Year 2: Triple the Trouble

Chapter 14: December 2012

The next few weeks passed rather quickly, and before she knew it, Victoire was back home with her family for the Christmas holidays. She was happy to be home, but at the same time, she missed Hogwarts and her friends.

"Victoire?" her mother called up the stairs one day. "I have to run an errand in Diagon Alley. I'm leaving you in charge of your brother and sister. I should only be gone an hour or so."

"Wait, seriously?" Victoire asked, running out of her room and coming to the top of the stairs. "You're leaving me in charge?"

"Sure," her mother said. "You're in your second year now. I think you're more than old enough to keep an eye on your siblings."

"Awesome!" Victoire exclaimed. If she was old enough to babysit Dominique and Louis, it meant no more being shipped off to Aunt Audrey's house to play with Molly and Lucy.

"Dominique, Louis, you mind your sister now!" her mother called out loudly before walking out of the house and disapparating.

Victoire checked in on each of her siblings, but they both seemed fine playing in their rooms, so she returned to her own room and continued to work on her Defence essay. It sucked that she had to do homework over the Christmas holidays, but at least it wasn't all that much.

"Victoire?" Louis asked a few minutes later, appearing at her door. "I'm hungry."

"Okay," Victoire said, putting down her quill. "Well let's go get a snack then."

She led her brother down to the kitchen and sat him at the table while she rooted around in the cupboard. "Do you want some fruit?" she asked.

"No," Louis replied.

"How about some crackers?" Victoire suggested.

"No," Louis shook his head.

"Do you want something specific?" Victoire asked, sensing that Louis had something in mind.

"I want a cookie!" Louis exclaimed.

Victoire sighed. "All right, one cookie," she said. Normally maman saved the cookies for after dinner snacks, but she figured giving Louis one now couldn't hurt. Besides, wasn't that how babysitting was supposed to work? You were supposed to do things that you wouldn't normally be allowed to do if the parents were home.

"Why don't we call Dominique down and see if she wants a cookie too?" Victoire suggested.

"Okay!" Louis exclaimed, running upstairs to get their sister. While he was gone, Victoire popped a cookie into her own mouth. If her siblings were having them, so would she.

Once Dominique had eaten her cookie, Louis asked if they could all play a game.

"What do you want to play?" Victoire asked.

"What about hide and seek?" Louis suggested. "We can practice for Christmas at the Burrow."

"Yeah!" Dominique exclaimed. "Victoire, you count," she declared.

"Alright," Victoire said. "But let's keep the same rule as at the Burrow – no bathrooms." She said. Her siblings nodded and she began to count. "One… Two… Three…"

When she reached fifty, she announced that she was coming and began to search. She started by doing a sweep of the first floor, but found nothing, so she headed up to the second floor. She checked Louis' room first, and when she couldn't find either of them, she moved on to Domi's. She checked her room next and found Dominique hiding in her closet.

"Found you," Victoire smiled.

"Aw man," Dominique grumbled.

"Alright, where's your brother?" Victoire asked.

"I can't tell you," Dominique sang. "That's against the rules."

There was only one room left that Victoire hadn't searched, and that was their parents' bedroom. She tried looking there, Louis was nowhere to be found.

"Okay, Domi, seriously, where's Louis?" Victoire asked.

Dominique mimed zipping her mouth shut.

"Okay, is he on the second floor?" Victoire prompted.

Dominique shook her head.

"So he's on the first floor," Victoire reasoned.

Dominique shrugged, causing Victoire to sigh.

"Alright, let's go check the first floor again," she said, leading her sister back downstairs.

She searched the living room and the kitchen and her father's den, and even the dining room, but there was no Louis. Victoire was starting to get panicked.

"Domi, is Louis on the first floor?" she repeated her question, having received a non-committal answer the first time.

"Not exactly," Dominique admitted.

"So he's on the second floor?" Victoire frowned.

"Nope," Dominique smiled.

"Then where is he?" Victoire cried. "There are only two floors in this house!"

Dominique turned and pointed in the direction of the window.

"He went outside?" Victoire screeched, running to the front door and throwing it open. "But Louis knows you're not allowed to go outside!"

"Technically that wasn't in the rules," Dominique pointed out. "You only said no bathrooms."

"I thought it was implied!" Victoire cried, running around the house in search of their brother. If he'd wandered off while she was supposed to be watching her siblings, her parents were going to kill her. "Dominique, help me look!" she cried. "Louis! Louis! You can come out now! You've won!"

