A/N: Hi everyone, here's the latest update! We're going to see Ron's reaction to Rose dating Scorpius in this chapter, as well as a surprise from Dom at the end.

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter.


Recap: Victoire doesn't get along well with her fellow healing resident Fabius. Cecilia just admitted a few weeks ago that she was assaulted by Martell. Last chapter we found out that Rose and Scorpius have been dating for a month, and that they decided that after a month they were going to announce to everyone -especially their parents- that they are dating. Rose wrote a letter to her parents she was going to post. Teddy's case with the people in the bog involve a man named Chad Gerber who they have yet to interview about the incident because he was in the hospital being healed from an injury, Victoire was his main healer.


Caffeine and Confrontations

Monday, December 5th 2022

7:49 AM

Victoire rubbed her eyes tiredly as she wandered zombie-like out of the Dark Arts Reversal ward and into the hospital's staircase. She navigated the staircases a tad chaotically until she found the floor that held the canteen –luckily it was still relatively early morning at the hospital and nobody saw her almost go to the wrong floor two different times– and she immediately made a beeline for the area that held the coffee and tea stations. The blonde resident healer had just finished adding some milk to her extra-large Styrofoam mug of tea when she spotted a bright-eyed Spencer Green strut into the cafeteria.

He spotted her immediately and shuffled over to her, a large metal re-usable coffee mug in hand, and started chirping in her ear in a tone that a sleep-deprived Victoire thought was definitely too cheery for so early on a Monday morning.

"Hey there Cinderella! How was the all-nighter in the D. A. R. ward last night?" Spencer questioned her happily as he poured dark –slightly burnt– cafeteria coffee into his travel mug.

Victoire groaned loudly and closed her eyes because her head had started to pound from the mere mention of her most recent twenty-four hour shift, "Ugh. Don't even go there."

Her eyes were still closed, the lack of light seemed to help a bit with the sudden head-pounding, but she could still hear Spencer hum a happy tune as he ripped open what sounded like little packets of sugar. Victoire sighed again, and slowly opened her eyes. She blinked them rapidly, and her head swam a little when she realized that not only was Spencer suddenly standing around her, but that at some point their fellow healing residents Sarah, Donnie, and Cassidy had joined them as well.

Before Victoire could question herself about how long she had actually had her eyes closed –she thought it was a few seconds, but she could have actually fallen asleep for a few minutes and not noticed it– Cassidy also began asking Victoire about how her night shift in their ward went.

"Well besides watching over the one bloke who was recovering from that attack by his ex-wife, the only other patient we had was a very distressed and manic woman who came in around eleven o'clock," Victoire explained slowly. She couldn't seem to make her words come faster, so she popped open the top of her cup and took a big sip of her tea.

Cassidy nodded her head interestedly as she made herself a cup of coffee. Around them Spencer was adding more sugar to his coffee, Sarah poured herself a cup of tea, and Donnie seemed torn as he tried to decide which caffeinated beverage he wanted to have that morning to perk him up.

"What did you end up diagnosing the woman with?" Cassidy inquired.

Victoire took another gulp of her tea and pinched the bridge of her nose, "Mine and Fabius's first working theory was that she was suffering under some spell that was either making it seem as though her mind was addled, or did addle her brain. However, after a short while I realized that the much simpler and more sensible answer was that the woman was suffering from some type of Schizophrenic break."

"Well that must have been easy to treat once you got some antipsychotic drugs into her," Donnie commented as he finally decided to reach for the coffee carafe.

"It would have been," Victoire replied exhaustedly, "But since the woman had absolutely no medical history or family history of Schizophrenia, Fabius disagreed with my assessment. And since Fabius and I have only been off of our probation for a few weeks, he and I need to be in agreement when treating the same patient."

Sarah scoffed at the ridiculousness of the notion, "So what did you do? You wouldn't have let her continue with the distress of her psychotic break for the rest of the night."

"No, so I did the next best thing. I spent the next two hours showing both Fabius and Healer Seward textbooks and research papers about Schizophrenia every ten minutes until Healer Seward got fed up with me and allowed me to treat the woman with haloperidol. I'm pretty sure he only ended up agreeing to let me treat her just to shut me up, which was basically what I was going for anyway," Victoire explained.

Cassidy frowned, "I'm surprised that Healer Seward didn't consider your Schizophrenia diagnosis sooner, he's usually very thorough."

"Yeah, but he's also from a mostly magical family," Victoire reminded her.

"And the magical world is so far behind when it comes to mental health issues. Even though there's a fledgling magical mental health discipline now, healers are still very hesitant to diagnose conditions that they think that only muggles can develop," Donnie added with a bit of frustration in his tone. It was a specific and well-known pet-peeve of his when it came to magical healing disciplines.

Victoire nodded in agreement, "The problem isn't just with healing schools though, I knew exactly what anti-psychotic drugs I needed for my patient, but the two potioneers downstairs who were working the graveyard shift in the potions brewing lab looked at me like I was speaking in Hindi. Eventually they were able to find some non-expired haloperidol in the back of a cabinet, but it wasn't before I seriously considered trudging over to the closest muggle hospital and confunding someone into giving me some anti-psychotics."

"That definitely wouldn't have looked good on your record," Spencer added unhelpfully.

"I know," Victoire agreed with a sigh, "Which is why I'm glad that I didn't have to end up doing it."

She took another large gulp of tea to help wake herself up, the twenty-four hour shift was really starting to get the better of her, and she was sure that she needed the beverage just to get back home and into her bed within the next twenty minutes.

"Speaking of the poor state of magical mental health services, anyone know a good therapist that would be able to keep very confidential information about someone with a rather famous last name?" Victoire asked her colleagues seriously.

Her friends looked at her worriedly, and Spencer asked, "Is there something you'd like to talk about Victoire?"

If Victoire wasn't so tired, she probably would have rolled her eyes at them, "It's not for me, it's for a friend-"

Spencer opened his mouth again, but Victoire quickly spoke over him, "Again, it's not for me. Not that there would be a problem if it was for me, but it's not. I would appreciate any suggestions you lot could offer though, because this is an important matter to me."

