Year 1: A New Generation
Chapter 8: April 2012
With the arrival of April, the snow began to melt and it began to rain a lot, keeping the students of Hogwarts cooped up in the castle for days on end. The Easter holidays were fast approaching, but it seemed that most of the students were electing to stay at the castle for the week due to the volume of work that was being heaped on them all by their Professors as preparation for the end-of-year examinations. Victoire and Kara had both decided that they would be staying at Hogwarts over Easter, but Brianna had declared that she would be going home for the holiday.
"Come on," Kara complained the night before the signup sheets had to be finalized. "You don't need to go home, stay at Hogwarts with us! We'll have a great time!"
"How many times do I have to tell you?" Brianna insisted. "I'm going home, so stop trying to convince me not to!"
For the third time in as many days, Brianna stormed off yet again, shoving her way through the portrait hole and disappearing into the castle.
"Where's she going?" Kara wondered, confused.
Victoire shrugged.
"What's gotten her so upset?" Kara muttered.
"I think it has something to do with her family," Victoire said then. "Think about it, every time she's gotten upset, we were talking about our families, and every time she's stormed off, we were asking her about hers."
"You're right!" Kara said. "Should we ask her about it?"
"No," Victoire decided. "She clearly wants to keep it to herself."
Soon, it was time for the students who were going home to leave. Victoire and Kara bid Brianna goodbye after eating a hearty breakfast of bacon and eggs and then headed back up their dorm, not having much else to do. Unfortunately for them, both Raina and Caitlin had elected to remain at the school over the break, which meant that they weren't going to get the dorm to themselves like they'd hoped.
"We could try playing wizard's chess," Kara suggested when neither of them could think of anything interesting to do.
"I'm miserable at chess," Victoire said.
"Well that works out great, because so am I," Kara said brightly, leading Victoire back down to the common room. She grabbed a chessboard from one of the shelves and began setting the game up at one of the tables. "Do you want to be white?" Kara offered.
"Sure, why not?" Victoire sighed, sitting down and crossing her arms as she considered the board. "Pawn to C4," she decided, watching as the pawn did as requested.
"Pawn to C5," Kara countered.
"Why are we even doing this?" Victoire sighed. "This game is boring."
"Come on, just see this one game through and then we'll find something else to do," Kara promised.
Victoire agreed and called out her next move. Soon, they had claimed almost all of each other's pieces and their remaining men were dancing around each other, neither of them ready to sacrifice a piece for fear of losing.
"It's like watching a monkey try to learn sign language," Teddy joked, plopping down in the chair next to Kara.
"For your information, it's not like I wanted to play," Victoire said.
"Move your bishop to E6," Teddy told her.
"But if I do that, Kara's queen will destroy my him!" Victoire exclaimed.
"Just trust me," Teddy said.
"Fine," Victoire said, calling out the command. Just as she predicted, Kara triumphantly ordered her queen to kill her bishop. "I told you," Victoire said, glaring daggers at Teddy.
"Yeah, but now look at the board," Teddy said, pointing.
"I don't know what I'm supposed to be looking at," Victoire said.
"If you send your knight to H7, you'll have checkmate," Teddy said.
"I will?" Victoire gasped, staring at the board in an attempt to see what Teddy was seeing.
"Well this is just sad," Teddy said when Victoire failed to see it. "You probably had dozens of chances to beat each other and you kept missing them."
"Whatever," Victoire said, packing the game up without bothering to finish it. "I never wanted to play in the first place. There was just nothing better to do. And since when are you so good at chess?"
"My dorm mate, Jonah Sparks, is really into playing wizard's chess," Teddy confessed. "I learnt most of it from him. The rest is just raw natural talent."
"Did you want something?" Victoire asked pointedly.
"No, nothing," Teddy said. "I just thought I'd stop by and lend a hand."
"Well consider your hand returned," Victoire said.
"Okay, I admit it," Teddy said.
"Admit what?" Victoire asked.
"I did come over here for a reason," he confessed.
Victoire stared at him blankly, waiting for him to elaborate. Meanwhile, Teddy waited for Victoire to ask why he had come over.
"For goodness sake Teddy, just say it!" Kara exclaimed when neither of them spoke for a full minute.
"I was just curious if the rumours are true," Teddy said.
"What rumours?" Victoire asked.
"The rumours about Brianna," Teddy clarified.
"There are rumours about Brianna?" Kara asked in surprise. "Why haven't we heard anything about this?"
"I guess since people know she's your friend they've been keeping quiet whenever you're around," Teddy posited.
"Well, what's the rumour?" Victoire asked.
