he find--?"

"He was over at the house," she continued. "I was cleaning out my trunk because I was packing and I had just thrown all of my things on the floor. I forgot it was in there."

Whit's eyes traveled towards the entrance of the living room where Jack had just appeared. Victoire followed her gaze.

"Everything okay?" he asked.

Whit nodded. "You go ahead and keep watching, I just need to talk to her."

"You sure?" he asked as he carefully glanced at Victoire.

"Yeah, go ahead," she said with a smile as she turned back to Victoire. "Do you want something to drink? Some juice or some water?"

Victoire nodded as Whit led her towards the kitchen. It was a bright room, almost startlingly white. Victoire found herself recoiling from light since her eyes were already sensitive from the tears.

"So, tell me again what happened," Whit said as she went about pouring a glass of orange juice for Victoire.

Victoire took a deep breath before she recounted the events that had just occurred; stopping only once to take a sip of her juice.

"And he didn't say anything?" Whit asked as they both sat at the kitchen table.

She shook her head.

"Louis was standing right there, though," she said. "What could he have said with your brother standing there?"

"Anything!" she said, gulping the rest of her juice down. "He just stared at me."

"He was probably shocked," she said reassuringly. "He probably didn't even have enough time to digest what he had read since you left so quickly."

"I've never been so embarrassed in my entire life," she muttered before putting her head down on the table.

"I'm sure everything is fine," Whit said. She reached over and grabbed Victoire's hand. "Honestly. You could probably go and talk to him right now--"

"No…" Her head shot up. "No chance. I wouldn't even be able to look at him."

"Are you just going to avoid him forever, then?"

"I can't do it forever," she mumbled, "but I sure enough can avoid him before I leave for France tomorrow."

Whit's mouth dropped. "You're going to sit on this for an entire month while you're in France?"

Victoire didn't look at her. She shrugged and nodded slowly.

"That's only going to make you crazier," Whit said just as Jack suddenly appeared in the kitchen with an empty glass.

"I'm just grabbing something to drink," he said sheepishly, as if trying to indicate he wasn't there to listen in. "Don't mind me."

"You can't sit on this for a month," Whit said.

"I can't see him right now, either," Victoire countered. "I just can't do it."

Whit watched her. "Well, you're welcome to hang out her as long as you'd like. We're watching a movie and you're more than welcome to join us."

"What's a movie?" she asked.

Jack suddenly laughed as Whit smiled. "Do you know what a muggle cinema is?" she asked. "Where they show films of actors performing various stories for people to watch?"

"I've maybe heard of it," she said in a distracted manner.

"Movies are those films," she continued before she smiled up at Jack. "We can watch them here on the telly. My dad's a nut about it. If you ask him, he'll tell you that his biggest complaint about Hogwarts once he found out he was a wizard was that he couldn't get anywhere near a cinema. So, now he just collects hundreds and hundreds of movies. It's his hobby."

"I still go to the cinema with my family when I'm home." Jack grinned. "It'll take your mind off of whatever seems to be bothering you."

"I'm all for that," Victoire said with a small smile. "You two are sure I'm not interrupting a romantic evening or something?"

"Right," Whit said sarcastically. "My mum being upstairs and coming down to check on us every half hour only adds to the romance."

"Well, I think so," Jack joked as he grabbed Whit's hand and tugged her back towards the sitting room. Victoire stood and followed, happy to at least pretend that she could focus on something besides what had happened earlier.

She never thought it would help, but she was surprised to see how much sitting around with Whit and Jack and watching a madman with an axe chop up various drunk and horny teenagers did actually take her mind off of the embarrassment of her night. She had never seen anything like it and while at first she had been disturbed that someone would even make a movie about such a horrible topic, she soon found herself enjoying the random scares. She particularly found it funny to watch Jack's reaction every time she and Whit were too scared to watch the screen.

"There are four sequels to this," Jack said as Whit currently buried her face into his chest after the brutal final scene, where the killer was decapitated by the man he had been hunting.

"What?" Victoire asked as she pulled off two couch pillows from her head that she had buried herself under.

"I said there are four sequels to this." He looked down at Whit, who was just now looking up.

"But he's dead," Victoire said, pointing at the TV. "How can there be a sequel if he's dead? They killed him!"

