After a minute, Gallagher pulled away from her. "Is this actually a thing we're doing?"

Her heart was hammering again. It was doing a lot of hammering that night - though given what she'd been doing, she supposed that was probably to be expected. "Well, do you want to?"

He rubbed a hand over his face. "Well, there's a question I never thought I'd have to answer. I mean, sure, as long as you're not pretending I'm Teddy."

"Oh my god, no!" she exclaimed, jerking back. "G, I wouldn't do that!"

He held up his hands quickly. "Vic, I know! It just still felt worth saying, considering."

"No," she repeated. "No, I just - I dunno, kissing you suddenly seemed like a good idea, so I did it. It's not - I don't want -"

"Yeah," he said quickly. "Neither do I." His eyes darted back to her lips, and her stomach turned over. "But yeah - I'd definitely be up for it."

"Figuratively or literally?"

His face broke into a grin. "If you keep kissing me, it'll start to turn into literally real quick."

Her lips met his again, and a pleasant shiver ran up her spine when he started to circle his thumb lightly across her shoulder. When she started to run her fingers through his hair, his grip on her got tighter. "Can I get on top of you?" she whispered.

"Fuck, yes."

As soon as she straddled him, she found that it was indeed turning into 'literally' real quick.

Victoire had genuinely not anticipated that her first kiss would happen with one of her closest friends in his bedroom, but while the decision to kiss him had been an impulsive one, she was glad she'd made it. His lips were soft, everywhere his hands roamed was starting to tingle, and there was an urgency that was rapidly building inside of her.

When her hands slipped under his shirt, he pulled back. "Sorry -" she started to say, but he shook his head.

"No! It's not that, it's just - if we're going to start taking clothes off, I think I'm going to go get another drink, and then - uh…" He hesitated for a moment, and she saw him swallow. "Do you want to move over to my bed?"

She glanced toward the corner. "Yes," she said quickly. She had no idea how she wanted this to end, and she wasn't sure that he did, either, but somehow his bed seemed like a good idea.

"Do you want one, too?"

"Sure."

When she heard footsteps, she looked up expectantly, but instead of Gallagher, it was Teddy. "Hey," he said, sticking his head in. "I'm heading out and was wondering if you -" His voice faltered for a moment. "If you wanted me to drop you off. So you don't have to floo, I mean."

She hesitated. On one hand, it was a little tempting to have the time alone with him, but on the other, it wasn't like anything was going to happen in it - he was just going to drop her off.

And she was finding herself quite keen to keep doing what they'd been doing.

"I - er - think I'm gonna stay here a bit longer," she said as Gallagher reentered the room. "If you don't mind," she added, glancing at her friend.

"Terribly," he said. "Get the fuck out of my room." Then he handed her one of the bottles and threw himself onto the bed. "No, seriously, of course I don't mind." He glanced up at Teddy. "We're not plotting anything, though," he said. "I swear."

The slight frown that had appeared on Teddy's face disappeared. "Sure you're not."

"Let's catch up at the party on Christmas," she said, stumbling over her words. "We're really not plotting anything, I swear, it's just totally normal innocent friend conversations."

She heard a muffled snort of laughter behind her as Teddy rolled his eyes. "I don't think I even want to know," he said. "Night Vic, Gallagher."

"Night, Teddy," they both chorused back as the door clicked shut again.

Gallagher waited for Teddy's footsteps to finish going up the stairs before saying, "Well, he's definitely right about not wanting to know - though I'm pretty sure he does anyway." She made a face at him, and he shrugged. "I'm just saying. Van gave me a look when I went up to get the drinks that I don't think was about underage drinking, your hair is a mess, and we're sitting on my bed rather than the couch. He'd have to be really thick to not at least wonder about it." He studied her for a moment. "Is your head all full of Teddy now, or do you want to go back to what we were doing?"

She took a swig from the new bottle. "You mean our totally normal innocent friend conversation?"

"Very innocent. I have these conversations with all my friends." He took another sip and set his bottle on the table next to his table. When he got up to lock the door, she reached over to put hers next to it, and before she could think about it too much, she yanked off her shirt. "If someone tries to come in, they'll just assume we're -" He turned back around and immediately stopped talking. She opened her mouth, and he managed to get out, "No - not in a bad way! I just - wasn't expecting it." He flopped back onto his bed next to her and started to run his hand up her side. "I'm not complaining," he said, leaning down to kiss her neck.

"Then why are you still wearing a shirt?"

He immediately pulled back just enough to get his shirt over his head. "Better?"

The feeling of his bare skin on hers made his touch feel even much more intense and electric than it had on the couch. "Since when do you work out?" was the first thing that came out of her mouth.