"You're sure you want to know?" Teddy checked.
"Yes," Victoire assured him.
"I probably shouldn't say anything if you don't know already," Teddy mused.
"Teddy Lupin, for the love of Merlin, tell me what you know!" Victoire exclaimed.
"Alright fine," Teddy said. He leaned forward and lowered his voice. "I heard from Billy who heard it from his older brother Todd, who heard it from Randy Lewson, who heard it from Mike Ollerton, who claims to have heard it from his father who works for the ministry…"
"Yeah?" Victoire pressed.
"Well rumour has it that Brianna's dad is in prison," Teddy revealed.
"What?" Kara cried. "No way!"
"What for?" Victoire asked.
"I heard he was a trained assassin who had already killed six guys and was going for a seventh when they nabbed him," Teddy said.
"It's not true!" Kara insisted. "So you can go tell Billy to tell his brother and all these other guys that they're all wrong about Brianna's dad."
"You sure about that?" Teddy asked. "Have you ever met the guy? Has Brianna ever talked about him? Why do you think she went home for the Easter holidays?"
"She went home because Easter is really big with her family and they would have been hurt if she'd stayed at Hogwarts," Victoire defended her friend.
"She went home because there are only three days a year when visitors are allowed to visit prisoners in Azkaban and one of those days just so happens to fall during the Easter holidays," Teddy said smugly.
"I can't believe someone would make all this up!" Kara cried.
"I don't know Kara," Victoire said slowly. "It could be true…"
"Not you too! Come on Victoire, we're supposed to be her friends!" Kara exclaimed.
"Yeah, but think about it Kara," Victoire said. "We knew something was bothering her, and we were pretty sure it had something to do with her family. What if this is it?"
"Oh come on!" Kara cried. "Brianna isn't the daughter of a murderer!"
"Yeah, because there's a type," Teddy said sarcastically. "You can tell by the tattoos on their forearms and the extra piercings in their ears."
"I know my friend, okay?" Kara said angrily. "And I know that this rumour is a complete lie. Victoire I can't believe you even entertained the idea for a second!"
Tears welling up in her eyes, Kara stormed off up the stairs to the girls' dorms.
"You should probably go," Victoire said, crossing her arms in front of her chest.
"Oh come on!" Teddy said. "It was just a rumour I heard – "
"Well you can stop spreading it now," Victoire declared. "Whether it's true or not, I don't like you talking about my friend behind her back."
"Alright, sorry," Teddy said apologetically.
"And tell Billy it was a lie," Victoire added. "I don't want him spreading the rumour either."
VvVvVvVvVvV
Over the next few days, Kara and Victoire struggled to find things to occupy themselves with. It had been raining nonstop ever since the beginning of the holidays, which meant that they'd been stuck inside the castle every day, and they'd already finished all the homework they'd been assigned out of sheer lack of better things to do. Eventually, they found themselves aimlessly wandering the Hogwarts halls as they tried to come up with something to do.
"We could paint our nails," Kara suggested.
"We did that yesterday," Victoire complained. "And the day before and the day before. Besides, I like how mine turned out this time. I don't want to take it off and then ruin it."
"We could play exploding snap," Kara proposed.
"It's not much fun with only two people," Victoire muttered. "We'd need Brianna to play a proper game."
"We could sit and stare at the wall in the common room," Kara grumbled, out of ideas.
"We've been doing that," Victoire whined. "I want to do something fun!"
"Hang on!" Kara exclaimed suddenly. "We could go outside!"
"Don't be silly, it's raining," Victoire said.
"No, it's not, look!" Kara said excitedly, pointing out a nearby window. "The rain has stopped and the sun is shining! We could go outside! What do you say?"
"I say yes!" Victoire cried eagerly, rushing back to the dorm to get her rain boots. After all this rain, it was sure to be muddy after all.
"Oh, fresh air!" Kara said, breathing in deeply the minute they took a step outside. "Oh how I've missed you," she sang.
"Shall we go for a walk around the lake?" Victoire suggested.
Kara agreed and they set off. When they arrived at the lake, they found that it was much bigger than usual. It seemed that it had rained so much that it had grown in diameter.
"Wow," Kara said when they saw it. "That's a lot of rain."
"Yeah," Victoire agreed. "The giant squid must be happy with all that extra room to swim around."
"I thought that was just a rumour?" Kara asked.
"No, there's really a squid in there," Victoire assured her. "I'll show you one day when it's nicer and he's closer to the surface. Sometimes he waves his tentacles around above the surface of the water."
