Year 1: A New Generation
Chapter 4: December 2011
Victoire awoke early December first to the sound of pecking at the window. Eagerly, she hurried to open it and let poor Errol the Third into the dorm. There were about ten letters still tied to his leg, so Victoire sorted through them, locating the one addressed to her and then sent Errol off to finish making his deliveries.
"What's going on?" Kara mumbled, still half asleep.
"Don't worry about it, it's just some mail from my grandmother. I'll tell you about it later," Victoire whispered so as not to wake the other girls.
Kara made a noise and then rolled back over, her light snoring starting up again moments later.
Excitedly, Victoire sat down on her bed and ripped open the envelope. It was a Weasley family tradition. The family had gotten so large over the years that one day, Grandma Weasley decided she was going to implement a new Christmas tradition – Secret Santa. This way, it wouldn't be too overwhelming for everyone to be trying to buy everyone a present every Christmas. They could still buy other presents for their immediate family or someone they were closer to of course, but this just made it easier at the big family gathering. Of course, everyone always got a Weasley jumper from Grandmother Weasley too – apparently she'd been doing that since her children had been born.
On December first of every year, a letter went out to every member of the family with the name of their Secret Santa for the year. The envelopes were charmed so that only the person they were designated for could open them. Last year, Victoire had gotten Roxanne, who'd only been two years old at the time. She'd bought her a stuffed dragon and she'd loved it.
As Victoire unfolded the parchment stuffed inside the envelope, she held her breath, hoping she got someone good and not Aunt Hermione, who only liked books. She opened the note and read the name: Teddy Lupin.
Victoire smiled. This was going to be fun.
VvVvVvVvVvV
"This is a disaster!" Victoire cried a couple days later up in the first year girls' dorm. "Maman says that now I'm at Hogwarts she's not going to give me money to buy Christmas presents anymore and all I have left from chores and my birthday is five knuts. I can't buy anything for five knuts!"
"Come on, you can buy stuff for five knuts," Kara disagreed.
"Like what?" Victoire challenged.
"You could buy him a new quill," Kara suggested.
"Right, because all thirteen-year-old boys want a quill for Christmas," Victoire muttered sarcastically.
"What about buying him candy?" Brianna suggested. "Everyone likes candy."
"Yeah, but with five knuts, all I'd be able to afford is a chocolate frog and maybe a licorice wand. Some present," Victoire grumbled.
"Ooh! What about homemade coupons?" Kara suggested excitedly. "You know, they can be things like 'Victoire will write your potions essay' and stuff."
"I'm a first year," Victoire pointed out. "I don't think Teddy would want a first year writing his potions essay."
"Good point," Kara sighed.
"Okay, let's try this. What would you get Teddy if you could afford to buy him anything in the world?" Brianna asked.
"That's just it though Bri, I can't afford anything," Victoire said.
"I know, I know, but maybe this way if we know what kind of thing you would want to get him, we can come up with a cheaper version of it," Brianna said.
"Ooh, that's a good idea," Kara agreed.
"So, what would you get him?" Brianna repeated.
"Hmm," Victoire thought to herself. "Well ever since I can remember, he's always wanted an owl," she said. "But his grandmother never bought him one. She said since she already had one, it only made sense that they would share it."
"Okay, so an owl," Brianna mused.
"Yeah, but owls cost more than five knuts," Victoire pointed out.
"What if you found another way to pay for it?" Brianna suggested. "You could pay with free labor or something."
"It's not like I can just leave Hogwarts on the weekends to work in an owl emporium," Victoire pointed out.
"So don't buy the owl from an owl emporium," Brianna said.
"Where am I supposed to get an owl if not from an emporium?" Victoire asked.
"Hogwarts has owls," Brianna pointed out.
"Not for sale!" Victoire cried.
"Maybe not officially, but it couldn't hurt to ask," Brianna said.