"If we can think of anyone we'll let you know," Spencer answered for everyone. He glanced down at his watch, noted that everyone but Victoire was a few minutes away from their eight o'clock shift starting, and he, along with Cassidy, and Sarah wished her a good day.

Donnie was the last person to walk by her, and he waited for a moment until all of their friends were gone. He pulled out his wand, tapped a clean napkin that was sitting on top of a stack next to the clean Styrofoam cups, and handed Victoire the napkin that now had a phone number written on it.

"This is the number for an excellent therapist. She specializes in treating muggle children, adolescents, and young adults with mood and trauma disorders, but she is the best one I know, although I am biased," Donnie explained as he pointed to the number he had magiked onto the napkin.

Victoire glanced down at her napkin thoughtfully, "Both the specializations and the age range sounds perfect. Is this person a muggle, or does she just specialize in treating muggles?"

"She's a muggle, she does have a muggleborn son though, so she's somewhat familiar with magic if that would be any help in the situation," Donnie told her.

"It most definitely would. And she'll be discreet if it ends up that she does recognize the name of my friend?"

Donnie nodded, "I highly doubt that she'll know this friend of yours, but if for some reason she does, you can count on her being discreet and confidential. Not only is it her job, but she is perfectly professional, and the human embodiment of discretion."

"You think the world of this muggle therapist, don't you?" Victoire asked him with a curious smile.

Donnie chuckled, "Yes, well most people usually think very well of their mothers."

Victoire smiled back at Donnie and thanked him for his suggestion. She would definitely give her friend the number for Donnie's mother's office. She wished Donnie a good day, and when she was just about to leave the canteen she almost ran head-long into her favourite dark-haired cousin.

Ally Weasley jumped back a few feet when she found her oldest cousin standing directly in front of her, and she let out a sigh of relief that she had found who she was looking for without needing to search eight other floors.

"Victoire! Thank goodness. I need to talk to you-"

Victoire interrupted her, "Ally, I love you, but I've been running of full steam for like forty-eight hours by now, so I really just need to stop you right there. I need to go home before my head explodes, can this recap of last night's family dinner wait until after I get at least a few hours of sleep into my system?"

Ally wrung her hands together, "Listen Vic, I understand that you've been working crazy shifts and been busy with your healing research with Healer McDavid and all but I really think-"

"Ally, I'm honestly dead on my feet and my brain cannot take even one more thing to worry about right now-"

"But Victoire I really think that-"

Both cousins were then interrupted by the hasty re-entrance of Spencer Green into the canteen. He immediately went over to Victoire, handed her a note written on a piece of parchment paper, and began speaking.

"Do you remember a few weeks ago when you asked me to co-sign a letter to inquire of the muggle health ministry to look into the Milligan family's medical records?" Spencer asked his colleague.

Victoire nodded.

After her first and last visit to the Milligan's home where she found Danny with a broken ankle, she told Teddy that she was going to check into the health records of the children of the family. She asked Spencer to co-sign the letter she had to send to the muggle health ministry through the Muggle Liaison office at the ministry, since Spencer had also treated the children for an unaccountable rash they had on Hallowe'en night. Even though Victoire had sent the request in almost four weeks ago, it took a while for the slow wheels of both the magical and the muggle ministries to work, but it seemed that Victoire and Spencer finally had their answers.

She opened the already-opened note Spencer handed to her, and she skimmed the writing as her colleague summarized it for her, "It seems that someone in the muggle health ministry took pity on us, and they're willing to allow us to look at what records they have on the children in the family."

"Good, I'm glad they took our request at least somewhat seriously. When are they going to send the records over?" Victoire questioned Spencer just as her gaze landed on that particular explanation in the note.

"They're not going to send the records over, they've told us that they will have them available at the family's main hospital," Spencer enlightened, "It seems that to get the request seriously considered by the muggle ministry of health, our ministry's Muggle Liaison office created some story about us being muggle specialist doctors from some clinic that need to look at their records to help us with a diagnosis."

Victoire nodded her head again, but she pinched the bridge of her nose. The last thing she wanted to do that morning was to go to some muggle hospital and pretend to be a muggle doctor so she could look at those records, but she'd already waited almost four weeks to find out more about the Milligans and she didn't fancy waiting much longer.

"Is this muggle hospital expecting two doctors to look at these files, or would one suffice?" Victoire asked Spencer. She was done her shift for the next day at least, but Spencer was just starting his.

Spencer raised an eyebrow at her, "I'm sure one would suffice, but do you think that you could play a muggle doctor convincingly enough?"

"I think I'll be fine," Victoire waved off his concerns. She placed the note she was holding in the pocket of her healers robes, and turned to finally leave the cafeteria.

Ally, who had stayed throughout Spencer and Victoire's entire conversation, tried to follow her cousin to the stairwell, still trying to impress upon her elder cousin that she needed to talk to her. Before Ally could tell Victoire what she thought was so important for her to know, Victoire warned Ally that she was already five minutes late for her shift because she had stopped to listen to her and Spencer's conversation.

Victoire told Ally that she would call her later to talk to her once she was done at the muggle hospital, and after she had had a few hours of sleep to clear up the slight ringing noise that was starting to echo somewhere in the corner of her head whenever a noise in the background got above a certain decibel.

Ally did not look impressed with Victoire's response, but she knew better than to press her eldest cousin when she didn't want to be pressed. Especially when said cousin hadn't slept much in the last forty-eight hours. She wasn't happy about it, and she knew Victoire would be ticked later when she realized that she really did want to hear what Ally had to say that minute instead of ten hours later; but Ally kept quiet and wished her cousin good luck at the muggle hospital.


10:45 AM

Victoire's headache was progressively getting worse the longer she went without sleep. She had worked twenty-four hour shifts before, and even longer ones, without feeling quite as cruddy as she did that day. In fact, she was running on barely three hours of sleep in the last forty-eight hours. She was planning on sleeping for the majority of Saturday night to prepare for her long shift on Sunday, but she'd been asleep for about two and a half hours when she heard her mobile phone ring on her bedside table. Her first instinct was to ignore it and fall back asleep, but she forced her arm up to the nightstand and grabbed her phone. Victoire had bolted upright when she saw that she was getting a call from Louis.

