Year 2: Triple the Trouble
Chapter 13: November 2012
When Victoire awoke the next morning, the curtains around Kara's bed were still closed and Brianna's bed was empty. Tentatively, Victoire ventured into the bathroom, unsure whether she was hoping to find Brianna inside or not. In the end, it didn't matter because she wasn't there.
"Kara?" Victoire said, pushing back the curtains and rousing her friend. "Kara, it's time to wake up," she said. "We have classes soon."
Kara rolled over and opened her eyes. They were red from the crying she'd done the night before, and her cheeks were stained with tears.
"Where's Brianna?" Kara asked.
"She must have left early," Victoire said. "It's better this way though. You can compose yourself before you have to see her in class."
Kara nodded and allowed Victoire to drag her out of bed. She grabbed her bathroom kit and made her way to the bathroom to shower.
Already anticipating the challenges ahead, Victoire got ready too, taking a quick shower and throwing on some clean robes.
"Are you ready?" Victoire asked when there was nothing left to do but head down to the Great Hall.
"Yeah," Kara said, her eyes fixed on something in the distance. "Can't stay up here all day."
When they got to the Great Hall, Victoire didn't see Brianna at first. She wondered if maybe the girl had realized how wrong she'd been and was giving Kara some space before coming to apologize. She hoped that was the case, at least. The two girls sat at the end of the Gryffindor table and Victoire began spreading some jam on a piece of toast, not being in the mood for much more.
Suddenly, she heard a very familiar laugh. It had to be Brianna's, but upon re-scanning the Gryffindor table, she couldn't see their other friend anywhere. She heard the laugh again and realized it was coming from the next table over. She spun around and gasped out loud when she found that Brianna was eating at the Hufflepuff table with William Shimpling and all his friends.
"Kara, we should get going!" she said in a high-pitched voice. "We don't want to be late for Transfiguration!"
"It's not that far," Kara muttered. "And I've already seen Brianna, so you don't have to try to shield me. It's fine. I didn't really like William anyway, so I don't really care that she's sitting with him. Or that she danced with him. Or that she kissed him."
"We should go anyway," Victoire said. "You don't want to sit here and watch this."
Unfortunately, leaving the Great Hall didn't solve their problem. All through the rest of the day, Brianna was hanging off William's shoulder, talking louder than necessary and laughing at things that weren't even funny. She made sure to sit with him in all their classes and meals. By the end of the day, Victoire could tell Kara needed a break, so she suggested they go back to the common room instead of watching Brianna fawn over William in the library.
"Game of exploding snap?" Victoire suggested once they had claimed a decent spot close to the fire.
"We're only two," Kara said. "It's not really all that fun with two."
"Wizard's chess?" Victoire asked. Not that she wanted to play, but she wanted to get Kara's mind off everything that was going on.
"No, I think we learned our lesson from the last time we played," Kara said. "We should probably just get started on our homework."
"Yeah?" Victoire asked. She knew if she was upset, homework would be the last thing she would want to do, but perhaps Kara was different than her. "Sure. Potions essay or Charms assignment?" she asked, naming the two assignments whose due dates were coming up.
"Charms," Kara decided, reaching into her bag and producing her Charms textbook.
"Great," Victoire said, picking up her own textbook and propping it open on her lap. The assignment was on Freezing Charms – what wand motion was needed to cast it and why. It wasn't the most interesting of topics; Victoire would have preferred writing an essay on the reactions of the various ingredients in the wiggenweld potion, but she was willing to do Charms if Kara preferred. Besides, she had to do both assignments eventually.
The next few weeks were awful. Brianna barely spoke to either Victoire or Kara, and when she did, it was to run her new relationship with William in Kara's face. Kara was devastated and Victoire didn't know what to do.
"It's like she's turned into this monster," Victoire vented to Teddy one night in the common room while Kara was checking a book out of the library. "She used to be this really nice girl who was our friend and suddenly she's openly trying to make Kara miserable."
