"What makes you think I—?" Ted began to ask Dominique, but just then, Louis and Bill appeared by his side.
"She left?" Louis asked in a surprised sounding tone. "She actually left?"
"She wouldn't have…" Bill said as he starting walking towards the side of the house in search of her. "She would have said something."
"Iz she okay?" Fleur called from the front door. "What iz 'appening?"
"That's what I'd like to know," Dominique said as she crossed her arms and stared from Ted to Louis.
Ted scanned the yard as far as his eyes would let him. Victoire had actually run off. Just like that. She'd disappeared without a moment's notice. It was essentially the worst thing she could have done after he'd read that letter. He wanted to talk to her. He needed to talk to her.
"Where would she have gone?" he asked no one in particular.
Louis shrugged as Bill returned after having circled the house. "She's nowhere."
"What do you mean?" Fleur asked once she joined them on the lawn. "She iz nowhere?"
"She must have Apparated away," Bill said with a stony expression.
"She what!?" Fleur yelled, her eyes narrowing. "She knows better zan to Apparate away wizout telling us! Where would she 'ave gone?"
"I'm guessing Whit's house," Dominique said before taking a step closer to the group. "I can't think of anywhere else she would have randomly run off to."
"Where does Whit live?" Ted asked quickly. All he needed was an address and he'd go track her down himself.
She shook her head and looked at Louis. "Do you know, Lou?"
"Why would I know?"
"I don't know. She's dating your best friend, so you might—"
He made a face. "It's never come up," he said sarcastically. "It's not as if I go on their dates with them, Nic."
She glared at him. "Don't be a prat. I said you might—"
"Stop," Fleur said, throwing a silencing look at both of her children. "I would like to know what 'appened."
Everyone looked at Ted as he stood there staring from face to face. What exactly was he supposed to tell them? Victoire had gotten upset because he had read a letter confessing her feelings for him? He didn't feel like he should have to tell anyone that. In fact, he didn't even care about telling them anything. All he wanted to do was find Victoire and talk to her.
"We were in her room talking," Louis began before all eyes shifted to him, "and I found some letter with Ted's name on it that Victoire had written him, so I gave it to him. He started reading it and Victoire went mental when she saw it. She was trying to snatch it away to the point where she was jumping on him and I had to pull her off him."
Bill and Fleur glanced at Ted, as if looking for conformation of this. He nodded his head slowly, even though he barely remembered any of what Louis had just described. The only thought he was even entertaining at the moment was what he had read in that letter.
"What was in this letter?" Bill asked. "What made her get so upset?"
"That I don't know," Louis said, looking at Ted. "Ted would know."
"It was nothing," Ted lied. He quickly looked away from Bill and settled his eyes on Dominique. She was staring at him curiously, as though she was studying his face. "It was just your run of the mill sort of letter. I don't know why she would have gotten upset."
"It 'ad to say something," Fleur said obviously.
"Do you still have it?" Louis asked.
Ted stared at him blankly. "Have what?"
"The letter."
"Oh," he said as he glanced up at the house. He did in fact still have the letter. It was currently sitting in his pocket where he had shoved it on his way down the stairs after Victoire, but there was no way he was letting anyone else see it. That was private. It had already been made less private than Victoire had ever intended it to be by him reading it. He wasn't going to further things by sharing his and her business with her entire family. "No, I think I dropped it upstairs. It could be anywhere in all of that stuff."
"This is so un-Victoire-like," Bill said before he turned towards the house. "Running off without so much as a word…"
"She 'ad better owl us," Fleur said, turning and following him. "I do not know what 'as gotten into her lately. First, stunning people at school and now…" Her voice became fainter as she and Bill distanced themselves and disappeared back into the house. Ted turned and looked around the group. Dominique was still staring at him.
Louis shrugged. "Do you think she was mad because I held her back? I was afraid I might have hurt her, but she was doing it to herself what with all that struggling."
"What?" Ted asked in a dazed tone as he continued to think about what he'd read in that letter. He didn't even know what Louis was talking about.
"When I held her back because she was going mental on you," he added. "You know? When I pulled her off you?"