"That's crazy!" Victoire exclaimed. "You want me to ask Headmistress McGonagall if I can have one of the school's owls in exchange for what, cleaning the owlery for a month?"
"You could always get him a quill," Brianna said.
Victoire sighed. "This is hopeless," she groaned, rolling over onto her bed and covering her head with her pillow.
VvVvVvVvVvV
The next day, after dinner, Victoire headed to the library to work on her Charms assignment. Kara and Brianna were going to meet her there in about twenty minutes, after they had fetched their things from the dorm. Victoire was supposed to get a head start on the research.
When Victoire walked into the library, she saw Teddy sitting at a table by the window all alone. It was the perfect opportunity to question him to see what he might want for Christmas this year. She walked over and sat down, casually taking out a book and pretending she was going to do some work of her own.
"Hey Teddy," she said.
"Oh, hey Victoire, what's up?" Teddy asked.
"We've got this big Charms assignment due next week," Victoire replied. "Kara and Brianna are on their way down to work on it with me. What about you?"
"Oh, just finishing up a rune translation," Teddy replied, showing his parchment to Victoire. It looked like complete gibberish to her, but that was probably because first years didn't take Ancient Runes.
"So Christmas is coming up," Victoire said as subtly as she could. She knew it wasn't all that subtle – she was terrible at that.
"Yeah, it is," Teddy agreed. "Hey, I got your dad for Secret Santa. Any idea what he might want?"
"How about an appointment for a haircut?" Victoire rolled her eyes. "Honestly, he is way too old to have hair down to his shoulders. It's like he thinks he's still in his twenties or something."
Teddy laughed. "Well as great an idea as that is, I'm going to keep thinking."
"If I ever get my dad, he's getting a pair of scissors in a gift bag," Victoire said.
"So who'd you get?" Teddy wondered.
Victoire spluttered. "I can't tell you!" she cried indignantly. "It's called Secret Santa for a reason, you know."
"I just told you!" Teddy pointed out.
"Well I'm amazing at keeping secrets," Victoire said. "You on the other hand are likely to blab to this person five seconds after this conversation is over."
"Okay, if either of us is going to blab, we both know it would be you," Teddy contradicted her.
"Whatever, I'm still not telling," Victoire said, crossing her arms in a huff. She waited a few moments and then casually tried to bring the subject back again. "I wonder who got my name," she said.
"Who had you last year?" Teddy asked.
"Uncle George," Victoire smirked. "Remember, he got me that huge box of skiving snackboxes. Said it would come in useful when I started Hogwarts."
"Oh yeah," Teddy laughed. "So have you used any yet?" he asked.
"Nah," Victoire said. "What would even be the point? It's not like there's much to do in the middle of the day. Plus, I'd constantly have to be watching out for being caught by a Professor or something."
"Oh just you wait," Teddy smirked. "Soon you'll be skiving off classes left, right, and center."
"Have you ever skived off?" Victoire asked curiously.
"Twice," Teddy said proudly. "One time last year, me and Billy skived off together and snuck into the kitchens for an afternoon snack. Then we snuck into the library and ate in the back corner. We made such a mess, Madam Maxwell wouldn't let us back in for a month."
"And the other time?" Victoire asked.
"It was in first year," Teddy said, a little more subdued. "It was the anniversary of the Battle of Hogwarts. About halfway through the day, I just got so fed up with how everyone was joking around like it was any other day, so I took some nosebleed nougat to get out of transfiguration and snuck outside and just sat in front of the plaque on the wall by the front doors. I missed all my afternoon classes."
"I can't believe your grandmother believed your fake nosebleed," Victoire commented.
"I think she knew I'd taken the sweet," Teddy said. "But I think she knew I needed to be alone."
"Teddy I – "
"Oh no, it's fine," Teddy said, sensing the sympathetic tone. "Really, it's no big deal. I'm fine. It's good. I've got my grandmother, and I've got Uncle Harry and all the Weasleys. I have tons of family."