There was no answer.

"Were is he?" Victoire cried in fear.

"There he is!" Dominique exclaimed suddenly, pointing towards the water.

Victoire spun around to find that Louis was indeed bobbing up and down in the water.

"Stay here," she ordered Dominique as she ran down to the beach. "Louis!" she cried. "Can you hear me?"

"Yeah!" Louis called back.

"Okay, can you swim back over here now?" Victoire asked. She would worry about reprimanding Louis later. For now, she just needed him to come out of the water. One of the biggest rules at Shell Cottage was that there was no swimming unless there was an adult present. Victoire might be old enough to babysit, but she was pretty sure her parents wouldn't consider her old enough to supervise swimming time.

"I can't," Louis called back. "I'm stuck."

"What do you mean you're stuck?" Victoire called back.

"The seaweed," Louis yelled. "It's wrapped around my foot and I can't pull it out."

"You're in the ocean," Victoire called. "It's just a bunch of sand and water. Pull the seaweed out of the sand."

"I can't," Louis insisted. "It's trapped by this really big rock. I can't move it. You need to come and help me."

Not seeing any other choice, Victoire threw off her sweater and waded into the water. It was freezing cold and she was at a loss as to why her brother would choose a cold December day to go swimming. When she got to her brother, she found that there was in fact a large rock trapping the seaweed that was wrapped around his leg. The rock was too big to move, but Victoire was able to free Louis' leg and then together the two swam back to shore.

As soon as they were out of the water, Louis' teeth began to chatter. "It's freezing out here," he said, wrapping his arms around himself.

"Here, take my sweater," Victoire said, picking it up off the sand and pulling it over her brother's head. "We are both going to need a couple of nice long hot showers."

"Uh, Victoire?" Dominique said nervously, running up to meet them. "There's a problem."

"What now?" Victoire asked.

"Well when we ran outside, neither of us took house keys, and the door is charmed to lock when it closes – remember papa put in that security measure a couple years ago?" Dominique asked.

"Don't tell me we're locked out!" Victoire cried.

"We're locked out," Dominique confirmed.

"What are we going to do?" Victoire demanded. "It's freezing out here, Louis was in that water for Merlin knows how long, both our clothes are soaked, and maman is going to kill me!"

"It could be worse," Dominique pointed out.

"How could it possibly be worse?" Victoire demanded.

"I could be all wet too," Dominique said.

About twenty minutes later, their mother returned home to find the three of them sitting on the front stoop looking guilty.

"Qu'est-ce que vous faites?" their mother asked. "Victoire, why are you and Louis all wet, and what are you doing outside?"

"It's all my fault," Louis said, hanging his head. "I'm the one that went outside."

"No, it's my fault," Victoire disagreed. "I was in charge, so I should have been more responsible."

"Well it wasn't my fault," Dominique spoke up. "I was just trying to help Victoire find Louis."

"You lost your brother?" their mother cried.

"No, we were just playing hide and seek, and for some reason, Louis decided to hide in the water," Victoire said.

"Louis," their mother said, opening the door and letting her children into the warm house. "You know you're not supposed to go outside without letting someone know. And you know you're not supposed to go swimming without an adult."

"I know," Louis said apologetically. "I'm sorry."

"Okay, well you two, go change out of those clothes and warm up," their mother said. "We'll talk about this when your father gets home."

Filled with trepidation for what was to come, Victoire took her younger brother upstairs and turned on the shower for him before going into her own room to find some warm clothes.

"Victoire!" her mother's voice yelled up the stairs. "Did you let your siblings eat cookies before dinner?" she roared.

"Oops," Victoire muttered. "Forgot to put the box away."

VvVvVvVvVvV

In the end, Victoire and Louis were grounded until the end of the Christmas holidays and their parents decided that twelve was too young to keep watch over her siblings. Victoire was a little mad, but she also knew most of what had happened was her own fault.

Soon, it was time for the big Weasley family Christmas Eve dinner. It was the one thing Victoire's parents were letting Victoire and Louis leave the house for during their punishment, and even at that, they had both been banned from the house-wide game of hide and seek with the cousins.

"Victoire?" Molly asked when they arrived. "Louis? Aren't you coming upstairs?"

"No," Victoire replied. "I don't feel like playing this year." She didn't want all her cousins knowing she was being punished.

Since she wasn't allowed to play with the cousins, and the adults were being extremely boring, talking about their jobs and other such nonsense, Victoire wandered out to the garden and sat in the shade of a nearby tree, watching the gnomes sneaking around and burrowing holes into the ground.