Ted shook his head. "I didn't even notice."
He laughed. "How did you not notice? She was practically on top of you!"
Ted took a few steps towards the house. "I was preoccupied," he mumbled. He needed to clear his head. If he couldn't figure out where she was, he had every intention of staying here and waiting for her to return. There was no way he was letting her run off to France for a month without sorting this out.
"So, let me get this straight," Dominique said, trailing several paces behind Ted. "You found this letter," she paused for effect, "and you gave it to Ted to read?"
"Yeah," Louis said. Ted realized she was talking to him.
"And he read it," she continued. "Then Victoire got upset because he was reading it?"
"I guess so."
"And when she tried to get the letter away from him, you held her back?"
"Right."
"What was she doing when you found this letter?"
"I don't know," Louis said. "She wasn't in the room…" He stopped. "No, wait. She was in her closet. Yeah. She was in there looking for something."
They reached the house and Ted turned to see Dominique quizzically starting at her brother. "So, you were going through her stuff when you shouldn't have been?"
Louis stared back at her from the entrance hall. "She knew I was. I mean, she saw me."
"But you had no right to read her stuff."
"I didn't read anything," he said defensively. "Ted did."
"He wouldn't have read it if you hadn't given it to him!"
"I didn't know he wasn't supposed to!"
"Even if he was supposed to," she said, her eyes flashing in a way that reminded Ted of Victoire's when she was mad, "that's not your call to make, Louis."
Louis stared at her as though she was insane. "Why do you even care? You're acting like something terrible happened when even Ted said it was nothing. Right, Ted?"
Ted didn't say anything. Between his mind swimming with thoughts of Victoire's feelings being the same as his, the fact that she ran off before he could tell her this, and these two arguing, he had nothing to add.
"If Victoire wanted him to read it," Dominique said a harsh tone, "she would have given it to him herself. I mean, don't you think there's a reason it was in with all of her stuff instead of in his possession?"
"Stop acting like this is a big deal," Louis said dismissively before he turned and walked into the kitchen. "I swear, Nic, you're acting as mental as Victoire."
Ted's ear perked up at this. This actually was a big deal, and the fact that Dominique was acting as such was definitely curious. Did she have an idea about what had happened, or was she just feeling especially overprotective of Victoire? The latter seemed strange since she usually enjoyed seeing Victoire put into awkward situations. Dominique was usually the first person to claim that Victoire was overreacting to something stupid, yet here she was trying to justify her actions. It was as though she knew more than she was letting on.
"I am not acting mental," Dominique said to her brother. "I just think it's really rude for you to be so careless with someone else stuff. Maybe she didn't want him seeing that letter, because...because," she stammered as if searching for a word, "because she has her reasons."
Ted cocked his eyebrow at her. She was definitely acting like she knew something.
"Nic," Louis said as he turned around and faced her. "Look at me. It. Is. Not. A. Big. Deal. This is just Victoire being over dramatic. You and I both know how she can get."
"She would never react like this unless it was a big deal!" she practically yelled. "That's what I'm trying to tell you! You're acting like you did nothing wrong and that it's all in her head!"
"Ted, would you tell her it's nothing!" Louis said as he went over to a nearby cupboard and practically threw it open.
Once again, he didn't say anything. He was still staring at Dominique curiously. He wanted to know what she knew, if anything. She wasn't siding with Louis about how Victoire was overreacting, which meant she at least comprehended why Victoire would have gotten this upset. What did she know? Whatever it was, it seemed like more than he did at the moment.
Dominique looked back at Ted for a brief second before she took a deep breath and rounding on her brother once more. In that instant, she started rambling off something in rapid French--something all three of the Weasleys did when they were trying to convey a message to the others without non-French speakers knowing what they saying. Victoire and Dominique had frequently resulted to this as children when they were trying to keep something secret from Ted, knowing he didn't understand a word of it. He'd always hated it.
"Why are you yelling at me in French now?" Louis asked as he opened a box of crackers he retrieved from the cupboard.
She answered him in French. Her tone sharp and her expression annoyed.
"This is ridiculous," Louis said, rolling his eyes. With his mouth full, he muttered something back to her in French. What it was, it made him laugh and, in turn, made her even more annoyed.