"And sometimes when first years get too close to him, he grabs them and pulls them down to the bottom of the lake and they drown," Teddy said coming up behind them.
"That's not true," Victoire rolled her eyes. "Why are you all wet?" she asked, noticing that Teddy's hair was dripping.
"Me and Billy were out playing in the rain," Teddy explained. "Unfortunately, the rain stopped, so Billy went inside to ask Professor Flitwick if he knew a spell to make it start raining again."
"Seriously?" Victoire asked. "You want it to rain even more than it already has? Have you seen the size of the lake?"
"I have in fact," Teddy said. "However, I'm afraid it's not yet big enough."
"Big enough for what?" Victoire said.
"This!" he cried, suddenly jumping and pushing Victoire sideways, causing her to lose her balance and fall into the lake.
"What was that for?" Victoire spluttered.
"I guess I was wrong," Teddy said, scratching his head. "It is big enough."
"What's wrong with you?" Victoire climbed, pulling herself out of the freezing water.
"I thought it was shallow there," Teddy muttered. "I didn't think you'd fall all the way in."
"What'd you push me for in the first place?" Victoire demanded.
"Well to show you that the lake was too shallow still for Billy and I to go swimming without going out in the middle where the giant squid and all those grindylows and things are," Teddy said.
"And I suppose you couldn't have just said that instead of completely drenching me?" Victoire demanded.
Teddy shrugged.
"Why are you always popping up wherever I am, anyway?" Victoire demanded. "Don't you have your own friends to harass?"
"I'm just keeping an eye on – "
"Well you can stop now," Victoire cried. "I'm not that scared little girl from the first day of school anymore, I can take care of myself. I don't need you following around and keeping tabs on me for papa anymore."
Teddy took a step back. "Sorry," he said. "I'll just go then."
"I think that's a good idea," Victoire agreed angrily. "Come on Kara, thanks to this nitwit, I have to change and take a shower. I smell like seaweed."
VvVvVvVvVvV
Over the next few days, Teddy kept his word and remained at a distance. He made sure to eat at the opposite end of the table and whenever Victoire was in the common room, he would go up to his dorm, or leave to study in the library. Victoire felt bad about what she'd said, but she was too stubborn to say so. Besides, it made more sense this way. She was in first year, so she should be spending her time with other first years, not some random third year who clearly didn't have enough friends of his own to spend time with.
The Easter holidays quickly came to a close and on the night before classes were meant to start back up again, the students that had went home returned just in time for the evening feast.
"So how was your visit with the family?" Victoire asked Brianna as soon as she'd sat down.
"It was fine. Quiet," she said. "But I want to hear about all the crazy stuff you guys got up to while I was gone."
"We didn't do much really," Kara said. "We got all that work done in the first few days and then we spent the rest of the holiday bored and trying to find fun activities to entertain ourselves. Oh, and Victoire and Teddy had a row."
"We did not have a row," Victoire mumbled.
"He's been avoiding you like the plague," Kara said. "You basically told him you hated having him around and that he should stay away from you."
"Yeah, well he pushed me in the lake!" Victoire cried.
"Wait, what?" Brianna gasped. "He pushed you in the lake? Was this before or after you had your row?"
"Before," Victoire said. "He pushed me in the lake, and so then I started yelling at him. Obviously I was just angry though, he should realize that."
"You were pretty mean though," Kara told her. "I wouldn't be surprised if he never spoke to you again."
"Oh, he'll come around," Victoire assured her. "We're like family. Besides, he's not ignoring me, he's just, you know, living his life. Like I told him to."
"Sure," Kara said, unconvinced.
When they finished dinner, they decided to head back to the common room for a game of exploding snap. With Brianna back, they had enough people for a proper game. They played for a while, and when the common room had emptied out considerably, Kara and Victoire told Brianna they needed to talk.
They'd discussed it over the holidays and decided that they were going to tell Brianna about the rumour about her father. At first, they were just going to hope the rumour would blow over, but then thy realized that if Brianna was going to overhear it somewhere by accident, it would be better to have been warned ahead of time by her friends.
"What's going on?" Brianna asked nervously.
"Well, it seems that there's this rumour that's been going around school over the holidays…" Kara said hesitantly.
"We wouldn't even bring it up, except that we wanted to make sure you heard it from us first," Victoire added.
"You guys are starting to scare me," Brianna said, looking back and forth between her two best friends.
"Alright, here goes," Victoire said, taking a deep breath. "People have been saying… well they've been saying…"
"They've been saying that your dad is in prison," Kara finished for Victoire.