"Have you tried talking to her?" Teddy suggested.
"Who, Brianna?" Victoire asked. "Not since Halloween night, when she basically told me that I thought I was entitled because my uncle is Harry Potter."
"She said that?" Teddy gasped, astonished. "But anyone who knows you would know in a second that that wasn't true."
"I know," Victoire said. "But I guess we don't know each other as well as we thought we did. I mean, I never would have thought she'd do something like this. And to carry it on for so long, I mean, what is she trying to prove?"
"You don't think maybe she just really likes this William guy?" Teddy asked.
Victoire thought for a moment. "No," she decided. If Brianna had liked him, she wouldn't have been all excited about trying to push Kara to dance with him. I think she's just using him."
"Maybe you should tell William that," Teddy suggested.
"I couldn't do that," Victoire said. "It's too mean."
"Why not?" Teddy asked. "She's doing worse."
"Because after everything, I still think there's a shred of hope that we can all be friends again. Maybe I'm just projecting what I want to see, but I think this is coming out of a place of hurt, not a place of malice," Victoire said.
"Don't take this the wrong way," Teddy said. "But I think you have a tendency to look for good everywhere, even when there is none. It's a great quality, but sometimes it can be kind of dangerous."
"You really think she's beyond help?" Victoire asked.
"I don't know," Teddy confessed. "I only know what you've told me. But I think you should take the situation as it is now. Unless Brianna suddenly realizes that what she did was wrong, there's nothing you can do. The best thing to do would be to live your life and if she changes, she changes. But don't go trying to change someone where there's no hope of change in the first place."
"Thanks Teddy," Victoire said. "That helped."
"Anytime kid," he responded. "Anytime."
VvVvVvVvVvV
"So I'm thinking tonight we get Transfiguration and Defence out of the way, and then that way we can enjoy our Saturday without having to worry about doing homework, and on Sunday we can finish up that Astronomy assignment and sketch out an outline for the big term paper in History of Magic," Victoire suggested as she and Kara walked towards the greenhouses for their last class of the day.
"That is, assuming we don't get any Herbology work assigned for the weekend," Kara pointed out.
"If we do, then you can take Defence and I'll take Herbology and we'll copy each other," Victoire said. "We can still be done in plenty of time to enjoy a nice Saturday stroll before the weather gets any colder."
They got to greenhouse three only to find Brianna and William standing in the doorway, Brianna brushing imaginary dust out of William's hair.
"Come on," Victoire said, pushing through the pair and dragging Kara along with her. "Oh, I'm sorry, did I bump into you?" she asked after pointedly shoving Brianna backwards and causing her to fall in a pot of dirt.
"Victoire, you did that on purpose!" Brianna cried.
"Can't prove it," Victoire shrugged, smirking as she led Kara to the back of the greenhouse, far from where William and Brianna were sitting.
"Thanks," Kara said gratefully.
"Hey, I'll push that girl into a pot of dirt for you anytime," Victoire assured her friend.
"Alright class, settle down," Professor Longbottom said loudly as everyone took their seats. "Now today, we're going to be working with sopophorus plants. I've been told you've all used the bean before in potions and that you know all about it's properties, so we're going to skip that and get straight to how you get them off the plant and into a jar in the dungeon."
Their Professor explained the process and then instructed them all to start working on their plants while he passed out their assignments from the previous week.
"Ugh, this is ridiculous," Kara said as she tried to pry open the bulb encasing the sopophorus bean. "It won't open. How am I supposed to get it out if it won't open?"
"Try using the shears to prop it open and then stick your hand inside and pull it out," Victoire suggested as she successfully retrieved her first bean."
"Excellent technique Victoire," Professor Longbottom said as he passed by, placing their assignments facedown in front of them. "Kara, keep trying," he added.
Victoire grabbed her assignment and flipped it over. There were a few comments, but what she was interested in was the huge O written in red ink at the top of the page.