Her little brother spoke rapidly when Victoire answered the call, and it only took a few minutes to grasp what he was saying. Louis had called because Cecilia was staying the night at his apartment, and was currently in the middle of an all-out panic attack. It seemed that she had had a bad dream, and had woken up hysterical. Louis decided that he needed some help, and the first person he thought to call was his big sister. Victoire high-tailed it over to her little brother's flat as soon as she could and immediately did her best to calm down her brother's distraught girlfriend. It took all night, but Victoire was finally able to calm Cecilia down long enough to get her back to sleep.

Once she was done with Cecilia –and had forced Louis to stop thanking her after the tenth time – Victoire left the flat and apparated back to hers. She spent only enough time there to shower, change into her healer's robes, and give Teddy a quick kiss goodbye before she had to leave for her twenty-four hour shift.

Asking her friends for any therapist recommendations was not a premeditated decision, but her exhaustion drove her to it. She appreciated Donnie's suggestion, and even though Cecilia never asked Victoire to find a therapist for her, the elder woman figured that the younger one would appreciate the offer.

At some point.

Eventually.

Maybe in a few years when she had a better perspective.

She decided that Cecilia could use some professional help with her trauma because she knew that the poor girl needed more help than Victoire was able to give.

Victoire's eyes felt like they were lead, and every time she blinked she knew that she was in more and more danger of never being able to open her eyes up again.

In fact, when Victoire entered a lift in the Ministry of Magic she closed her eyes, only to open them up what felt like a second later to find that she had arrived at the floor that held the Auror Department. Obviously her eyes had been closed for longer than the second that it felt like they were, and that didn't bode well for the rest of how ever much longer she had to stay awake.

Victoire stepped off of the lift and onto the floor, and she made quick work of navigating through the semi-open cubicle swarm and towards the far wall that held the private offices. She strolled right over to the office that Teddy shared with Hayden Summers, Jilly Donaldson, and Kurt Williamson, and knocked gently on the closed door.

It opened a few seconds later to the jovially smiling face of Kurt Williamson, "Hey there Victoire! Looking for me?"

He stepped aside to let her walk in as she laughingly replied, "Always Kurt."

All of the aurors were in their shared office, and Jilly and Hayden also cheerily greeted Victoire as Kurt shut the door behind her. Victoire smiled back at them, and Teddy got up from his desk and stepped forward to give Victoire a kiss on the nose.

"Hello Love. What are you doing here? I thought you'd be at home and fast asleep by now," Teddy said rubbing his hand down her back.

Victoire sighed tiredly, "That's what I thought too, but unfortunately fate seems to have other plans for me."

"You look tired," Kurt piped up helpfully.

Hayden snickered at Kurt, while Jilly rolled her eyes at her partner, "Kurt, this is exactly why you don't have a girlfriend."

"And why that woman you went out on a date with two weeks ago is ghosting you," Hayden added with a smirk.

Victoire eyed Kurt, "You told me that that date went well when you mentioned it to me last week."

Kurt shrugged his shoulders, "I thought it did."

"Well apparently it didn't," Jilly retorted.

Teddy rolled his eyes at his colleagues and rubbed his fiancée's back again, "So why is fate keeping you from getting some much deserved sleep?"

"I was just about to escape St. Mungo's today when Spencer got a message from the Muggle Liaison office. Our request to look at the muggle medical files of the Milligan children finally got through to the muggle health ministry and they told us that we could stop by a muggle hospital and look at them," Victoire explained.

Teddy nodded his head in understanding. He had been listening to Victoire complain for almost a whole month about how slow it was taking both the Magical and Muggle Ministries to work together to put through the innocent enough request.

"And I take it that you decided that you just had to go straight to the muggle hospital and go through these files immediately?" Teddy enquired knowingly.

Victoire frowned petulantly at him, "I had to go this morning! I'd already waited almost a whole bloody month for them to get back to me. No way was I going to wait for something else to come along and screw up my authorization."

"So when you said that fate is keeping you from much needed sleep, you actually meant yourself," Her fiancé asked with a sly smirk.

She slapped his arm, "I didn't come all the way down here and push my sleep schedule back even farther just so you could laugh at me."

"Then why did you come here?" Teddy questioned. He could tell by Victoire's expression that she was not in a mood to be teased any longer.

In reply, Victoire stuck her hand in her pocket, pulled out a small piece of paper, and set it on the nearest desk –which, judging by the amount of different painted ceramic mugs were on it, belonged to Hayden. She tapped the piece of paper twice with the pointer finger of her left hand, and it re-sized itself until it was back to normal size. Victoire flipped open the –now larger– file folder and pointed at the small stack of paper within.

"These are the muggle medical records of Lygia, Danny, and Davey Milligan."

Teddy pursed his lips as he looked at the moderately sized file, "Anything interesting in there?"

"At first glance all of the children seem to have normal health records; a handful of childhood illnesses and some other injuries that can all be explained away by clumsiness," Victoire said.

"And at second glance?"

Victoire pulled three pieces of paper out of the file and set them out in a line, "Lygia's file seems normal enough. However the boys, their string of clumsiness doesn't start until their mother Lauren married their step-father Clyde."

"Sounds like it may be a case of parental abuse to me," Hayden piped up. Teddy had explained the situation to them slightly. "Especially if the father seems to be the key to the injuries starting."

"It sounded like that to the muggle hospitals too, so their child protection services stepped in after the first few times and asked the children, Mrs. Milligan, and Mr. Milligan some pertinent questions," Victoire said, pulling another piece of paper out of the pile.

Teddy crossed his arm over his chest, "And what did they find?"

"While some of the injuries did seem suspicious, they couldn't find a common denominator in them. Several times when the children were injured Mr. Milligan was away on work business –children's protective services did a thorough follow-up on those times– and on other times it was Mr. Milligan that brought the children in when they were injured and seemed genuinely concerned."