Ted watched as they went back and forth with this for over a minute. He wasn't sure what was being said, but Dominique must have said something because suddenly Louis said, "How am I supposed to know?"
"Tu es un idiot," she muttered hastily before turning and walking out of the kitchen. Ted glanced at Louis, who was watching her go.
"I hate when you guys do that," Ted said.
"You didn't miss anything," Louis said. He closed the box of crackers he was holding and tossed it back in the counter. "She was just yelling me." He stretched. "So, are you going to hang out?"
"Uh, yeah, if I can," he said. "I kind of want to talk to Victoire and find out what's…" he hesitated, "wrong with her. You know, before you all head off for a month. Make sure she's not mad."
Louis nodded. "She'll probably be back soon. I can't see her running off for hours."
"I hope not…" Ted mumbled, his thoughts returning to the real issue at hand. Victoire fancied him. She actually fancied him. With everything that had happened, he hadn't gotten the chance to properly digest this news, but the more he thought about it, the harder it was to hide his smile. Where the hell had that come from? He hadn't even had the slightest clue that she might feel the same way about him. If he had, he would have said something sooner.
Then again, why didn't she say something to him? She'd written him that letter over two months ago at his birthday, yet she hadn't sent it. She'd sent an entirely different letter. Was there a reason? Maybe she, too, was trying to convince herself that this wasn't something she wanted to pursue. Maybe the risks were just too great. Maybe she had meant it two months ago, but now she'd managed to get over it.
He frowned as he thought of this. Was that why she hadn't wanted him to read it and why she had stormed out so quickly afterwards? The idea of that being the case made his chest hurt. To know she had felt that way, but didn't anymore, was a definite kick to his ego.
"Hey, Ted," Louis yelled from somewhere nearby, which caused Ted to snap out of his thoughts. He hadn't even realized that Louis had left the kitchen. He followed his voice to the living room, where he and Dominique were sitting and seemingly getting along well enough again to listen to a Quidditch match on the Wizard Wireless. Louis looked up at him. "Your Wasps are on."
"Oh, yeah?" Ted asked, the faint image of Nate inviting him to the match earlier that day suddenly ringing in his memory. For some reason, that seemed like ages ago.
"Yeah, they're beating the Tornadoes 190-150 right now," Dominique said lazily as she lay down on the sofa, readying herself to listen. "Though, there's no sign of the Snitch yet."
Louis plopped down on the floor, just as Ted sat on the sofa across from Dominique. His mind was far too preoccupied to concentrate on Quidditch at the moment, but listening to sound of the Quidditch announcer call the play-by-play action was a welcomed distraction. Still, he couldn't pull his thoughts away from whether or not that letter still meant what it had said. All he wanted was for Victoire to walk through that door right now so that he could ask her if—
"You're going to the World Cup, aren't you Ted?" Louis asked.
"Huh?"
"The World Cup," he repeated. "You're going, right?"
"Oh," he said, glancing out the window, "yeah."
"Are you camping with everybody?"
He turned around and looked at him. He'd heard the question, but it was almost as if he hadn't, as though he needed several extra seconds to process the information before he could answer. "I'm camping with Simon."
"Really?" asked Dominique, tilting her head in his direction.
"That's the plan right now," he said, thinking about Victoire once again. He supposed that if he could talk to her and if she did still feel the same way about him that he might change his plans around. If they worked things out, he'd go wherever she went. "But those plans might change," he added. "I might end up with you guys and everyone else. I'm not sure."
"You might?" Dominique asked with a curious grin.
He stared at her. She was acting entirely too suspicious to not know something. "Yeah, it depends."
She sat up. "What does it depend on?"
He pursed his lips. "A couple of things."
"Like?" she asked as she waved her hand around, gesturing for him to elaborate.
"Why are you asking?"
She shrugged before lying back down. "Just curious as to who"--she turned away from him and back towards the Wireless--"or rather, what, would make you change your mind."
His gaze grew instantly more intensified. He was positive that she knew exactly what this was all about now; he wanted to know what she knew. What had her sister mentioned to her? "Hey, Nicki, can I talk to you for a second?"