"How did you do?" Victoire wondered.
"I – " Kara trailed off. "I – "
"What's wrong?" Victoire asked.
"I failed," Kara finally said, placing the parchment down on the table in front of her.
Victoire looked down to find a bright red P sitting glaringly at the top of Kara's paper. There were a lot of comments in red.
"It's not that bad," Victoire said encouragingly. "It's not like it's a D or a T. You barely failed. And it's not an exam or anything, it barely counts for anything. It's just a stupid homework assignment."
"I've never failed anything before in my life," Kara said, staring ahead. "I can't believe it."
"Don't worry about it, you're going to be fine," Victoire assured her. "It's one lousy grade, you'll pull it back up. You're great at Herbology."
"No, you're great at Herbology," Kara corrected. "I'm great at nothing."
"Well that's just not true at all," Victoire disagreed. "You got an O in Charms last year. That's better than either me or Brianna."
"Yeah, but that's just Charms. What use is Charms? It's like the baby course where you learn stuff that can be useful in all the other classes," Kara said.
"Well don't say that in front of Professor Flitwick or he might give you a detention," Victoire said. "Charms is absolutely an important subject. How are you supposed to do anything without Charms? It's the foundation of what it means to be a witch or wizard."
"I know you're trying to make me feel better, but it's not working. You wouldn't know, you've never failed anything," Kara said.
"I've come pretty darn close," Victoire said. "Remember that interview from the summer that I did with Uncle Harry? I put absolutely no work into that. I should have gotten a T. I'm pretty sure Professor Leftbridge only passed me because he needed me to ask Uncle Harry to come a give those guest speeches.
"That's just a dumb summer assignment," Kara sighed. "That doesn't count for anything."
"And neither does this," Victoire insisted, flapping Kara's assignment in front of her face. "Look, watch this." She took the assignment in both her hands and dramatically ripped it in half down the middle.
"Victoire!" Kara exclaimed, grabbing it back. "You can't rip up assignments!"
"Sure you can," Victoire returned. "Look, I'm doing it right now to mine."
She ripped her own down the middle, and then for good measure, ripped it a few more times, resulting in about thirty-two little pieces of assignment littering the table.
"Victoire?" Professor Longbottom asked from the front of the room. "What's going on back there?"
"Nothing Professor!" Victoire called back.
"We should get back to work on these sopophorus plants," Kara said, shoving her assignment into the bottom of her bag.
"Only if you admit it out loud," Victoire said.
"Admit what?" Kara asked.
"That you're overreacting. That you're an amazing student and one bad grade doesn't change that," Victoire said.
"Fine," Kara huffed. "I'm overreacting."
"And…" Victoire pushed.
"And I'm an amazing student and one bad grade doesn't change that," Kara said, a smile developing on her face about halfway through.
"Alright, now we can get back to work," Victoire declared, picking up her shears to attack her plant again.
VvVvVvVvVvV
Sunday night found Victoire, Kara, Teddy, and Billy Carmichael all sitting on the floor in the common room playing exploding snap. Ever since Victoire had talked to Teddy about Brianna, he'd been keeping an eye on her and Kara, making sure they were okay. Sometimes it was annoying, but when it came to exploding snap, it was nice to have the extra players.
"I win!" Kara exclaimed when the cards blew up in Billy's face. "That's three times in a row. You guys better not be letting me win!" she accused.
"How could we be doing that?" Teddy asked. "They explode at random. And it's your deck, so you know we haven't tampered with them."
"Good point," Kara agreed as she dealt out a new hand.
Just then, the portrait hole opened and Brianna flew through the common room and stomped up the stairs to the dorms. Even from the common room, Victoire could hear the slam of the door when she reached their shared room.
"What's wrong with her?" Billy asked.
"A lot of things," Victoire replied.
"Whatever," Kara said, playing her first card. "She's stupid, I don't care about her anymore."
