Year 3: Friend Like You

Chapter 28: April 2014

Over the next few weeks, Victoire was able to find a way to act normally around Teddy. The whole thing was still very weird and uncomfortable for her, but after realizing how she felt, not having Teddy in her life at all was worse than anything. She knew she would eventually get over her feelings. Someday, she would meet someone else and fall for him and everything would be fine. She just had to make it until then.

"Did you hear the rumour?" Billy asked, approaching Victoire and her friends one day while they were studying in the library.

"Which one?" Victoire asked. They heard lots of rumours after all.

"The one about Professor Leftbridge," Billy clarified. "They're saying he's retiring."

"What?" Kara exclaimed. "Retiring? He's not that old."

"Yeah, he's only been teaching here for, what… fifteen years?" Brianna added.

"That's nothing!" Victoire cried. "If anyone should be retiring, it should be Professor Flitwick!"

Billy shrugged. "Well I heard it was Professor Leftbridge," he said. "I guess we'll find out soon enough though."

As quickly as he had arrived, Billy left to join his friends.

"I don't believe it," Brianna declared. "Professor Leftbridge isn't retiring. I'm sure of it."

VvVvVvVvVvV

Later that night, as the girls were getting ready for bed, Victoire discovered that L'Ourson wasn't on her bed where she'd left him that morning. She wondered if the house elves had moved him while they were cleaning… they didn't normally move him, but maybe they'd just forgotten to put him back.

Victoire checked under her bed and then in her trunk, but still she couldn't find the stuffed bear.

"Hey guys?" she asked, getting a little concerned. "Have any of you seen L'Ourson?"

"You mean your stuffed animal?" Caitlin asked, her voice dripping with distain.

"Yes," Victoire said unashamedly. There'd been a time when she would have been embarrassed to have her roommates know about her stuffed bear, but now she no longer cared.

"Not since this morning," Kara took over from Caitlin. "Where did you leave him?"

"On my bed," Victoire said. "But I can't find him anywhere."

"Do you think maybe the elves threw him in the laundry?" Kara wondered.

"Why?" Victoire asked. "He's not laundry. He's not even clothing."

"Just a guess," Kara said.

"Okay but seriously though guys, where is he?" Victoire demanded, starting to get worried.

"Calm down Victoire," Brianna said. "We'll look, okay?"

The girls searched and searched the dorm, but nobody was able to find L'Ourson. Eventually, Caitlin had to go to sleep, and soon after she was followed by Raina. After a few more minutes of searching, Brianna gave up too, apologizing and assuring Victoire they'd find the bear in the morning.

"Kara, what am I supposed to do?" Victoire asked when it was just the two of them left. "I can't sleep without him."

Kara shrugged. "I don't know Vic, but he's clearly not up here. Do you want to check the common room?"

"Why would L'Ourson be in the common room?" Victoire wondered.

"I don't know," Kara said. "I just thought – "

"Actually yeah, let's check the common room," Victoire decided. It couldn't hurt to look after all, and L'Ourson clearly wasn't in the dorm.

The girls descended to the common room and began looking around. It was late, so not too many people were around, and those who were left were mostly upperclassmen. Victoire recognized Teddy and Beverly kissing in a corner and decided to break her rule of never interrupting them to see if they knew anything.

"Hey Teddy?" Victoire approached, causing the two to tear themselves apart. Beverly glared at Victoire, but Victoire hardly cared about bothering the female prefect.

"What's up?" Teddy asked, pushing Beverly out of his lap. Beverly frowned and crossed her arms, sighing in exasperation when Teddy didn't acknowledge her frustration with the situation.

"Have you seen L'Ourson?" Victoire asked.

"L'Ourson?" Teddy asked, confused. "Why would I have seen him? Don't you keep him in your dorm?"

"Normally I do," Victoire agreed. "But he's missing and I can't find him. I thought he might be down here, but Kara and I haven't been able to find him."

"I haven't seen him," Teddy confessed. "Do you need help looking? I'm a prefect, so if you think you left him in a classroom or something, I could go look without getting in trouble."

"Thanks Teddy," Victoire smiled sadly. "But if he's not down here, then I don't know where he could be."

"Well I'll definitely keep my eyes open," Teddy promised.

"Thanks," Victoire said. "I'm going to go. You can get back to… whatever." Victoire waved her hands in front of her face awkwardly and then grabbed Kara and ran back up to the dorm.

"Sorry Victoire," Kara said apologetically.

"It's not your fault," Victoire sighed. "I just wish I knew where he was."

"Are you going to be alright tonight?" Kara wondered.

"Yeah, I'll be fine," Victoire assured her. "I can make it through one night without L'Ourson, right?"

"That's the spirit," Kara smiled.

With that said, Kara climbed into bed, bidding goodnight to Victoire. Sadly, Victoire climbed into her own bed and pulled the curtains closed, curling up in a ball. Without L'Ourson, her arms felt empty and she clutched them to her chest, desperately wishing she had something to hold onto.

