Toby & Victoire
After Ted had slowly pulled himself together after a while, he sat quietly and as far as possible away from Victoire on the seat next to the window so that he could spend the whole train ride constantly staring outside.
He was totally confused. How could that have been possible?
But in the end, he had to realize that he knew the answer very well. Last year, Toby had mentioned more than once how awesome Victoire was, Ted had just never taken it seriously. That was because Toby liked to work himself up over things and often exaggerated.
Who could have possibly known that this time his interest for Victoire was serious indeed?
And hers for him?
Ted caught a quick glance at Victoire but then continued staring out of the window again.
Why hadn't he known before a few minutes ago?
Had they both thought it wouldn't be necessary to tell a good friend that they had found one another?
He wasn't just anyone after all. He was their best friend for years.
Thinking just made him boil of anger, that was how disappointed he was. Great friends!
After a couple of minutes, the head boy, and the head girl who this year were a Slytherin, and a Gryffindor entered, and Ted wondered if Professor Wennell had been to his senses choosing them since they didn't cooperate in the slightest way.
He couldn't pay much attention anyway and was very happy when their lecture was finally over, and the first ones took their chance to hurry off.
Ted considered for a while to just stay where he was and to continue staring out of the window, but in the end, he didn't want to be the sorehead and made his way to Toby who shared a compartment with Lorin Moore another boy from their dormitory.
All silent Ted sat down and expectantly stared at Toby.
"Why are you looking at me like that?", Toby asked after a while and smirked widely.
"I just thought you had some news to share", Ted retorted and kept staring wondering if he had sounded too snappy.
Obviously amused Toby rolled his eyes.
"Fine", he gave in, "I have met Victoire in Diagon Alley this summer, then we've started writing letters and somehow later, she's invited me over to her house. That's it basically."
Ted felt a stitch in his chest. It had been the first summer where Ted and Victoire hadn't spent one single day with each other.
Disbelievingly he blinked.
"Your hair's just lost colour", Toby let him know and after a few seconds of pure silence Lorin started to laugh, while Ted turned his hair back to bright canary yellow like the background of his house crest. He usually wore his hair like that at Hogwarts.
Even though Ted felt slightly unwell, the rest of the train ride was quite funny and luckily Victoire didn't turned up only once.
He wouldn't have wanted to see her.
After they had been brought up to the castle by the carriages, they took their seats at the Hufflepuff table and to Ted's disapproval, Toby declared he had promised to sit next to Victoire.
Abruptly the canary yellow of Ted's hair vanished and turned into a sad looking mixture of grey and brown. Again, his appearance revealed his mood and annoyed he sat at the table's very end.
This way he had a good view, too good in Ted's opinion. Every time he looked up, he could see Toby and Victoire flirting heavily and it made him sick.
He barely even noticed James' Sorting who without much surprise became a Gryffindor.
It had been the worst feast in all the time he had been at Hogwarts and was happy when it was finally over, and he could be physically and mentally in his bed in the dormitory.
But even there falling asleep seemed difficult. There were just too many questions in his head and besides, there was this feeling, a really bad feeling pressing his guts together. He could feel it in his stomach, and he hadn't even eaten much.