She realized immediately that one very good thing about doing this with one of her closest friends was that she felt a lot less self-conscious about what came out of her mouth than she would have expected. He knew exactly how ridiculous she could be, and she was pretty confident at this point that one more silly comment wasn't going to change that.

He didn't miss a beat. "I'm actually secretly a seer," he said. "I knew this was coming, and I wanted to impress you." When she laughed, he started to trail kisses down her chest.

Her mind was starting to get very cloudy and focused on how his body felt pressed against her. "I - how would you feel about me taking my bra off, too?"

"Completely in favor." His lips were on her neck again. She reached around to undo the hooks, and when she tossed it aside, he let out another groan. "Fuck." He raised a hand to start to play with one of her nipples, and when she let out a moan, he ducked his head down to suck on the other one.

"G - oh, fuck, yes, like that," she gasped. She was dimly aware of her hips starting to move faster against him, and he cursed under his breath and brought his mouth back up to hers. She wrapped a leg around him, pulling him even closer. "We're definitely in 'literally' territory now," she said when he pulled back to kiss her neck again, and he let out a laugh.

"Yes, Vic - that happened long before you started taking your clothes off. And come on - if I stuck my hand down your trousers, I'm sure I'd find you really fucking wet, too."

He went back to her chest, and she let her head fall back against the pillow. "Fuck, yes." she gasped. "G - I - would you like to see how wet I am?"

"Well, getting you half-naked and making out with you is fine, but fingering you is just a bridge too far," he said. His tone was nowhere near collected enough to pull off the sarcasm, and his complete inability to keep his hands to himself also didn't help his case. "Yes." He crashed his lips to hers again as she unbuttoned her trousers, and as soon as the zipper was down, his hand was trailing past her stomach. She whimpered into his mouth when his fingers brushed against her, and he broke away, gasping. "Fucking fuck, Vic. Like this?"

"Yes, G, yes - a little less pressure - oh fuck, yes." His lips were back on her neck.

If she'd known her friend's mouth could feel quite this good, she probably would've kissed him much sooner.

"You feel so good," he said into her ear, and she felt her hips start to move faster. "You're so fucking wet, Vic, fuck, I'm so hard for you right now -"

Her stomach flipped over. "Fuck," she moaned. "Yes, yes, like -" She arched her back. "Fuck, yes. G, can you suck -" His mouth immediately shifted down to her chest again, and she cried out as he increased the pressure of his fingers. "Fuck, I - yes, you can go a little faster, I - oh my fucking god, Gallagher." She closed her eyes as the vibrations pulsed through her. His lips brushed against hers just as they started to slow down, but when he felt her hand on his stomach, his breath caught in his throat. "Do you want me to?" she panted.

"Yeah." His voice was strained, and his hands shot down to start fumbling at his trousers. "Yeah, just - like, spit in your hand or something first."

When she touched him, he let out a groan. "Like this?" she asked.

"Yes." He started to thrust into her hand. "Now start moving - yes, exactly like - oh, fuck, Vic, yes." She could feel the rest of his body trembling against her. "Vic, let me -" He pulled her closer and started to swirl his tongue around her nipple again. "You can go a little tighter - yes, like that." He took it in his mouth again, and she let out a gasp.

"G, I'm just going to - spit in - again -"

"Yes," he panted as he switched to the other side. "Fuck, Vic -"

She let out a whimper as his fingers rose up to replace his mouth. They were still wet from touching her. "Do you like playing with them?" she asked softly as she started to speed up. She felt him twitch in her hand. "Do you like how wet it makes me when you do?"

"Faster," he gasped, breaking away again. "Vic, please, I'm so close, please -" Then he groaned, and she felt warm liquid on her fingers.

He collapsed next to her, and they both lay there, staring up at the ceiling.

"Well," he said after they'd caught their breath. "That just happened."

That made her start laughing. When she rolled over to look at him, he was grinning, too. "Have you ever thought about that?" she asked. "I'm just curious."

The smile dimmed a little, though it didn't disappear. "Is this a conversation that's actually going to happen?" When she nodded, now feeling thoroughly intrigued, he sighed and pushed himself up. "I need to change, then."

"Is it weirder for me to turn around or not turn around?"

He let out a snort. "I have no fucking idea, especially given that you still don't have a shirt on."

She glanced down as he opened the top drawer of his dresser. "Oh. Should I change that?"

"If you want anything coherent out of me, yes."

She opted for turning around to put her bra and shirt back on and trying to ignore the ruffling of clothes behind her - focusing on it seemed like it might take her mind to places that she thought she probably shouldn't go right now. By the time she looked back at him, he was zipping up his jeans. "Better?" she asked.

