Turning to the Dark Side
The evening was supposed to be calm. There was supposed to be the usual banter filled meal, followed by finding a cosy corner to hang out in as the boundaries of curfew were tested. Laughing was supposed to render Victoire's tummy sore and make her question why she had that third serving of pudding. Despite the closing in winter cold that spread through the castle, everyone was supposed to be overcome with the comforting warmth of friendship, before calling it a night and dreaming of a repeat of such a great evening. Unfortunately, this was supposed to happen.
"Can I help you?" Victoire looked up from her plate at Alodie,
"Did you read the Daily Prophet?" Alodie's voice spread across half of the hall,
"Yes, I read it every morning."
Slapping the newspaper on the table, Alodie lowered herself to Victoire's level with her intimidating glare set on her like a bull on a red cape. The force of her hand knocked over empty goblets and had cutlery rattling in a two-meter radius. It was evident that she was livid, but imaging the steam coming from her ears made Victoire want to giggle. There was no reason for her to be in the same state of rage, when only good things were said about her in the Triwizard Tournament Tuesday article such as,
Victoire Weasley's swift recovery only solidifies the strength of Hogwarts' Champion and heightens our great expectations of her impressive skills in the next task.
"What did you tell them?" Alodie became threatening,
"You're going to have to elaborate," Victoire replied,
"Oh, now you're all innocent! What a contrast to the vindictive you that turns up to interviews."
Victoire could only stare at Alodie in confused silence as she ran out of guesses as to what all the fury was for. She was her usual self in every interview and the topics of the last one left no room to spread sneaky secrets about her competitors. This was just another Alodie ploy to make herself look better. The day Victoire had healed, Alodie aimed her conniving spotlight over Leon by spreading the rumour that he had received a lot of help from Viktor Krum and once the Yule Ball was announced, flags with 'Alodie is our champion' on in all languages suddenly spread around the castle like the plague. Now a scene during dinner in front of basically everyone, including teachers? Victoire had to admit, her tenacity was applaudable.
"'Madame Alodie on the other hand achieved her 'sweet but deceptive' trophy, as a source tipped the possibility of unfair play occurring on her part. Let's just say it is extremely easy to tame a beast if you are already aware of such a challenge'," Alodie spat out the words without even having to read the article that caused such a sour expression on her face, "I wonder who would suggest such a thing,"
"The fact you think I'd be bothered to talk about you in an interview about me is a bit less than humble, no?" Victoire rested her elbow on the table and tipped her head into her hand, making it evident how fed up she was already,
"You want to talk about humble? You basically pride yourself on being the so called 'princess' of Ravenclaw, when all you are is the failed version of your legendary mother."
Victoire shot up with her goblet in her hand and threw its contents on Alodie. Things did not have to escalate so quickly but hitting one of her only weak spots turned on a side of Victoire she didn't like revealing. The tingling chill in her fingers had become a rushing heat in her fists as she fought the voice that told her to punch her or at least hit her for good measure. Alodie's followers instantly grabbed napkins and patted down their shepherd as the red liquid dripped from her once flawless uniform.
"Oh, did I hit a nerve?" Alodie's smirk only turned up the raging heat storming through Victoire,
"I didn't say anything about you in the bloody interview and at least the truth is being revealed. We all know that both you and Leon had already known what the task was, because your vile faces didn't even change when you found out we were against dragons. Do not take your hate out on me when you cannot even cover up your mess," Victoire didn't know how loud she was, but at this point, she couldn't have cared less if the whole of the castle could hear her,
"Now you watch your tongue, blondie. Why would the likes of me need to cheat? The moment they brought out that bag, I knew what the task would be, since they are obviously following the tasks from before, anyone with half a brain would have worked that out. But then again, I am a smart Beauxbaton and you are just what I believe they call, the Blonde Bimbo."
Boiling point had been reached. All reason left Victoire's body to make way for anger as she raised her tightly clenched fist with her eyes set on the target of Alodie's cheek. Before she could let her fury out in a swing, her arm was caught by soft but strong hands. The abrupt stop allowed some sort of order to return to her mind and she slowly let her fist fall back to her side as she noticed all the people watching her. Fred shook his head. He had obviously stopped her from making a huge mistake with concern in his eyes.
"Do not talk to my family like that," he calmly spoke.
It was rare to see his soft features become so stern as he stood up against Victoire's bully. He had dealt with Victoire complaining and sometimes even bursting into tears over dealing with the bullying from both Durmstrang and Beauxbatons students. They would play pranks on her, make fun of the injuries she had gotten during the first task and of course, make the regular dumb blonde joke, and she had had enough. No one really knew what she was going through apart from a small amount of people and it was getting hard to hide her anger.
Alodie looked down on Fred, "Cela ne te concerne pas,"
"Yeah, she taught all of us some French when growing up, you'll have to try a bit harder. Why don't you change, eat some grub and go back to whatever pit you were summoned from," Victoire gave Fred a subtle proud pat on his arm,
"I did not know that Victoire was so weak that she needed to be guarded by her pathetic little gay cousin."
Nothing held Victoire back.
She swung her arm in Alodie's direction.
The sound of impact was like when someone bellyflopped on the water from a height. A rewarding sting ran through her hand as she composed herself and felt the pure relief of letting out her bottled-up rage. She looked around. Faces of shock fixated on her as if they had been multiplied over and over again as they remained stuck on Victoire and the now crocodile tearing Alodie. Usually, she'd care about what her school thought of her- her reputation meant almost everything- but she couldn't let someone who threw their poisonous dart at her cousin walk away unscathed. Fire still burned throughout her body as she watched Alodie pedantically worry about the state of her cheek and her friends helped put her back together. That little voice told her to do it again and this time, use her fist or even her nails, but a squeeze on the arm from Fred kept her in her rational state and she began to tidy up the table. She stacked her golden side plate onto her main plate of half-eaten food, picked her goblet up from the floor and placed it at the 2 o'clock position to the plates and folded her napkin into a tidy heart before placing it in the middle. With the fire simmering down but still lit, she took a small step towards Alodie, taking her arm and leaning in to whisper in her ear.
"Never cross me, or my family again. Ne plus jamais insulter moi ou ma famille."
Without letting her eyes meet anyone else's, Victoire took Fred's hand and they walked out of the hall together, "C'est tout."
She could not believe what she had done. She was supposed to be a shining example for all of Hogwarts with her near perfect grades and the title of prefect and head girl. People were supposed to look at her and see a kind, peaceful and intelligent young lady, not someone who couldn't control their emotions and attacked visitors to their school. No one was supposed to see the dark side of Victoire Weasley, but it seemed that this was the year that keeping up appearances had to go out the window.