Teddy frowned, "So do you think Mrs. Milligan was harming the children?"

"No, because if she was it probably would have started with the boys before she married Clyde, and it would have nothing to do with Lygia's records," Victoire disputed.

Teddy glanced back down at the file folder, "Then what do you think is happening?"

"I'm not sure yet," Victoire replied sullenly, "I feel like I'm still missing a very big piece of this puzzle."

He tossed his arm around her shoulder, pulled her to his chest, and pressed a kiss to the top of her head, "You've done more than enough for now. Go get some sleep, and you'll be able to look at this file with a clearer head some other time."

"Sounds good to me," Victoire muttered, her eyes had started to go bleary a few minutes ago and her vision was so groggy that she wasn't even able to read what was written on the wall across the room.

She collected the file, made a copy of it for Teddy, and then shrunk the file back up to put back in the pocket of her trousers.

As she did this, Hayden asked her curiously, "How'd you get the files from the hospital in the first place?"

"I pretended to be a muggle doctor."

"And they fell for it?" Kurt asked a little insultingly.

Victoire put her hands on her hips, her irritation with Kurt kept her alert for just a little longer, "I can play-act as a muggle. It's not that hard."

"We've been practicing pretending to be muggles for Christmas, so this was probably a good rehearsal run anyway," Teddy replied in an entertained tone of voice.

"It got a little dicey for a minute when one of the older nurses said that I looked too young to be a qualified doctor, but I lied about my age and used some charm to get the records from the bloke who was in control of their paper record room," Victoire admitted, her words flowing out of her mouth before she could consider how they would sound.

Hayden raised an eyebrow at Victoire, "And by charm, do you mean veela magic?"

"Maybe? I honestly can't remember. My brain's like mush right now, the two cups of tea I drank this morning doesn't seem to be helping," Victoire disclosed.

Kurt snickered, "I'd stop there if I were you, wouldn't want to admit to inadvertently using magic on a muggle, in front of a room full of aurors."

Victoire waved off his warning, "I've done worse than that and haven't gotten in trouble yet."

"Yet being the operative word," Teddy reminded her as he moved over to his desk. He opened a drawer, and rummaged through it for a moment until he pulled out a chocolate bar. He tossed it to his fiancée, and she fumbled it, the plastic wrapped bar landing on the floor.

Victoire bent over to pick it up, and she mentally berated herself for not being able to catch the airborne sweet. She used to play seeker for Merlin's sake, she should have been able to snag that out of the air with her eyes closed. If Colton Knott had been there to see her miss, she never would have been able to live it down.

She ripped the plastic off the bar and took a large bite of chocolate, "This better be laced with something that will give me the boost I need to make it to the lift and back to the flat."

"It's just caffeine and sugar, but there should be enough to give you a sugar rush," Teddy told her, "Although if you're that tired you should probably floo back to the flat instead of apparating. Wouldn't want you to splinch yourself."

Victoire swallowed another mouthful of chocolate, "I'll keep that in mind."

She had inhaled the chocolate bar in just a few minutes, so she was ready to go. She said goodbye to Teddy's partners, both Kurt and Hayden said something cheeky to her about getting a good day's sleep, and Teddy opened the door of the office with the intention of walking Victoire to the lift.

They got just two steps out of the office before Auror-in-Training O'Toole wandered up to them with two men in tow. One was middle-aged and in an impressive set of dress robes, and the other looked to be about twenty and instantly recognized Victoire.

"Healer Weasley?" Chad Gerber greeted her with surprise as he came to a stop in between Trainee O'Toole and the middle-aged man that was giving off 'lawyer' vibes.

Victoire blinked for a moment before her sleep-slowed brain could place Chad Gerber's face, "Oh, hello Mr. Gerber, how's your stomach?"

Her brain slowly started to piece together all of the facts that she knew about Chad Gerber. She had treated him on Halloween night at St. Mungo's, he had been hit with a nasty entrails expelling curse and she and a healing intern had to do quite a lot of work to keep him alive. Chad Gerber was also a person of interest in Teddy's case.

"It feels fine now, thanks to you," Chad Gerber replied, he still seemed surprised to see her, "What are you doing here?"

Victoire narrowed her eyes at him in confusion before she realized that most people didn't consider strolling into the Auror Department a daily occurrence, "I just came across some information that I thought the Auror Department might find pertinent."

She hoped the words didn't come out slurred from exhaustion like they sounded in her head.

"O'Toole, could you please take Mr. Gerber and his lawyer to interview room number two? Myself and Aurors Donaldson, Williamson, and Summers will be there shortly," Teddy told the trainee auror professionally.

O'Toole nodded and quickly began to herd Chad Gerber and his lawyer away.

When they were out of sight Victoire turned to Teddy, "I guess this is where we'll need to part. You've got a person to interrogate, and I've got a bed to pass out in."

"Interview," Teddy corrected her with a sly smile, "We're having an interview. We don't have enough evidence against him to interrogate him, so it's going to have to be a softer approach."

Victoire snorted, "He brought a lawyer with him. Obviously he knows that it's not just an interview."

"He's not stupid," Teddy agreed with a nod.

Teddy looked around them, saw that there was no one in their close vicinity, and then gave her a swift peck on the lips, "I'll see you toni-"

"CAN'T ANYBODY DO ANYTHING RIGHT HERE!?"

Victoire jumped at the yell that echoed from across the room, and her eyes were wide as she glanced quickly at Teddy, "Was that Uncle Ron?"

Teddy shrugged, unconcerned about the loud exclamation half of the Auror Department had just heard, "His nerves are a little frayed today. Which is understandable of course, considering."

Victoire blinked confusedly, "Considering what?"

"I know that I didn't get the chance to talk to you this morning, but I would have thought that Ally would have told you before you left work this morning," Teddy told her instead of explaining his comment.

She felt her brain starting to ache again, and she was wondering what Ally trying to talk to her earlier that morning had to do with Uncle Ron being angry, "I didn't have time to talk to her this morning. So just tell me what you and Ally have to do with Uncle Ron being angry."