"That is the beauty of a horror movie," he teased with a big smile as he pulled his arm out from around Whit and stood up to retrieve the movie.

"Can we do something not so gory next time?" Whit asked.

"We've got to see the next four," he said.

"No, we don't."

"If you do, let me know," Victoire said as she glanced over to a nearby clock. "I'd like to see the other ones."

"Yes!" he said, pointing at her. "Now we have to!"

"Uggg…" Whit groaned as she stood up and stretched her arms. "What time is it?"

"Eleven-thirty," Victoire said as she, too, stood up. "I should probably go. My Portkey to France leaves at seven."

"What if...?" Whit asked as she crossed her arms and started walking her towards the door, "you get home and--"

Victoire sighed. She had already thought about Ted still being there, but she couldn't risk being late and getting in trouble. Her parents were already weary with her after what had happened at school with Colleen. She wasn't going to push them further by staying out late the night before she was supposed to leave for a foreign country. "I'll work it out."

Whit grinned. "Have fun in France. Write me if you can, and bring me back something nice."

Victoire suddenly thought of Ted asking her the same thing, but forced a smile. "I will."

"Particularly write me if anything happens," she said with a knowing look.

Victoire turned towards Jack and gave him a quick hug. "Thanks for tonight. Really." She turned to open the front door.

"We'll do it again," he said, leaning against the wall behind Whit. "We've got four more 'Axeslayer' movies ready to go."

Whit groaned as Victoire laughed and disappeared moments later with a pop. It only took a few moments before she found herself on her front lawn. It was raining now and she glanced up towards the second story of her house. It was mostly dark except for the light in her room, which she assumed no one had turned off once she had left. She took a deep breath and made a mad dash towards the house to avoid getting any wetter.

As she opened and shut the door behind her, she noticed her mother and brother first as her mother came charging towards her from the living room, looking angry. Her father and sister were still on the sofa watching what was going on. There was no sign of Ted.

"Where 'ave you been!?" Fleur yelled. "I was worried sick!"

"I went to Whit's house," Victoire said with a glance at Louis. He was staring at her apprehensively.

"That's what I thought," Dominique said from the living room, "but no one knew where she lived, so we couldn't check."

"You couldn't have owled, Vic?" Bill said from the couch. "You just stormed out and no one knew why. Then you disappeared--"

"She doesn't have an owl," Victoire said, staring around at her family. "And I'm seventeen, I'm an adult."

"No difference," her mother said, her face hard. "You still live under our roof and you will obey our rules."

Victoire made a tutting noise under her breath that she knew she shouldn't have done the second after she did it. Her mother suddenly looked livid, but her father interjected before she could yell.

"How are we supposed to trust you to run around France if we can't even trust you to tell us where you're going when you're at home?"

"You don't trust me?" she asked as she felt her temper rising.

"Vic, stop," Louis said.

"You," she began, now glaring at him, "are the last person to tell anyone to stop doing anything."

"I'm sorry I held you back from trying to do whatever you were trying to do--" he said, but Victoire didn't want to hear it.

"I'm fine," she said in an annoyed manner. "I went over to my friend's house and I'm still home before what my usual curfew is. I'm seventeen, not seven."

"Zen act like it!" Fleur yelled.

"She's had a rough night," Dominique said quietly. Victoire looked at her. She was surprised to hear support coming from the one person who usually relished in her getting scolded.

"How did she have a rough night?" Bill asked. "All I've heard was that Ted read something that made you upset, but even he said it wasn't anything worth getting upset over."

"Well, if he said it…" Victoire mumbled.

"Victoire Isabelle Weasley!" Fleur snapped. "You will not take that tone!"

She stood back and timidly avoided her mother's gaze. "Can I just go to bed, then? I just want to go to sleep and end this night."

"Vic, what happened?" Louis asked curiously, but Dominique nudged him in the side and shot him a silencing look.

"Go straight to bed," Fleur said, "and you 'ad better be completely packed. In ze morning, your attitude also better be gone, or else you can spend ze next month helping me down at ze bank."