Victoire reached a hand out and wordlessly placed it on Teddy's shoulder. Teddy smiled sadly and they sat like that for a moment until Kara and Brianna bustled noisily into the library.
"Ready to work on Charms?" Kara asked loudly, resulting in a violent shushing from Madam Maxwell.
Teddy pushed his chair away and gathered his things together. "I was just leaving, but good luck to you all on the assignment," he said.
"Well he sure left quickly," Brianna said when he had left. "What were you talking about?"
"Nothing," Victoire said. "I think I've decided though. I'm going to get him that owl."
VvVvVvVvVvV
"You're asking for what?" Headmistress McGonagall asked that evening in her office.
"To buy one of the school's owls," Victoire repeated.
"And instead of actually paying, you want to…"
"Work off the cost of it, yes," Victoire confirmed.
"Wouldn't it be easier just to buy a new owl from an emporium?" the Headmistress asked.
"Probably, except that I don't have enough money right now, and by the time I made enough money to buy a new owl, Christmas would be long over," Victoire explained. "Please, this is really important."
The Headmistress considered Victoire for a moment.
"There are three Saturdays left before the end of term," she said. "If you want a school owl, you can spend each of those three Saturday mornings in the owlery with a mop and bucket. You'll report at 8AM and you'll work for four hours. Mr. Filch will supervise your work. At the end of the last Saturday you can have your pick of any school owl you would like."
Victoire jumped up excitedly. "Thank you so much Headmistress, this really means a lot to me," she smiled.
"Just don't go around advertising this," the Headmistress warned. "I would hate to have students lined up at my door tomorrow morning asking for the same favors."
"Absolutely not," Victoire assured her. "I won't tell anybody, I promise."
VvVvVvVvVvV
"She went for it!" Victoire exclaimed the minute she got back to her dorm.
"Seriously?" Kara asked excitedly.
"Seriously!" Victoire cried. "I just have to spend four hours cleaning the owlery for the next three Saturdays!"
"That's... gross," Brianna wrinkled her nose.
"True," Victoire agreed. "But it's the only way to get the owl."
"You're sure you want to do this?" Brianna asked, making sure. "You could always go with the candy."
"I'm positive," Victoire assured her. "I'm doing this."
VvVvVvVvVvV
"Merry Christmas!" Grandma Weasley exclaimed as Victoire picked herself up off the floor and brushed the ash from the fireplace off her shoulder.
"Merry Christmas Grandma!" Victoire exclaimed, letting her grandmother wrap her up in a huge bear hug.
Dominique came flying out the Floo next and Grandmother Weasley moved on to hug her next while Victoire ran over to her Grandfather who was sitting in an armchair by the fire.
"Merry Christmas Grandfather!" Victoire said, climbing into his lap to give him a Christmas hug.
"Oh, my little angel, there you are!" Grandfather Weasley exclaimed. "I was beginning to worry you weren't coming!"
"Of course I came Grandfather!" Victoire cried. "It's Christmas after all!" She climbed back down and was about to go see who else had arrived when she remembered something. "Oh, grandfather, the present I sent ahead of me, did it get here alright?" she asked.
Her grandfather smiled. "He's up on the roof with Errol. Just give a good whistle when it's time and he'll come right down."
"Thanks grandfather," Victoire smiled. "Do you think he'll like it?"
"Oh, he's going to love it," her grandfather assured her. "Now run along. Your cousins are all upstairs."
Grabbing her siblings, Victoire hurried up to the fourth floor, where she knew the cousins would have gathered. Every year on Christmas Eve, the entire Weasley family gathered at the Burrow for a big family dinner. Among the multitude of traditions was a game of hide-and-seek. Teddy had implemented it back when they'd been much younger and the game had only grown as more and more cousins had become old enough to play. The only rule was that you had to be at least five to play, which meant that Roxanne, Lily, and Hugo were stuck playing downstairs with the adults.