"It's not specifically me or Ally. The whole family knows by now, except you it seems. Apparently Uncle Ron and Aunt Hermione got a letter from Rose this morning."

Victoire wasn't so tired that those words didn't cause a little bit of worry to boil in her stomach, "What's wrong with Rose?"

"Nothing, in fact she's great. She announced to her parents this morning, via letter, that she's dating Scorpius Malfoy, and that she has been for a month."

"WHY DIDN'T I GET THIS YESTERDAY WHEN IT WAS DUE?" Ron could be heard yelling from across the room again.

"RON," Harry's loud but controlled voice added to the fray, "How about we finish discussing this in an office?"

Victoire felt her headache grow, and her chances of going home and getting sleep shrivel up, "Merlin."

Teddy rubbed his hand on her shoulder, "You should get some sleep."

"Yeah," She sighed in reply, "But apparently it won't be happening anytime soon."

Victoire took a deep breath and continued, "I'm going to need to go help talk Uncle Ron down, aren't I?"

"If you think he'll listen to you, feel free," He replied.

"Ugh," She groaned, "I've got a better chance of him listening to me than Uncle Harry does."

"That's true."

Victoire had a unique relationship with her Uncle Ron. He was one of her favourite uncles, and she was closer to him than a lot of her cousins were. When she was very little, Ron was always hesitant to be around her, as he was with most little kids. For some reason, his reluctance to spend time with her made Victoire follow her uncle around even more. She became his shadow for quite a while, and even though she didn't understand it at the time, she realized that she was drawn to Ron because it was a challenge to get him to smile and laugh at her.

She squeezed Teddy's hand, told him that she'd see him later, and then turned so that she could pace across the Auror Department towards where Ron and Harry had disappeared into Ron's office.

When she got to the office that held Ron's name badge, she knocked once on the door and then opened it right up before she waited for a response. On the other side of the door she was met with an irate looking Ron, but the anger in his eyes calmed down when he realized that it was Victoire who had barged in and not some innocent trainee who was about to get the wrath of Ron.

"Victoire, what are you doing here Hon?" Harry asked in a calm tone as he watched his eldest niece enter the office and shut the door behind her.

Victoire's eyes were dry and her head was pounding, so she was brief in her reply, "I came to give Teddy a file. He just told me about Rose's good news."

"Good news?" Ron challenged.

Even to Victoire's tired brain, she could hear the heavy sarcasm.

"Rose finding someone she's romantically interested in who cares for her back; I'd say that that can most definitely be classified as good news," Victoire argued, she turned her back on her uncles momentarily so she could take a look around the medium-sized office.

Ron made a 'harumf-ing' noise and clenched his fists, "I can't believe that she just sent us a letter this morning as if that would explain everything!"

Victoire rolled her eyes, and she stopped her inspection of the office when she spotted a mostly-full mug of coffee on Ron's desk. As Ron continued to muttered under his breath angrily –she could only make out the words 'Rosie', 'that Boy', 'dating', and 'filthy paws'– Victoire picked up the mug of coffee, felt that it was still relatively warm, and then downed what was left in the cup.

"Blek," She exclaimed as she swallowed thickly in an attempt to keep the bitter drink down, "No sugar or milk Uncle Ron? Really?"

Ron was still complaining under his breath about Rose's revelation, so he didn't hear her. Harry did though, and he gave Victoire an odd look after he watched her actions.

"I needed the caffeine," Victoire explained, she swallowed gruffly again since the coffee's aftertaste was still strong in her throat.

She could feel the caffeine starting to work and wake up the blood in her veins, so she figured she'd start to talk some sense into Ron before it could wear off.

"Uncle Ron, are you really going to sit there and tell me that you've got your pants in a twist because Rose is dating Scorpius?" Victoire asked him, interrupting his angry-under-his-breath monologue.

Ron's face and hair were a bright red, and he took a deep breath and puffed his cheeks; making him look a bit like an angry chipmunk, "Of course I am! I don't want his grubby paws all over my baby girl-"

"Is there a sixteen-year-old boy whose grubby paws you would like all over your baby girl?" Victoire asked sardonically.

Her redheaded uncle blanched, "Of course not! I don't want Rose to date anybody-"

"So are you angry because Rose is dating Scorpius, or because Rose is dating someone in general?" She questioned with her hands on her hips.

Ron scowled, "I'm angry that she's been dating this boy and has been lying about it for months-"

Victoire clicked her tongue and sat down on the edge of Ron's desk, "Teddy said that Rose said that they've only been dating for one month."

"And how can I believe that? How do I know that she's not lying about this, and that he didn't convince her to lie about them being in a relationship?"

Victoire scoffed, "I can pretty much guarantee you that the person who wanted to keep their relationship a secret was most definitely Rose."

"How would you know that?" Ron asked his niece a little petulantly.

"Because earlier in the year when Scorpius was all but ready to bear his soul to her, she was dragging her heels and pretending that it never happened," Victoire explained.

Ron's eyes narrowed at her, "What do you mean 'earlier in the year'?"

"I ran into them in the library at Hogwarts and interrupted what I assume would have been their first kiss," Victoire said nonchalantly.

"What!?"

"Why were you in the Hogwarts library?"

Victoire ignored her first uncle's incredulous question, and replied to her more sensible uncle's question, "I had to get some textbooks there for my research project with Healer McDavid. Ran into the shy kids staring longingly into each other's eyes."

"Aww," Harry replied. A smile turned up the corners of his lips as he imagined the picture his niece's words painted.

Ron's eyes bugged out of his head, "Aww? No, not 'aww'. Eww. I don't need to know about someone trying to kiss my baby girl. And you'd be singing a different tune if it was Lily who was dating some sixteen-year-old punk."

"Well it's not Lily, at least not yet. And Scorpius isn't some punk, he's Al's best mate and he's a very smart, kind, and polite young man," Harry told Ron.

"If you think so highly of him why don't you let him date your kid?" Ron muttered petulantly.

Victoire snorted, "Because Al and James aren't Scorpius's type, and Lily's too young for him right now."