"So I heard you got grounded," Teddy said, appearing next to Victoire and sitting down with her under the tree.

"Where did you hear that?" Victoire demanded.

"Louis," Teddy said. "He's wandering the house whining about how you're both grounded and how you can't play hide and seek and how it's a travesty because he had a really good hiding spot for this year."

Victoire rolled her eyes. "He's just being dramatic. He's always easy enough to find."

"I heard that wasn't the case a few days ago," Teddy smirked.

"He told you about that too?" Victoire groaned.

"So you managed to lose a kid and get locked out of the house, and then on top of everything, you got caught feeding them junk food?" Teddy summed up.

"That sounds about right," Victoire muttered. "Go ahead, say it. I'm an utter failure."

"Nah," Teddy said. "The first time I babysat for Uncle Harry and Aunt Ginny, I almost let James burn the house down."

"Wait, seriously?" Victoire asked.

"Yeah," Teddy said. "He had the matches, he had enough newspaper to at least burn down the living room. Luckily I caught him before he did any real damage. There is a small burn hole in Uncle Harry's couch now though."

"So that's where that came from!" Victoire exclaimed. "I was wondering about that when I visited last summer."

"Yup, that's what that is," Teddy confirmed. "It can be real tough, keeping an eye on kids. If they're determined to do something, they're going to go for it, and sometimes there's not much you can do to stop them unless you know ahead of time what they're planning."

"Maman and papa don't think I should watch Domi and Louis anymore," Victoire said sadly.

"Give it time. They'll come around. Besides, the older you get, the more responsible you'll be," Teddy assured her.

Victoire nodded. "You didn't want to play hide and seek?" she asked, realizing that Teddy was missing the game.

"Nah," Teddy shrugged. "Molly's just bossing everyone around anyway."

Well I just hope it's not on account of me," Victoire said.

"Definitely not," Teddy said, shaking his head. "No, this is all about me."

Victoire laughed. "Well thanks anyway," she said. "It was getting pretty lonely out here."

"No problem," Teddy smiled back.

VvVvVvVvVvV

The Weasley family Quidditch game started a little while later and Victoire and Teddy headed to join the rest of the family by the Weasley family Quidditch pitch. The same eight people from the previous year were playing, but they shuffled the teams around a bit so that it was Aunt Angelina, Uncle Ron, Aunt Ginny, and Uncle Charlie against her father, Uncle Harry, Uncle George, and Teddy.

The game didn't last long though, because Uncle George accidentally hit Aunt Angelina in the head with his beater's bat when he was really aiming for the bludger, and they had to cut the game short to ice Aunt Angelina's head.

Dinner was delicious as usual, and soon everyone was gathering in the living room for Secret Santa.

"What order should we go in this year?" Grandma Weasley wondered. She asked the same question every year.

"Well we did alphabetical last year," Molly said. "This year let's go in order of age!"

"Age it is," Grandma Weasley declared. "So I guess that means Arthur goes first."

It turned out that Grandfather Weasley had gotten Dominique this year and had gotten her something he called a frisbee. It was another Muggle toy that you were supposedly supposed throw around when you were outside. Dominique thanked him and Victoire wondered how a small disk was supposed to be any fun to play with.

Next it was Grandma Weasley's turn. She had gotten Roxanne's name and had gotten her a toy cauldron set. It came with it's own 'ingredients' and a mini-cauldron, and you could add the ingredients together to create different effects. It was totally safe, of course, and Roxanne loved it. She was always trying to brew 'potions' in the bathroom with the things she could find under the sink and this would be so much more fun.

Aunt Audrey got Teddy's name and gave him a book about being prepared for O.W.L. year. "You'll be a fifth year soon," she said. "You need to be prepared."

Teddy had been given Molly's name and had in turn bought her a history book about the creation of the British Ministry of Magic – she loved that sort of thing.

After Teddy, it was Victoire's turn. She had drawn Uncle Percy's name and had bought him a brand new super-fancy quill for his office. He told her he loved it and that he would use it everyday.

Dominique had drawn Uncle George's name and her gift to him was a huge box that he opened to find was completely empty. "Fooled you!" Dominique cried. Uncle George laughed and said the prank was better than any gift she could have bought.

Louis had gotten their father and told him that his gift would be that he would clean his room without being asked for the rest of the year.