"Alright, everyone is here!" Molly exclaimed when Victoire, Dominique, and Louis appeared at the top of the stairs. "Now we can start! Does everyone remember the rules?"
"No!" Rose called out. Since Rose, Albus, and Fred were only five, it was their first time being allowed to play with the older cousins.
"Okay, well one person stays behind and counts, while everyone else – "
"We know that part," Albus called out. "Just tell us where we can't hide!"
"Right," Molly said with a nod. "You can hide anywhere from the second floor up except for in Grandmother and Grandfather's room. If you go down to the first floor, you're disqualified and you have to play with the babies," Molly said bossily.
"And no bathrooms this year, remember?" Dominique reminded her. Last year, James had hidden in the toilet and Uncle Harry and Aunt Ginny had gotten really mad at him. They'd insisted that if the kids played again this year, they couldn't go in the bathrooms.
"Right, no bathrooms either," Molly agreed. "Sounds good?"
"Yes!" everyone cried.
"Alright, who wants to count first?" Molly asked.
When nobody volunteered, Molly declared that it was Lucy's turn.
"Ugh, you always make me do it," Lucy complained, crossing her arms in front of her.
"What do you mean always?" Molly asked. "Last year was your first year playing."
"And you made me count first last year too," Lucy pointed out.
"Alright, alright, fine, I'll do it then," Molly backed off, turning around and closing her eyes. "I'm going to count to fifty," she announced. "One… two… three…"
Immediately, everyone took off. Victoire had been thinking about a good hiding spot for months and she was sure she'd finally come up with it. There was a closet off the third floor landing that was filled with towels, and one of the shelves was really deep. If she moved fast enough, she could rearrange the towels to give herself enough room to squeeze onto the shelf.
She ran down the stairs to the third floor and threw open the closet door only to find Teddy wedged in exactly where she'd been planning to hide.
"What are you doing?" Victoire cried.
"I'm hiding!" Teddy hissed. "What are you doing? Close the door before she comes down here!"
"So this is why I can never find you!" Victoire exclaimed.
"Shut the door!" Teddy cried as Molly's voice drifted down the stairs. She was already at thirty-nine.
"Where am I going to hide?" Victoire panicked.
"I don't know, figure it out!" Teddy exclaimed, reaching forward and pulling the door shut.
Victoire spun around, looking for a place to go. Apart from the closet, there was nowhere to go on the third floor. There was a bathroom next to her and across the landing was her grandparent's bedroom, but she couldn't hide in either of those. She couldn't go up, because Molly was sure to see her. The only answer was to try to find a spot on the second floor.
Victoire ran to the stairs and was about to go down, when a triumphant voice exclaimed from behind her "caught you!"
Annoyed, Victoire turned around to a victorious Molly dancing her happy dance. "That was too easy!" she rejoiced.
"Yeah, well I was hardly hiding, was I?" Victoire pointed out. "My spot was stolen by someone else."
"Where might that spot have been?" Molly wondered.
"I'm not telling you that," Victoire said, crossing her arms. "You have to find everyone else on your own. I'll be up on the fourth floor."
Moodily, Victoire climbed the stairs back to the starting spot to wait for Molly to find the rest of the cousins. Since she'd been found first, she would have to count on the next turn.
It took about twenty minutes before Molly gave up and called for the remaining hiders to come out from their hiding places. She'd done pretty well though. She'd managed to find Victoire, Louis, Lucy, Albus, Rose, and Fred. It was only Teddy, Dominique, and James that she couldn't find in the end.
"Alright Victoire, it's your turn to count now," Molly instructed.
"Fine," Victoire muttered, putting her hands over her eyes and beginning to count. "One… Two… Three… Four…"
"No peeking!" Fred squeaked.
"I'm not peeking Fred, now go hide!" Victoire said as she continued to count.