Ron's face went redder, "This isn't funny. I'm serious, I don't want Rose to date-"

"Anyone, you don't want Rose to date anyone," Victoire finished for him.

"Well no. I don't want her to date anyone."

Victoire smirked, "Good, we've addressed the main issue. Now, listen Uncle Ron, Rose is a sixteen-year-old girl, it's natural for her to fancy someone. The fact that she chose Scorpius just shows her excellent taste in men and judgement."

"Excellent taste?" Came Ron's incredulous tone.

"For a sixteen-year-old who's fallen in love for the first time, I'd say she's made a brilliant choice. I wish I had the good taste that she has shown, when I fell in love for the first time at fifteen," Victoire stated.

Ron frowned at her assertion, "I doubt Scorpius is that big of a catch."

"I beg to differ. He's incredibly smart, nice, athletic, clever, good-looking, and he absolutely adores Rose. I doubt you'd be able to find any other guy in that school who will treat Rose as well as Scorpius will."

Ron made another 'harumf-ing' sound and crossed his arms over his chest, "Why didn't she tell me or Hermione earlier that she was starting to fancy Scorpius? She used to tell us everything."

"She's a sixteen-year-old girl Uncle Ron, she's not about to tell her parents that she fancies anybody, let alone the son of someone she knows that her father has a complicated history with," Victoire argued, "Heck, I kept it a secret from my parents that I fancied Teddy for months, and even for a week after I finally admitted it to Teddy himself."

Her Uncle Ron grumbled that he 'still wasn't happy about it'.

"You don't have to be happy about it," Victoire countered, "You just have to be supportive."

Ron muttered more words under his breath, but Victoire caught the word 'whatever' near the end, and that was enough for her. She pushed herself off the desk and wrapped her arms around Ron's shoulders so she could give him a hug, "Good enough, as long as you try."

He tried not to smile, but Victoire's bright response automatically made him want to, it was hard to keep the sour expression on his face, "I don't promise that I'll ever grow to like him."

Victoire laughed and hugged Ron tighter, "You liked him enough as Al's friend. I think he'll grow on you."

"I don't want that," Ron argued.

"But Rose will, so give it an open mind. For her sake," Victoire requested.

Ron muttered something else under his breath but his tone sounded like one of defeat, so Victoire gave him one more hug before pulling away.

"Excellent, now, that coffee I stole from you is starting to wear off and I really need to go back to my flat and get some sleep. Promise you'll stop yelling at the trainee aurors because you're frustrated with Rose?"

"I'll do my best," Ron replied with an eye roll.

"Excellent. Bye Uncle Ron, bye Uncle Harry."


11:18 AM

Teddy and Hayden sat down in interview room number two, across the table from Chad Gerber and his lawyer. On the other side of the two-way spelled glass, Jilly, Kurt, and even O'Toole were watching the interview. The only reason why Gerber had even agreed to come in that day was because the Ministry lawyers were able to compel him to visit. They couldn't force him to answer all of the aurors' questions, but they were able to get him in for an interview at least.

"So Mr. Gerber we have a few questions pertaining to the night of October thirty-first. We would just like to hear your side of the story, your narrative of what happened that night," Teddy explained calmly and coolly.

Mr. Gerber leaned towards his lawyer, listened to something his lawyer whispered to him, and then nodded him head.

"Good," Hayden added, "Now, Mr. Gerber, why were you in the bog on the evening of October thirty-first?"

"Some friends and I decided to get together that night and have a little party," Chad Gerber replied, his expression one of calm and effortless charm.

Hayden looked down at a file in front of him, "And you personally arranged for all thirty of those witches and wizards to meet you at the bog?"

"No of course not, as with any party, things spiral and people who weren't invited decide to come anyway," Chad replied.

"But you didn't ask any of these party crashers to leave?" Hayden questioned.

Chad shrugged, "The more the merrier."

"It seems like in this case, the more the deadlier. Shortly after midnight your 'party' broke out into some sort of fight," Teddy stated with a raised eyebrow.

"That's true. People go crazy at parties sometimes, with the alcohol and the endorphins and all that," Chad replied nonchalantly.

Hayden smiled, "I'm glad that you mentioned alcohol Mr. Gerber. Your toxicology screen from St. Mungo's had been given to us as evidence and it seems that you, as well as almost all of the other people who were at the bog that evening, had high levels of alcohol in their systems."

"Is that what Healer Weasley was doing here? Giving you my medical records?" Chad Gerber asked suddenly, a crack breaking through his calm and collected façade.

Teddy and Hayden shared a look.

"The hospital gave us the medical records of all of those involved in this case, unconnected to which healers were involved in each individual case," Hayden explained without inflection, "Now, would you like to say anything about the alcohol?"

Chad shrugged once more, he seemed to go back to his calm expression, "It was a party, people drink sometimes. We were all of age."

"Understandable," Teddy replied, he flipped a page over in the file and placed his finger on a particular line, "We also found synthetic adrenalin in the systems of several of your friends. Got any idea where that came from?"

Mr. Gerber put a faux-surprised look on his face, "Synthetic adrenalin? Is that different than regular adrenalin that a body would produce?"

"A healer informed us that the amounts of adrenalin in your friends' systems was so high that it was impossible for them to be produced by their bodies," Teddy explained.

"Really?"

"Yes," Hayden answered, "Do you have any idea how that got into their systems?"

Chad shook his head, "I'm sure I have no idea where it came from."

Teddy and Hayden shared a look to ensure that neither of them believed their suspect's statement.

"No idea?" Hayden repeated with the barest sarcasm.

"None, I don't even know where you could get synthetic adrenalin from," Chad assured them.

Teddy only just held off from rolling his eyes, "Well perhaps instead you could tell us how the fight broke out?"

"I'm sure I don't know how that started either," Chad said innocently.

"Of course not," Hayden muttered quietly to Teddy. In a louder tone he continued, "Are you sure that you don't know how the fighting broke out? Because from our investigation we've come to the conclusion that you and Mr. Jason Abbott were in the middle of a loose circle of people when the fighting broke out."