He considered her for a moment. "On the other hand, what is coherence worth?" he asked cheerfully, grabbing one of the bottles off the table and taking a swig.

"I think that one was mine."

"Seriously?" He handed her the other one as she started to giggle. "Vic, after what we were just doing, I really don't think it matters."

Drinking on an empty stomach was definitely going to make the alcohol go to her head, but she raised the bottle to her lips anyway. She needed something to settle her nerves a little.

As soon as he'd settled back in next to her, she asked, "Well, have you?"

He sighed and took another drink. "I'm not sure you're going to like the answer." She sat up and stared at him, and he groaned. Unfortunately, his exasperated groan was a lot less fun than his other ones. "I hadn't before you started sneaking off to hang out with your banshee friend in the middle of the night. That's how I realized you'd been doing it." He paused, and then added, "And then Fred and Micah figured it out from me."

Her temper started to flare. "Wait, you told - you had no right to -"

"Yes, I fucking did," he snapped back. "And it's not like I told a professor - I told Fred. Micah was tipped off by something I said, but he put the pieces together on his own."

She looked down at his bedspread. She wasn't sure she wanted to control her irritation. "You're right. I don't like your answer."

"Well, I don't like you lying to us - especially about a spell that we're going to fucking try, too. For fuck's sake, Vic, that could've ended really badly."

She winced - she hadn't really processed that side of it, and that particular objection was more than fair. "Yeah. I'm sorry."

He sighed, and some of the tension went out of his shoulders. "I know, and I meant it when I said I wasn't mad at you. But don't expect me to be happy when you lie to me."

She felt like he was saying entirely reasonable things, which somehow didn't diminish her annoyance at all. "Why did you have to tell him?" she snapped. "You could've just said something to me."

He threw his head back to stare at the ceiling. "Victoire, I did. Multiple times. You lied to me." She felt her face start to get hot, but before she could respond, he looked back at her. "And I told Fred because I was worried. For fuck's sake, aren't Ravenclaws supposed to be smart?"

She considered rising to that bait and then let it go. "I scared you guys a lot, didn't I?"

He sighed. "Yeah," he said after a moment. "I'm not mad, and I don't need to cool down, but yeah, you did."

She pushed herself toward him and wrapped her arms around him. After a moment, she felt his arms settle around her, too. "Thanks for caring," she said after a minute.

He let out a snort of laughter. "Yeah, well. Thanks for keeping it interesting."

When they pulled apart, she considered him. "Is that why you - you know, right now?"

"No," he said. "It's not that you're not hot - I just hadn't thought about it because I try not to let myself think about my close friends like that, and I've been especially aware of it with you because of - you know, the part-veela thing. It's not like it's hard - no pun intended - to want to fuck you, and I don't want to fuck up our friendship because I start thinking with my dick when I'm around you."

"Why'd you do this, then?"

He groaned. "I don't know, Vic. I guess because it didn't make me feel uncomfortable the way some other thoughts have, so I went with my gut."

"I thought you were supposed to be a Slytherin, not a Gryffindor," she teased.

He nudged her with his foot. "Oh, shut up." After a moment, though, he said, "I actually could've been sorted in Gryffindor, though - the Sorting Hat gave me the choice. I just didn't want to be 'Gillian's little brother' for seven years, which definitely would've happened if I had been."

"Oh."

He shrugged. "Anyway. I guess this didn't bother me because it's both of us doing it. And you started it - why did you kiss me?"

She shook her head. "I don't know why - I wasn't planning on it. It just…" She trailed off. "Seemed like a good idea at the time. And, I mean, it was!" He rolled his eyes, but before he could say anything, she said, "So wait - are you seriously saying you realized that I was hanging out with a banshee because you started having wet dreams about me?"

He threw back his head and laughed. "I mean, not quite, but that's the sentiment."

She glanced at the clock and got a very rude awakening. "Fuck - when did it get that late?"

"I'm thinking somewhere in between the kissing and the orgasms."

She sighed. "I should probably get going."

"Probably." He pushed himself up off the bed as she stood up, and they headed back down to the floo. She hesitated before stepping through. "I - thanks. For making it less weird after."

He shook his head, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. "I mean, you're welcome, but it's not like you were the only one who was feeling a little weird. Jokes aside, it's not like I make a habit of falling into bed with my friends."

"And here I thought you just cycled through us." He reached out to shove her, and she laughed. "Um - would it be weird to hug goodbye?"

He shook his head, and she stepped into his hug. "We'll talk soon. Night, Vic."

She grabbed a pinch of floo powder and tossed it into the smoldering fire. "Night, G."