VvVvVvVvVvV

Victoire slept poorly that night, and when she woke up, she was exhausted from the lack of sleep.

"Did you ever find him?" Brianna asked in the bathroom as Victoire brushed her teeth and washed her face.

"No," Victoire said sadly. "We checked the whole dorm, and the common room, and even Teddy said he hadn't seen him."

"Maybe he ran away," Caitlin joked, emerging from the shower with a towel wrapped around her.

"That's not funny," Victoire frowned.

Caitlin shrugged. "I didn't mean it to be," she said, returning to the dorm.

VvVvVvVvVvV

Over the course of the rest of the day, Victoire was unable to focus in any of her classes. Her mind was too foggy from the lack of sleep, and the only thoughts she had room for were wondering where L'Ourson was. If she hadn't moved him from the dorm, and the house elves hadn't moved him from the dorm, then that meant one of her roommates had done it. The question was, who?

Victoire considered each of her roommates in turn. Caitlin was the obvious answer. Caitlin hated her and her friends and wasn't afraid to say so. She'd always thought L'Ourson was babyish and had made fun of Victoire on numerous occasions for sleeping with a stuffed bear.

On the other hand, Raina could have taken L'Ourson too. It was no secret that Victoire and her friends weren't too fond of Raina and they had never really attempted to get to know her. Perhaps Raina had taken it as a form of retribution for always being left out?

Victoire couldn't imagine that Kara could have taken L'Ourson. Kara was the kindest, gentlest, most caring and sensitive person she knew. Even after all the others had gone to sleep, Kara had stayed up with Victoire, helping to search the dorm and the common room well into the night.

Brianna on the other hand… Brianna had always been a little unpredictable. Victoire couldn't possibly imagine what could motivate Brianna to do something like this, but if it did turn out that Brianna was the culprit, Victoire realized that she wouldn't be all too surprised.

Finally, Victoire decided that things had gone far enough. If L'Ourson didn't materialize by that night, Victoire was going to demand to see inside everyone's trunk. She was going to get to the bottom of this, one way or another.

VvVvVvVvVvV

"You want to snoop through our trunks?" Caitlin asked that night in disbelief.

"That's right," Victoire confirmed. "If you didn't take him, then you have nothing to hide."

"Well I certainly don't mind you looking through my trunk," Raina spoke first. "There's nothing exciting in there, but it's probably going to smell a bit."

A little reluctantly, Victoire approached Raina's trunk and leaned over it as Raina held the lid open. She rifled through it for a second and then decided that L'Ourson wasn't inside, and if he were, he probably smelled so strongly of fertilizer that she wouldn't want him back anyway.

"You might as well check mine next," Kara offered with a shrug, pulling the lid back.

Victoire took a cursory glance inside before deciding that Kara wasn't the culprit either.

"I never thought you'd taken him anyway," Victoire assured Kara.

Victoire turned to Brianna next.

"What are you looking at me for?" Brianna demanded. "Obviously it's Caitlin that took him. You should be looking in her trunk, not mine."

"For this to be fair, I need to look in everyone's trunk," Victoire stated.

"You're saying you think I stole him?" Brianna cried. "You said you never thought Kara had done it, but me you suspect? Am I not a good enough friend?"

"I looked in Kara's trunk too," Victoire defended herself.

"Barely," Brianna muttered.

"Honestly Brianna, your reluctance is making me more suspicious than anything else," Victoire said.

"Fine," Brianna cried, throwing open her trunk. "Happy now?"

Victoire peeked in, and upon not seeing L'Ourson, backed away.

"Glad to see we have such a trusting friendship," Brianna mumbled under her breath.

"Come on Bri, don't be like that," Victoire pleaded.

Brianna ignored her.

"Alright Caitlin," Victoire said, deciding to deal with Brianna's hurt feelings later. "You're the only one left."

"I did not steal your stupid bear," Caitlin assured her. "This is ridiculous. I have rights, you know."

Before Victoire could respond, Beverly Longman appeared in their doorway.

"Victoire, Teddy's down in the common room. He was hoping he could talk to you," Beverly said.

"Did he find L'Ourson?" Victoire asked eagerly.

"I think you should talk to Teddy yourself," Beverly said.

"Okay," Victoire agreed. "I'll be back," she added to Caitlin. "If he hasn't found L'Ourson, then I'm going to insist on checking your trunk."

"I'm going to speak to Professor Longbottom about this," Caitlin declared, stomping out of the dorm. "He'll tell you. You can't just go rifling through other people's private stuff."

Ignoring Caitlin, Victoire hurried down to the common room to find Teddy. He was sitting on the good couch – the one only upperclassmen ever sat on, and Victoire approached nervously.

"Did you find L'Ourson?" she asked.

"You should probably sit down," Teddy suggested.

"That sounds bad," Victoire said.

Teddy remained silent until Victoire did as she was told.

"Alright, so don't freak out," Teddy said. "You're going to want to, but I want you to remember that it isn't as bad as it looks."

"Okay…" Victoire said uneasily, biting her lip.