Instead of replying immediately and in a calm tone of voice like he had been after each question, Chad Gerber took a minute to share a look with his lawyer. Teddy bit the inside of his cheek to stop himself from smiling; it seemed like Mr. Gerber was finally starting to get a little nervous.

When he was able to decide what he wanted to say, Chad Gerber answered Hayden's question, "I can't account for everybody's whereabouts all evening, but I do recall being a few feet away from Jason when the fighting broke out. I couldn't tell you how it started though, perhaps it was someone who was behind me?"

"Perhaps," Teddy replied. He and Hayden shared another look, and he waited for Hayden to nod before he asked the next question, "Could you account then, for the presence of a dragon's skull at your gathering?"

The question was innocuous enough, but Chad's face went white. Teddy was surprised that this was the question that caused a visceral reaction, and Chad immediately began whispering something into his lawyer's ear.

Mr. Gerber's lawyer stood up, Chad following directly after, and the lawyer announced, "Mr. Geber has given you as much time as he is able to, he has another appointment that he needs to get to."

Teddy and Hayden also stood up, "Perhaps your client could answer the last question before you leave?"

"My client came here as a courtesy to your department. He has already given you a written statement about what happened that night. My client is helping you right now and he's not even required to do that. There is no need to interrogate him since you have no evidence that he was involved in any use of dark magic. He's already stated that they only spells he used were to defend himself," Mr. Gerber's lawyer told the two aurors.

Hayden frowned at the lawyer, "We have reason to believe that your client was involved in obtaining a dragon's skull for the meeting, which is an unlawful act itself as purchasing a restricted magical animal's body part is only possible through an illegal black market dealer. Dragons are a protected species and we'd very much like to know where Mr. Gerber obtained the dragon skull from."

"My client does not know what you mean by the term dragon skull, since you correctly pointed out that having one in his possession would be an illegal act," The lawyer declared loftily.

Teddy and Hayden shared an annoyed look, but they had to allow Mr. Gerber and his lawyer to leave the interview room. They both knew that they would need much more evidence to get Mr. Gerber to cooperate. He was dragging his heels at each step.

The auror partners went into the viewing part of the interview room where Jilly, Kurt, and O'Toole were waiting. The auror-in-training was the first to speak.

"Well he didn't give us anything."

Kurt and Hayden both snorted in laughter at O'Toole's assessment, while the qualified auror with the most patience for the auror-in-training explained why the other aurors were silently mocking him.

"Interviews aren't always about getting a suspect to confess or admit to everything you suspect them of. Sometimes you learn from what the suspect doesn't say, and from what questions they try to avoid answering," Teddy explained to O'Toole, "For example, he stayed away from answering in detail about the synthetic adrenalin, so it would be a good idea for us to look further into that part of the investigation."

"We've already looked into that aspect, but there still might be a different side to it that we haven't considered yet," Jilly added.

Teddy nodded and asked O'Toole, "What else did you notice from the interview?"

"Uh . . . he claimed that it could have been the person behind him who started the fighting?" O'Toole said.

Teddy nodded again, "Yes, it would be a good idea to go over all of the other suspect and victim statements to see if anyone recalled being directly behind Mr. Gerber just before the fighting started."

"Anything else?" Hayden asked O'Toole.

O'Toole looked as though he was thinking very hard, what he came up with was, "He seemed suspicious that Healer Weasley gave you his medical records. Almost worried about it."

Kurt actually looked surprised that O'Toole came up with a good observation, "That's a fair assumption. Perhaps there's something in his medical records that he thinks will give away a clue." Kurt turned to Teddy, "We may need Vic to look over his medical file for us. Maybe she'll see something that we missed, or misunderstood."

Teddy sighed at the fact that he had to involve Victoire even deeper and yet again in one of his investigations, but he nodded his head in agreement.

"However, the most important clue we learned was from his reaction to being questioned about the dragon skull. He became flustered and asked his lawyer to end the interview, so obviously there's something very important there that he's afraid we'll discover," Teddy explained to O'Toole.

"We weren't able to discover where the skull came from yet, but perhaps if we go back and show Mr. Gerber's picture to some of the informants we have in the magical black market, someone might recognize him. Even if we just have a solid identification on his attempting to by a magical creature's body part, that could be enough to actually force him to sit long enough to properly interrogate him," Jilly said.

O'Toole pursed his lips, "So besides showing his picture to your contacts in the black market, what's the next step here?"

"Well Mr. and Mrs. Abbott have asked to push back their interview with us another week since they're still having a hard time mourning the loss of their son. In the meantime O'Toole, we'd like you to go over all of the files we have composed of all of the suspects and victims from the bog incident, and put together a photo array so that we can show the Abbotts. They may recognize a few of the people as individuals that their son was in contact with, and that could give us some more clues," Hayden instructed the trainee.

O'Toole nodded enthusiastically, "Absolutely Auror Summers."

The auror-in-training dashed to the door to get started on his task, but before he left Teddy called out to him, "O'Toole! There are some files on my desk about the Milligans, could you pick those up and file them away in the record room while you're there?"

O'Toole gave him a thumbs-up and then slipped out of the room.

"Please tell me that we weren't that useless when we were aurors-in-training," Kurt asked his friends once O'Toole was gone.

Hayden snickered, "Well I know I wasn't, I was sent away on an undercover mission after all."

"Only because you're fluent in Russian," Kurt argued.

"Well the only reason why Teddy did so well was because he spent half a year of his auror training following his girlfriend around Hogwarts," Hayden retorted.

Teddy rolled his eyes, "I was in charge of making sure that she didn't die. That's a full-time job all on its own."

"True," Hayden and Kurt agreed.


12:29 PM

Victoire was completely exhausted by the time she made it back to her flat. After talking Ron off the ledge over Rose having her first boyfriend, she was essentially a zombie as she travelled out of the Ministry and back home. Thankfully, some part of her brain remembered Teddy's suggestion (more like order) that she floo back to their flat instead of apparating, so she didn't end up tragically splinching herself in her attempt to get back to her bed.