The next day at breakfast, Brianna was conspicuously absent. In Charms that morning, she sat far away from everyone and didn't say a word to Kara or Victoire when they found themselves leaving the room at the same time.
"Do you think she and William had a fight?" Victoire wondered when in their fourth class, Brianna was still sitting alone, and not making eye contact with anyone from Hufflepuff.
"Even if she did, I wouldn't care," Kara sniffed.
It wasn't until the next day, while Kara was having a meeting with Professor Longbottom to discuss her poor grade, that Victoire found out what had happened. She was sitting alone in the library, doing research for her term paper in History of Magic – her topic was the International Warlock Convention of 1289 and how it caused a rift between the Warlocks of Eastern Europe and the Warlocks of Western Europe – when Brianna nervously came up and asked if she could sit.
"What do you want?" Victoire demanded.
"I just want to talk," Brianna said.
"Was this talk going to begin with an apology perhaps?" Victoire asked.
"Well I think the person I really owe an apology to is Kara, but I can start with you," Brianna said. "Vic, I'm so sorry. I had no excuse for what I did, it was wrong and I was mean and petty and such a terrible friend to you, but mostly to Kara."
Victoire crossed her arms in front of her. "Alright, sit," she said. "Explain."
Brianna pulled the chair out and sat right at the edge, twiddling her thumbs nervously as she tried to decide where to begin.
"I guess I've always been a bit show-off-y," Brianna said. "I like feeling like I'm better than people. I think it started when my father was arrested. People made fun of me and my family and for a while I hated going out in public, because it felt like everywhere we went, someone knew who we were. So I built up this wall to protect myself from the world."
"Keep going," Victoire said when Brianna paused, her voice hard.
"Well I guess I used the fact that you and Kara have no experience with boys to make myself feel like I was better than you. So when William asked Kara to dance, I was so jealous. I was supposed to be the one who was an expert with boys. I was supposed to be dancing and you two were supposed to be the jealous ones, watching from the side of the room while you ate your cauldron cakes.
"Uh huh," Victoire mumbled, indicating that Brianna should continue.
"So then when Kara didn't want to ask him to dance, I thought this was my shot, to go dance with him myself so that you would see how cool and confident I was," Brianna said.
"Yeah, and look how well that turned out," Victoire muttered.
"Yeah, well you guys left, so that pretty much ruined my plan of making you both jealous by dancing with him. So when I got back to the dorm, I made up all this stuff about how we danced all night and how he walked be back and how he kissed me."
"You made all that up?" Victoire asked.
"Yeah, I did," Brianna said. "But then you just got really mad, and I realized how upset Kara was and I was too proud to admit that I'd been wrong and just apologize, so the next morning, I woke up really early and waited for William and his friends and basically forced myself on them. I told William he was going to be my boyfriend and I think he just went along with it because I didn't give him a chance to say no."
"I'm not following," Victoire said. "If you had realized that you'd upset Kara, why would you make it worse by going out William?"
"I had to make it worth it," Brianna said. "It sounds dumb now, but it all made sense then. Anyway, I don't know if 'dated' is the right word for what we did. I followed him around for a while and we sat together, but that was it. Then yesterday, he told me that I was annoying and that he didn't want me around anymore. So I guess he sort-of dumped me. That's when I realized how stupid this all was. I mean, I don't even like William! He's dumb as a doornail and boring as an old shoe. He thinks he's hilarious though, so I kept having to pretend to laugh at all his jokes."
"And so now what?" Victoire asked. "I'm just supposed to forgive you? Forget what happened and act like everything's the same?"
"No," Brianna said. "I know we can't go back to how things were right away. But I'd like the chance to try to win back your trust."
Victoire considered her for a while.
"Alright," she said finally. "If you apologize to Kara and she's on board, then fine. We can try to be friends again. But if she doesn't go for it, then I'm going to have to stick with her."
"I understand," Brianna said, hanging her head. "I have a lot to make up for."