She looked back at him. "What's stopping you?"
He glanced at Louis. "In private."
She held his stare for a long moment before turning her head away. "In that case, no."
"No?"
She shook her head and gestured towards the Wireless. "It's a really exciting match. Aren't you a big Wasps fan?"
"I am, but," he bit his bottom lip out of frustration, "it'll just take a second."
"It never takes just a second," she said dismissively, as her father suddenly walked into the room. "Plus, I'd really hate to miss anything that may happen." She quickly looked back at Ted. "Most importantly, though," her expression and her tone softened, "it's not my place to say anything."
"Say anything about what?" Bill asked.
"Nothing," she said, returning to her normal tone. "Ted knew what it meant."
At that very moment, Louis had jumped up to cheer something that had just happened in the match, but Ted couldn't be bothered to listen. He was too busy staring at Dominique with a blank, wide-eyed expression. It wasn't her place to say? If she knew anything it was her place to say! He was torturing himself over here wondering what the hell was going on and she didn't feel as if it was her place to say anything? She had to be kidding him!
"'As Victoire owled yet?" asked Fleur as she appeared at the entrance of the room.
Bill shook his head. "Should we owl her?"
"Whit lives out east somewhere," Louis said. "By the time any owl reached her, Vic would be home. I mean, we know she'll be back by seven tomorrow morning. That's when the Portkey leaves."
"Oh, she 'ad better 'ope that she iz back far before zat!" Fleur said as she turned on her heels and marched out of the room. "Ozerwise, she will certainly not be going to France!"
"She's going to be in trouble…" Dominique mumbled under her breath.
Ted glanced out the window again. He was beginning to get annoyed. He was already annoyed with Dominique for being elusive and purposely unhelpful, and his annoyance with Victoire was only starting to build the longer she remained missing. Sure, if she walked in through that door right this moment and told him that she still meant everything she'd written, his annoyance with her would disappear in a flash. However, she wasn't doing that. She was purposely leaving him to sit here, wondering what the hell was happening. Worse yet, she had the power to make this uncertainty last upwards of a month. As much as he did fancy her, being forced to sit on this for the next month wasn't something that was going to ring in her favor.
As the night carried on, Ted continued to sit with Louis, Dominique, and Bill in their living room listening to Quidditch for the next hour and a half. Every twenty minutes or so, Fleur would walk in and ask if Victoire had owled. Upon finding out she hadn't, she would storm out of the room angrier than she had been when she walked in. As for the others, they kept attempting to engage Ted in various topics of conversation, but his mind just wasn't into it. He faked his way through as much as he could, but he couldn't keep his thoughts from drifting back to Victoire long enough to stay engaged. He also couldn't stop himself from checking out the window every three or four minutes in the hopes that he might catch a sight of her blonde head coming up the lawn towards the house. As it were--after two hours since everything had occurred, and once the Wimbourne Wasps beat the Tutshill Tornadoes 480-310--Victoire still hadn't returned. Ted was beginning to give up.
"It's almost eleven," Bill said as stood and stretched. He looked a little perturbed due to Victoire's continued absence, but he was holding up better than Fleur currently was.
Ted stood. "I should go." He hadn't even realized the time, but it was getting late and he was beginning to overstay his welcome. Even if Victoire did come home right now, they'd barely have time to talk. Particularly given her mother's foul mood.
"It was nice of you to visit," Bill offered. "I know you were waiting for Vic to come home, but—"
Ted shrugged. "What can you do?" He glanced out the window one last time out of habit and also out of blind hope that maybe this time she'd actually be there. When she wasn't, he shook his head. "I'm just going to leave her a note." He pointed up the stairs to her room. Bill nodded as if giving him permission to do so.
Ted took to the stairs and made his way Victoire's messy room, where his eyes immediately settled on the clear spot on the bed that he'd been sitting in earlier—the spot where he had read the letter. Staring at the spot made him reach into his pocket and pull out the crumbled sheet of parchment that was balled up in his fist. His annoyance suddenly grew. He couldn't believe she had run off.