Once in her flat Victoire made a beeline for her bedroom. She made sure that the lights were off and the curtains were closed, and that the bedroom was as dark as she could get it. She then stripped her clothes off, and didn't even waste time putting her pyjamas on before crawling into the bed and cuddling up under the covers.

Since she was so sleep deprived, Victoire figured that it'd only take about two minutes for her to fall asleep.

Unfortunately, when she was a minute away from escaping away into dreamland, the lights on the ceiling suddenly turned on and Dominique Weasley of all people skipped into Victoire's bedroom and started rooting through her big sister's closet.

Victoire was definitely under the impression that she was dreaming for a solid minute, until Dom started asking her questions about where she kept her 'pretty but respectable' dresses.

The blonde sat up in bed, pulled her sheets up around herself, and then swore in French at her little sister, "What. The. Bloody. Hell. Dominique! I'm trying to sleep!"

"But I need to borrow a dress and get back to work before my lunch hour's over," Dom complained, still rooting through Victoire's closet.

Victoire blinked unbelievingly, "You have a closet full of your own clothes. Why do you need mine?"

"Because," Dom replied in a needy tone as she tossed one of Victoire's favourite trainers over her shoulder and onto the floor just in front of the bed, "I have a date tomorrow night and I need something to wear."

The big sister groaned and slid back down so she was lying on her back in bed again, "Ugh, you have so many clothes that would be much more appropriate for your date at a club or whatever den of sin you'll be in, than mine would be."

"That's why I need your clothes!" Dom insisted, "I need to look beautiful but classy for my date. Showing half a body's worth of skin isn't going to cut it tomorrow night."

Victoire half tuned-out her sister and closed her eyes, "You never worry this much about a date. Don't worry. Whatever bloke you've decided to hook-up with tomorrow night won't care if you look like a harlot. You'll probably never see him again after tomorrow night anyway."

There was a pause and Victoire thought that she may have talked enough sense into her sister to convince her to leave so that she could finally get some bloody sleep, but then Dom replied to Victoire's comment in a slightly self-conscious tone of voice.

"Vic . . . my date tomorrow night is with Clark Westin."

Victoire bolted right up again, threw the covers off her body, and waved her hand to wandlessly summon her dressing robe over to her. She tossed it on as she skidded in her sock feet over to her closet.

"I've got a few things that might work."


A/N: DOM'S GOING ON A DATE WITH CLARK! How many of you are super happy about this development, and how many of you are going to tell me that you like Konstantin better? What did we think about Ron's reaction to Rose's news? Is it in character?

Next Chapter: We're going straight to Dom and Clark's date night. Vic looks into a file for Teddy. Baxter visits Eliza, Louis and Cecilia spend some time together, Victoire has a problem to fix, and Molly asks Dom about how her date went.

Next Update: My plan is to update in two weeks like usual. However, my grandfather isn't doing very well at all, and the prognosis isn't good. If I miss the next update, be patient with me because that probably means that I'm pretty busy here.

Teaser for Next Chap:

"To come to Victoire for advice on clothing to wear on a date was an action that spoke for itself, and one that was easy for Victoire to read between the lines. Dom was actually worried about her date with Clark, and she wanted to make a good first impression.

It was absolutely adorable."

Thank you to everyone who has followed, favourited, read, and especially reviewed this story!

BIG thank yous as always to:

lumiere100, NicoleTheSmith, Guest (1), kawaiiotaku0405, cjaben, Jennifer Jules, Break This Spell626, silverlover02, Guest (2), rosesnlilies, Saagarika, Izzy, fangirl5300, zvc56, Istillwishiwasaweasley, loverloverlover, n.I.3, Liza, and Seher Syed.

NicoleTheSmith: I have lots of ideas for stories, so it's just time that I need. I have every intention of writing another story after this one.

cjaben: So as you can see most of Ron's reaction was mainly to the fact that he didn't want Rose to date anyone in general. I definitely have more ideas for stories, it's just finding the time to write them.

Jennifer Jules: I'm definitely intending to write another Teddy/Vic story after this. I hope I'll have the time to get something started so that I can go right into posting a new story once this one is done, as I've done with all my other stories.

silverlover02: I don't have anything against Ravenclaw although I do have some Ravenclaw characters that are jerks (Austin Pennington, Gloria Dustin, and now Dyson) I also had Gryffindor characters that were jerks (Vic' old roommate Pamela Mace, that kid on the Gryffindor quidditch team that tried to flirt with Ally while Xavier had joined Puddlemere in the first story, Cecilia's ex-friend Danielle Reed, Teddy's ex-friend Tasha Bennet). I think that besides fellow Gryffindors who are relational antagonists, I used Ravenclaw because I was trying to stray away from the 'All Slytherins are evil' trope and pick an antagonist from a different house. I have just realized that I have been lax in using Hufflepuffs as antagonists though, so I guess I'll use their house the next time I need a school bully.

rosesnlilies: This story is not the end. As long as I have time to write, and people who will want to read my stories, I will kepe writing them.

Saagarika: I have no plan of abandoning this story, it's just taking longer to write it than some of my previous stories because I'm working and no longer in school. I'd like to write another Katie/Oliver oneshot, but I would also really like to write a story about them, again I just need the time!

Izzy: I think a lot of people would be really into the idea of Martell getting hit by a fireball.

loverloverlover: In the time frame of this story we are in December right now, and it's going to end with a New Year's chapter, so we will not get to a married Victoire and Teddy in this story. My idea for the next story most definitely includes seeing a married Vic and Teddy though.

n.I.3: I feel like a Teddy/Vic 'first time' story would have to be M to do it justice, and I've never written an M story before. I don't know if it would be a genre I'd want to tackle.

Liza: I really appreciated your well-thought out and extensive review. It was very kind, and I enjoyed reading to see what you thought of my writing. Thank you for taking the time to read my stories, and I'm glad that you've enjoyed the time you spent reading them.

I hope everyone enjoyed this chapter!

Don't forget to let me know if you like the newest Dom/Clark development or not,

Please leave me any questions, comments, or concerns in a review or PM,

Take care everyone,

Until next time, DFTBA!