VvVvVvVvVvV
"So Brianna's apologizing?" Teddy asked later in the common room. Brianna had come over and asked Kara if they could talk a few minutes ago, so Victoire had excused herself and joined Teddy on a couch where he's been lounging and pretending to read his Charms textbook.
"Yeah," Victoire said. "She came and found me earlier in the library and made this whole big speech."
"How do you feel about it?" Teddy asked.
"Okay, I guess," Victoire said. "I mean, she was obviously in the wrong, but she's dealing with some stuff too. She had reasons for what she did. Bad reasons, but still reasons."
"Are you going to forgive her?" Teddy asked.
"I don't know yet," Victoire said. "It depends on how Kara reacts. If she can't forgive Brianna, then I don't think I should."
"You know, you shouldn't forgive people based on whether other people forgive them," Teddy said. "You've got to forgive them for yourself. Even if you decide to forgive her, it doesn't mean you have to start being friends again. Not unless you decide you want that too."
"I guess that makes sense," Victoire agreed. "But I just don't know. It's so complicated."
"Welcome to second year," Teddy smiled.
"Tell me it gets better," Victoire pleaded.
"Sorry," Teddy grimaced. "It only gets worse."
"Do you think someday it will get better?" Victoire wondered.
"Maybe," Teddy said. "I guess there are some people that are happy and settled. Your parents, Uncle Harry and Aunt Ginny, Uncle Ron and Aunt Hermione, Grandma and Grandfather Weasley…"
"So I have to wait until I'm my parents' age before things will get better?" Victoire exclaimed.
"Probably not," Teddy assured her. "I'm sure it'll happen sooner than that."
"I wish I knew when," Victoire muttered.
"But then the journey there would be so boring," Teddy said. "Half the fun is not knowing where you're going."
"You're very wise for someone who's only fourteen," Victoire noticed.
"Well thank you," Teddy smiled. "I do try."
"Oh, wait, look!" Victoire said, sitting up and pointing in the direction of her two friends. "They're hugging!"
"I guess Kara's decided to forgive," Teddy said. "The question is, what are you going to do?"
In the end, Victoire decided to forgive Brianna as well. She didn't do it because Kara had, but because she really did want to try and get things back to the way they had been before this whole mess had happened. Brianna seemed genuinely sorry and eager to make things up to them both.
"Go on," Brianna insisted one night. "Dare me to do anything. Anything at all, and I'll do it. It doesn't matter how crazy or embarrassing it is."
"What do you think?" Victoire asked, exchanging a look with Kara. "What should we make her do?"
"I have an idea," Kara smiled. "Come here," she said, indicating that Brianna should lean in close.
Kara whispered the dare into her ear and Brianna's face drained of all color.
"Okay," she declared once Kara had finished telling her the dare. "I can do that," she said, taking a deep breath and walking across the room to a group of seventh years.
"What did you dare her to do?" Victoire asked curiously.
"You'll see," Kara smiled.
Victoire watched as Brianna walked up to one of the seventh year boys and tapped him on the shoulder. She saw Brianna start talking, and then all of a sudden, she was kissing the boy and all his friends were laughing at him.
As soon as she was done, Brianna ran up to the dorm. The boy spluttered, casting his eyes around the room in search of Brianna, but she was long gone.
Giggling furiously, Kara and Victoire ran upstairs to join their other friend.
"Well, there you go, I did it," Brianna cried. "I'll never be able to show my face in the common room again, but that is how important our friendship is to me."
"That was priceless," Victoire laughed. "Kara I can't believe you came up with that."
"I thought it was only fair," Kara said.
"How does that even make sense?" Victoire asked. It had been funny, sure, but how was it fair?
"I don't know," Kara admitted. "I just wanted to see her do it."
The girls continued laughing for a while, until Caitlin came up and shouted at them for being loud and obnoxious when she needed sleep. As the girls got ready for bed, Victoire was just glad that they'd put that horrid month of awfulness behind them and that things could finally go back to normal.