He searched the room for a quill and a something to write on. Upon finding an old Potions essay of hers mixed in with the mess, he tore off the blank bottom half of it. He put his quill to the edge of the paper and suddenly realized that he had no idea what to write. What was he supposed to say? If he wrote what he was thinking, it would have probably come off as angry. Thanks for letting me sit on this for a month. I waited for you to come back, but you didn't. I'll have loads of fun spending my time wondering what the hell is going on…But hey, have fun in France anyway. As annoyed as he was, he wasn't sure he wanted to come off like that.
He thought of how he could write that he felt the same way and that he wished she hadn't run off so quickly so that he could have told her that, though, that didn't seem right either. Especially considering the looming issue as to whether she still felt the same remained. He wanted to talk to her face to face, not through all these stupid letters.
It was getting to the point where he wondered why he should bother writing anything at all, but for whatever reason, he wanted to leave her with something. Something she could think about for the rest of the month. He stared at the parchment and wrote the words: Have fun in France before setting the quill down. That was it then. She had to make the next move.
He folded the paper up and looked around the room for a place to put it so that she'd actually find it amongst this mess. He finally settled on sticking it under her pillow, and as he turned to leave, he noticed Dominique standing in the doorway watching him.
"Are you still not talking?" he asked her.
"You know it's not my place to say anything."
"It's apparently not your sister's place, either."
She smirked a little. "If you read what I think you read, then I think she said plenty already."
He crossed his arms in front of him. "You know what it said, then?"
"I know the gist of what it said," she corrected. "I never actually read it. The one time I even accidentally came across it, Vic nearly had a panic attack. She apparently didn't want anyone to see it."
"Which brings us to where we are now," he said matter-of-factly.
She took a deep breath and started at him. "For the record, I know nothing more than what you read in that letter. You can stop giving me that look."
"What look?"
"The one you've been giving me all night, like you expect me to come out and tell you everything and anything Victoire may have told me." She shifted her weight on her feet. "Look, I know I like to talk, and I love to give Victoire a hard time, but I do have loyalties sometimes. Like everything else that's ever happened between you and Victoire, I don't really want to be dragged into the middle. This is for the two of you to sort out."
"Normally, I'd agree with you," he said, "but the little matter of her going to France, where I can't talk to her, is sort of daunting."
She smirked again. "You act like she's moving there."
He sighed heavily. This was entirely more frustrating than it should be.
"Ted," she said with a serious inflection in her voice. "I'm being honest when I say I don't know anything more than you do. Victoire and I don't really talk about this sort of stuff, and when we do, we don't talk a lot about it. All I know is that she wrote you that letter and that she never gave it to you." She laughed a little. "And she's an idiot because she kept it and thus, you found it."
"Do you at least know why she never gave it to me?"
"I can tell you why I think she never did," she offered. "She probably wanted to talk to you in person."
He stared at her. "So, what am I supposed to do?"
"You're asking me?"
He reached up and rubbed his eyes. "I just don't understand why she ran off. If she wanted to talk to me in person, then why—?"
"Are you serious?" she asked. "She's got all these feelings and she's probably run a thousand different situations in her head about how she can tell you and then this happens? I would have run away, too." She paused thoughtfully. "Well, I would have beaten the bloody pulp out of Louis first, but see, that's where she and I differ."
He couldn't stop himself from smiling a little, but it quickly turned back to a more pensive expression. "I just want to know if I should even worry about this. She wrote that letter a couple of months ago. For all I know, she's over me and doesn't mean a word of it anymore."
She made a clicking noise with her tongue. "I wouldn't worry about that."
His eyes shot to hers.
She shrugged. "But I'm already poking my nose into this way more than I said I would, so just"--she turned to leave--"worry about sorting out your own feelings." She stopped and turned back to him. "That is, unless you already have."
"Are you asking me how I feel?"
"Nope," she said quickly. "I can't be bothered getting caught up in Ted and Victoire drama." She smiled. "Though, if you want to tell me…"
He made an amused noise. "No, you're right. This really should be sorted out between me and her."
She nodded as though she agreed. "It's a shame Victoire makes that so difficult, huh?"