Upon hearing the words, Brianna froze. Victoire and Kara exchanged a look and then each placed a hand on one of their friend's arms.
"How did they find out?" she asked.
Victoire frowned. "What?" she asked.
"Who was it?" Brianna asked, her face drained of all blood. "Who told?"
"Wait, so it's true?" Kara gaped.
Brianna shut her eyes. "Yeah, it's true," she said.
"We had no idea," Victoire said, wrapping an arm around her friend and pulling her into a hug. "Are you alright?"
"Yeah, most of the time I'm fine," Brianna said. "It's why I had to go home over Easter – they only let you visit a few times a year and I didn't want to miss my chance."
"How long has he been…?" Victoire trailed off.
"Two years," Brianna said. "He has another three to serve before his sentence is over."
"Really?" Kara frowned. "They only gave him five years?"
"Yeah," Brianna said. "I mean personally, I think that five years it a little on the high side, but dad says he'll serve whatever time they demand of him."
"A little on the high side?" Kara asked. "Five years isn't all that much at all for killing six people."
"For what?" Brianna cried. "My dad didn't kill anyone!"
"He didn't?" Kara asked.
"No," Brianna said. "He stole some money from his boss and forged his boss's signature on a few important documents. Why would you think he killed people?"
"Well that's what everyone's been saying," Victoire said gently.
"Seriously?" Brianna cried. "People think my dad is a murderer?"
"Shh, calm down," Victoire said. "It's not like there's all that many people talking about it anyway. Besides, I told Teddy to shut it down."
"You heard it from Teddy?" Brianna gasped.
"Yeah, apparently he heard it from Billy who heard it from his brother who heard it from some dude and so on," Victoire said.
Brianna sighed. "Well I knew it was going to get out eventually," she said. "These things never stay secret for long. At least you guys know now, so I can stop keeping it hidden."
"You know you could have told us anytime?" Kara asked.
Brianna shrugged. "I didn't want to tell you when we first met, because we weren't really friends yet. And then once we became friends, it was just awkward to bring it up, because I'd gone so long without saying anything."
"Well at least now it's out in the open," Victoire said.
"I wish it was a little less out in the open to be honest," Brianna muttered.
"Hey," Kara said. "If anyone tries to mess with you, they'll have to go through the two of us first."
Brianna smiled. "Thanks guys. You really are the best friends ever."
VvVvVvVvVvV
True to her word, over the next couple of days, anytime it so much as looked like someone might be about to mention something about Brianna's dad to her, Kara would scare them off with a glare and a growl that made her sound a bit like a bear. After a few more days, everyone started to forget about the rumour as newer ones started springing up about other students. Everything was going back to normal, except for one thing.
"Hey," Victoire muttered, finding Teddy sitting in the back corner of the library, probably hiding from her.
"Oh, sorry, I'll get out of your way," Teddy muttered.
"No don't," Victoire said. "I actually wanted to talk to you."
"Are you sure?" Teddy asked. "You're not worried I'll just run off and write a letter to your dad the minute you leave?"
"Stop being such a crybaby," Victoire said, sitting down next to him.
"Gee, now I really want to talk to you," Teddy said sarcastically.
"I wanted to apologize," Victoire said.
"You're not doing a very good job of it," Teddy muttered.
"Would you be quiet and let me talk?" Victoire demanded. Teddy mimed zipping his lips shut and throwing away the key. Victoire rolled her eyes, but continued. "Listen, the things I said, I didn't really mean them. I was just mad because you'd pushed me into the lake and it was freezing cold and I was all wet and I was wearing this new top that I really like and I was afraid you'd ruined it and my hair was all gross and I just had one of those moments, you know?"
Teddy shrugged. "I guess," he said.
"Look," Victoire said. "I know I'm only a first year and I'm probably just a pain in the neck and you only hang around with me because Uncle Harry told you to, but I like to think that we're sort of friends. And I'd hate to have to spend the rest of my life always trying to avoid you."
"I guess even though you are a first year, and I'm a mature third year, I like to think that we're sort of friends too," Teddy said, a half smirk on his face.
"So can we keep being friends then?" Victoire asked hopefully.
"Sure," Teddy smiled. "Besides. Uncle Harry would kill me if I threw you to the wolves now."
Victoire shook her head and playfully punched Teddy in the shoulder, glad she had patched things up. It felt much better knowing that she had all her friends back on her side.
"So that top," Teddy said. "I didn't really ruin it, did I?"
"Nah, it was fine," Victoire assured him. "The house elves took great care of it and brought it back good as new."
"Phew," Teddy said in relief. "Because I don't think I could have afforded to replace it."