She heard footsteps running all over the place and by the time she was at forty-seven, all was quiet.
"Ready or not, here I come!" Victoire shouted.
She decided to check the closet on the third floor first – it would be silly for Teddy to hide there again, but she had to check to make sure. When she swung open the door though, it was just to find a pile of towels neatly stacked. Victoire wondered how Teddy had managed to make it look so neat and tidy and suspected that he'd used underage magic to do it.
"Teddy Lupin!" Victoire called out. "If I find out you're using magic to hide yourself, I'm going to tell Uncle Harry on you!" Victoire cried.
When there was no response, she figured he was either ignoring her, or was actually hiding properly, so she shut the door and continued her search.
She found Albus first. He was hiding under a bed in what had been her Aunt Ginny's room once upon a time. Louis was predictably hiding in the attic and trying to pretend he was just the ghoul. Victoire wasn't fooled. She discovered James under a pile of old clothes in Uncle Ron's old closet and Molly was easily recognizable as the breathing pile of pillows stacked up on Uncle Percy's old bed.
It was a little harder to find Dominique, who had managed to climb up onto the top shelf of the closet in Uncle George's room. Victoire had missed her on her first pass through the room, but heard her breathing on her second pass through. Once she found her sister, she found Fred wedged into the empty bottom drawer of the dresser in the same room. Apparently Dominique had helped him in before hiding herself.
Rose, it turned out, had been hiding behind the door of Aunt Ginny's room the whole time. She came out giggling like a maniac and revealed that Lucy was hiding on the staircase that led to the first floor.
"Technically, I didn't actually go downstairs," Lucy argued with Molly when she was found. "So I'm not disqualified."
No matter how hard she searched though, Victoire could not find Teddy anywhere.
"Alright, I give up!" she cried out in frustration.
"And just in time!" Uncle Ron's voice called up from downstairs. "We're about to start the annual Weasley family Christmas Eve Quidditch game if anyone wants to watch."
Victoire jumped aside as a horde of excited Weasley's pushed past her in an effort to get downstairs to watch. It was another family tradition that anyone who wanted to participate (and who had taken flying lessons) could play in a family-wide Quidditch game before dinner at the Christmas gathering. Though the kids couldn't play, watching was always lots of fun.
"You going down?" Teddy asked, appearing behind Victoire and causing her to jump in fright.
"There you are!" she cried. "Where were you hiding?" she asked.
"If I told you, I wouldn't be able to hide there next time," Teddy smirked.
"One day I'm going to find you," Victoire told him.
"I'm sure you'll try," Teddy said, patting Victoire on the back in mock sympathy and heading down the stairs.
"Hey, I really will!" Victoire insisted.
"Alright, good luck with that," Teddy said.
When they got outside to the field where the Weasleys had set up a makeshift Quidditch pitch, the adults seemed to be having a problem.
"Come on Hermione, just this one time?" Uncle Ron was pleading with his wife. "We can't play with uneven teams."
"You know I don't play Quidditch," Aunt Hermione replied. "What about Victoire or Teddy? They're both at Hogwarts, why don't you ask them?"
"Oh, no thank you!" Victoire said, holding her hands up. "Flying is definitely not my thing."
"What about you Teddy?" Uncle Ron offered. "We're missing a Keeper, you game?"
"Sure, why not?" Teddy agreed with a shrug, grabbing a broom and joining the adults.
"Ooh, this is going to be good!" Victoire said excitedly, taking a seat with her cousins in the grass.
The game was four against four; her father, Uncle Ron, Aunt Ginny, and Uncle George against Uncle Harry, Aunt Angelina, Uncle Charlie and Teddy. Even though her father was on the opposing team, Victoire chose to cheer for Teddy's team, along with all the rest of the cousins.