Victoire didn't hesitate for a moment; immediately she turned up the stairs. She wished her legs could carry her faster as she reached her room and just managed to stop herself from slamming the door. She looked around at the mess in her room and, as a matter of stress relief, began pointing her wand at various items in an attempt to clean up. She pushed the papers and books into the corner of her room, while her school robes and other accessories all went straight in the closet. She was putting her letter bundles into her drawers when someone knocked on her door.

"Go away," she said before she flipped her wand around on the door and locked it without looking. Whoever it had been, they didn't knock again. However, that didn't stop her from standing there waiting to see if they would. She went to her dresser drawer and pulled out a pair of pajamas before she changed and laid down on her bed. She was just about to turn the light out when someone knocked once more.

"Go away."

"It's me," said Dominique. "Can we talk?"

"I'm really not in the mood."

"I won't bother you for long."

She stared up at the ceiling at the black spot. She rotated her wand around in her hand absently before she pointed it at the door and mumbled, "Alohomora." The door's lock turned, and Dominique let herself in.

"Hey," she said as she entered slowly. "Are you okay?"

Victoire shrugged without looking at her. Dominique edged her way towards the bed and sat tentatively on the edge. She stared at her sister. "So, he found the letter."

"Louis found it," Victoire said, still staring up at the ceiling. "Ted just read it."

"I didn't know you had kept it."

"Neither did I."

Dominique nodded. "Louis has no idea what it said. Neither do Mum and Dad."

Victoire shrugged again.

"Ted just acted like he didn't know why you got upset when Mum and Dad asked," she continued, "but he obviously did."

"Obviously."

"Vic, he waited here for two hours for you to come back. I've never seen him so preoccupied. He was barely paying attention to what Louis and I were saying to him."

Victoire said nothing.

"He wanted to talk to you."

"I didn't want to talk to him," Victoire said sharply. "I don't think I've ever been so humiliated."

"I know," Dominique said. "I told Louis off for being a prat. I mean, who does he think he is going through your things like that?" She sighed. "He feels like crap."

Victoire grinned a little, but said nothing.

"Ted only left because it started to get late," she continued. "I think he felt out of place or that he was imposing on Mum and Dad. I still think he would have stayed all night under different circumstances."

She rolled her eyes. "Right…"

"I really do. I mean, wouldn't you if you had just found out your best friend was in love with you? You'd want to talk to them--"

Victoire cringed.

"Sorry," she said, realizing that this probably wasn't the right time. It was quiet for a long moment until Dominique finally spoke again.

"You do still…?" She hesitated. "You still fancy him, right?"

Victoire kept her eyes shut and nodded. "Do you really think this would be this embarrassing if I didn't?"

Dominique nodded again and patted her sister on the leg. "Everything will be okay. We'll be in Marseilles tomorrow."

"The timing couldn't have been better."

"You're not going to talk to Ted before we leave?"

She looked at Dominique for the first time. "Between now and seven o'clock in the morning?"

"I doubt he'd care if you woke him up."

"I'm not." She sighed. "I just can't see him right now."

"Right," she said before she stood up. "Well, I'll let you get some rest. We've got to get up early." She walked towards the door and turned once more to look back at Victoire. "Night."

"Night," she mumbled as Dominique shut the door behind her. She sighed and stared up at the ceiling once more, wondering what to think. She wondered what Ted was thinking. His face had been so expressionless, so confused. It was certainly not how she had pictured that moment occurring.

She groaned as she flipped over onto her stomach and pushed her face into her pillow. Because she was stubborn, she wouldn't have peace on this matter for at least a month, and even then…then what? What would happen next?

She propped herself onto her elbow, pointed her wand at her lamp, and quickly extinguished the light in the room. She plopped back down and tucked her arms under her pillow, hoping that she would somehow find a way to fall asleep with all of this on her...

Her thought suddenly stopped as she quickly sat up in her bed. Staring into the darkness, she realized there was something was under her pillow. She fumbled for her wand and pointed it at her lamp once more. From underneath her pillow, she pulled a small piece of parchment. On it was one sentence written in Ted's all too familiar script: Have fun in France.

She read it twice and even flipped it over to see if anything was written on the other side. That was all he had written. One sentence. One sentence that he had made a point of writing and tucking under her pillow. She stared at in once more before she reached out and set it on her bedside table.

It was going to be a long month.