When Fred's turn arrived, Victoire discovered that he'd drawn her name. He gave her a large gift bag. When she dove in to find the present, she ended up finding an old sweater that she'd lost two years back.

"Fred, where did you find this?" she asked.

"I accidentally spilled my juice on the sleeve. You left it on a chair and I didn't see it until it was too late. I was afraid you'd be mad, so I took it home with me and then I forgot about it. But I had Mommy help me make it like new again, so Merry Christmas!" Fred said.

Victoire smiled and hugged her little cousin. "Well thank you Fred, I'm glad to have it back," she said. "You know; I think it looks even better than it did before!"

Roxanne gave her gift to Rose next, and then Hugo and Lily discovered that they had drawn each other's names. Once the Secret Santa gifts were given out, Grandma Weasley snuck into the next room and returned with the traditional Weasley sweaters that she always insisted on making for everyone despite the Secret Santa tradition that she's implemented herself.

This year, Victoire's sweater was dark blue and the large V on the front was white. It looked a lot better, she thought, then the red and gold sweater she'd gotten last year in honor of her getting into Gryffindor. When everybody had their sweaters on, they lined up outside the Burrow for their annual family portrait.

When it was time to go home, Victoire hugged all her Aunts and Uncles and cousins and then stepped into the Floo to return home. It was late, so she and her siblings went to sleep as soon as they got home.

Victoire awoke the next morning to the sound of Louis screaming that it was Christmas and that their presents had arrived. Moments later, Victoire could hear Dominique up and running about. Throwing on her newest Weasley sweater, Victoire rolled out of bed to join her family in the living room.

"Merry Christmas!" her father greeted her.

"Joyeux Noel!" her mother added. "Guess who came to visit?"

"Aunt Gabrielle?" Victoire cried, noticing her Aunt's shoes at the front entrance.

"Oui!" her Aunt exclaimed, appearing from the kitchen with her arms outstretched.

Victoire ran forward to give her Aunt a hug and then they all settled around the tree to open presents.

"Color-changing nail polish!" Victoire cried when she opened her gift from Aunt Gabrielle. "No way! This is so cool!"

"And it lasts twice as long as normal nail polish does," her Aunt explained. "It's all on the bottle. Joyeux Noel!"

After opening their presents, everyone headed into the kitchen for a big Christmas breakfast. Maman cooked while Aunt Gabrielle puttered around the kitchen pretending to help. Everyone knew she really wasn't – Aunt Gabrielle was a terrible cook – but it made her feel better to pretend she was contributing.

"So Gabrielle," Victoire's father said as they all sat down to mountains of bacon, eggs, sausages, pancakes, waffles, toast, and jam. "What are you up to these days?"

"Oh, un peu de çi, un peu de ça," Gabrielle replied. "I am heading off to Greece for a few weeks soon to take some photos of their Quidditch team. Have you heard? They're one of the leading teams, likely to be in the finals this summer."

Aunt Gabrielle was a photographer who travelled the world taking photos for various newspapers. Victoire was so jealous – Aunt Gabrielle was so cool, and her job sounded amazing! She wished she could be like Aunt Gabrielle one day.

"Will you be around for New Year's?" Bill asked.

"Non," Aunt Gabrielle said. "Sadly, I must leave the day before. But I will be back in time to celebrate maman's birthday," she assured them.

This year would be Grand-maman Delacour's sixtieth birthday and they were going to have a big party for her at the end of January at her house in France. Unfortunately, Victoire would be at school and wouldn't be able to go.

"And do you know where you'll be heading out to after that?" her father asked.

"Non," Aunt Gabrielle said. "I am hoping to maybe do a little sightseeing, take a break from work and travel a bit.

"But you travel for work," Victoire said.

"Oui chèrie," Aunt Gabrielle agreed. "But I don't always have time to properly enjoy the places I visit, because I'm always working. I want to lie on a beach in Greece and sample chocolate in a little chocolaterie in Switzerland.

"Will you be here for my eleventh birthday in June?" Dominique asked. "It's going to be a lot of fun!"

"Je ne sais pas," Aunt Gabrielle told her. "June is still months away. I would love to come to your party though ma belle."

Aunt Gabrielle ended up not staying long, claiming that she had to go visit her mother before she headed off to Greece for three weeks. Victoire and her siblings spent the rest of the afternoon playing with their Christmas gifts, even going so far as to try out Dominique's new Frisbee, which turned out to actually be a lot of fun. By the end of the day, they were tired, but happy. All in all, it had been a good Christmas.