The game lasted about forty-five minutes before Grandmother Weasley called everyone in for dinner. After washing up, Victoire sat between Dominique and Lily at the children's table and helped cut up Lily's turkey meat. As usual, dinner was a time of much joy and laughter, and when it was over, Grandmother Weasley enchanted the dishes to start washing themselves while everyone gathered in the living room by the tree for Secret Santa.
"What order shall we go in this year?" Grandmother Weasley wondered.
"I say we go alphabetically," Uncle Percy suggested.
"Of course you would suggest that," Uncle George teased him. "I say we thumb wrestle for the honor of going first."
"Let's leave the thumb wrestling for another day," Grandmother Weasley suggested. "We'll go with Percy's idea. Albus? You go first."
"I got Uncle Ron," Albus said, standing up and handing Uncle Ron a folded piece of parchment.
"Well whatever could this be?" Uncle Ron wondered, opening the parchment dramatically. "A drawing! Albus it's beautiful!"
Albus smiled as Uncle Ron passed the gift around for everyone to see. It was a picture of the whole family standing together outside the Burrow, Christmas lights twinkling through the windows.
"Did you get any help with it?" Uncle Ron asked.
"Nope, I did it all by myself," Albus said proudly.
"He did," Harry confirmed. "We offered to help him find a gift, but he said he wanted to be a big boy and do it on his own."
"Well I love it," Uncle Ron said.
Aunt Angelina was next. She had gotten Grandmother Weasley's name and had bought her a beautiful towel set for the bathroom that Grandmother said she would put out whenever she was having guests over. Grandfather Weasley had been given Hugo's name and had gotten him a rubber duck. It was a Muggle toy he'd been researching and he claimed that it was meant to be played with in the bath. Hugo seemed pretty excited about it, but Victoire was just glad Grandfather Weasley hadn't gotten her name.
When Dominique' turn came around, Victoire was shocked to discover that her sister had gotten her name. With their mother's help, Dominique had baked a whole bunch of sweets that were charmed to stay good for months so that Victoire could bring them back to school with her and eat them over the course of the next semester. Victoire gave Dominique a big hug, thanking her for the thoughtful gift.
Predictably, Aunt Hermione bought Louis a book and James got in big trouble when his gift to his younger brother was an empty box and a message saying fooled ya.
When Teddy's turn finally came, Victoire leaned forward, curious as to what Teddy had ended up getting for her father. When he unwrapped the oddly-shaped package and produce a pair of scissors, Victoire burst out laughing. Her father smirked and asked if Teddy was trying to tell him something. Teddy shrugged and grinned.
"Alright, well that just leaves Victoire," Grandmother Weasley announced.
"I wonder who's name you drew," Teddy said, pretending he didn't know.
Victoire rolled her eyes. "Okay, well your present is outside, so you have to come with me," she said, leading the boy out into the yard. The rest of the family crowded around the doors and windows to see what it would be. "You've got to whistle," Victoire instructed, smiling in anticipation.
Furrowing his eyebrows in confusion, Teddy obliged and whistled. They waited a moment and then, just like Grandfather Weasley had promised, the beautiful barn owl Victoire had chosen from the Hogwarts owlery flew down from the roof and landed on Teddy's shoulder.
"Merry Christmas!" Victoire exclaimed.
"You got me an owl?" Teddy cried, his eyes going wide.
"I did," Victoire smiled even wider upon seeing Teddy's excitement.
"You got me an owl?" Teddy cried. "This is so cool!"
The rest of the family poured out of the house and crowded around Teddy to meet the owl. Dominique came up and stood next to Victoire, watching as the cousins all started suggesting names.
"How did you manage to afford to buy him an owl?" Dominique asked. "I thought you only had a few knuts left."
"I figured something out," Victoire smiled.
"Well whatever you did, I think you just made Teddy's Christmas," Dominique said before running over to join everyone else.
Victoire leaned back against the house and watched as Teddy stroked his new owl's feathers, the smile on his face bigger than she'd ever seen it. It was worth it, she thought to herself. It was so worth it.