Teddy hesitated. "I found L'Ourson," he said, reaching behind him and producing a ripped up, shredded pile of material and stuffing. "I heard you were still looking, so I started looking between the couch cushions and this is what I found."

"Oh my god," Victoire cried in absolute shock. "L'Ourson, what happened to you?"

"Like I said, don't freak out," Teddy repeated.

"Don't freak out?" Victoire cried. "He's been destroyed. Someone killed him! What am I going to do? This is the only thing I have left to remember grand-papa Delacour!"

"Calm down Vic," Teddy said. "I think we can mend it."

"Really?" Victoire asked hopefully.

"Sure," Teddy said. "Here, set it on the ground. I want to try something."

Victoire did as instructed and Teddy produced his wand, pointing it at the bear. "Reparo," he said.

When nothing happened, Teddy looked sheepishly at Victoire.

"Okay, well that didn't work," he said. "But I'm going to go to the library right now and find a spell that will work. You just wait right here."

Before Victoire could protest, Teddy had jumped up and climbed out the portrait hole, on the way to the library. With a sigh, Victoire leaned back on the couch and pulled her feet up next to her.

"Hey, kid," an upperclassman walked over. "That couch is for upperclassmen only. Move it."

Victoire rolled her eyes. Not caring to get into an argument about how the common room was a space for everyone, she grabbed the remains of L'Ourson and climbed the stairs back to the dorms.

"So what did Teddy want?" Kara asked as soon as Victoire returned.

"He found L'Ourson," Victoire said dejectedly.

"Really?" Kara cried. "That's great!"

"Yeah, except for one thing," Victoire said, holding L'Ourson up for her to see.

"Oh," Kara said, her smile disappearing. "I'm so sorry Victoire."

"Teddy's gone to see if he can find a Charm to fix it, but I think it's beyond hope," Victoire said sadly.

"Well at least we've established that I did not steal it," Caitlin piped up. "So I hope there will be no more talk of searching my bag?"

"Don't worry Caitlin, you're off the hook," Victoire assured her.

"Well, I don't think I was ever on the hook, but…" Caitlin muttered to herself.

"Wait a minute," Brianna said. "There's still one question we haven't answered."

"What's that?" Victoire asked.

"How did L'Ourson end up in that condition?" Brianna pointed out. "Not to mention, how did he end up wherever Teddy found him instead of on your bed?" Brianna looked pointedly in Raina's direction.

"Are you implying I did this?" Raina cried indignantly. "Because I swear, I would never!"

"Not you," Brianna cried. "That monster you call a pet."

"Ricky?" Raina gasped. "Ricky would never do something so heinous."

"Are you sure about that?" Brianna demanded. "Did you see what he did to my purple sweater?"

"But Ricky knows better than to rip up a stuffed animal," Raina said. "Clothes are different. Especially when you leave them lying around on the floor."

Before Brianna could retort, Victoire held up a hand. "Can we not argue please?" she asked. "What's done is done. There's no going back now, so we might as well move on. L'Ourson is dead. I guess I'm just going to have to deal with that."

A tear rolled down Victoire's cheek, followed by another, and then another. Soon she was fully crying and hugging the remains of L'Ourson to her chest.

She felt a strong pair of arms wrap around her and realized that Kara was giving her a hug.

"Don't worry Victoire, it'll be alright," Kara assured her.

"No it won't," Victoire disagreed, a lump forming in her throat. "Things are never going to be okay again."

"Well let's not exaggerate," Caitlin rolled her eyes.

"Not helping," Kara shot at her. She helped Victoire climb into her bed and extracted L'Ourson from her arms, placing him delicately on her side table. "Here," she said, handing Victoire her extra pillow. "Just hold onto the pillow tonight, and tomorrow we'll figure out how to fix L'Ourson," she promised.

"Okay," Victoire sniffled. Caitlin was right. She was overreacting. She was almost fourteen years old and crying over a stuffed bear. "I'm sorry."

"Don't apologize," Kara instructed her. "Just sleep."

VvVvVvVvVvV

Victoire awoke in the middle of the night to the sound of someone swearing very loudly.

"What's going on?" Brianna asked groggily.

"I don't know," Victoire said. "I'm going to go and find out."

Carefully, Victoire climbed out of bed and creeped over to the door. Once out on the landing, she found that she wasn't the only Gryffindor girl curious about the disturbance. Together with the other light sleepers, Victoire padded down to the common room only to find Teddy lying on the floor by the girls' staircase angrily massaging his shoulder.

"Teddy?" Victoire squinted. "What are you doing?"

"I forgot about that staircase turning into a slide," Teddy grumbled. "I landed on my shoulder. I think I dislocated it."

Victoire rolled her eyes. "You definitely didn't dislocate your shoulder from a little fall," she assured him. "Why were you - ?"

Victoire cut herself off, realizing that if Teddy was trying to sneak up to see Beverly, she did not want to hear about it.

"I was coming to find you," Teddy confessed.

Victoire shook her head, sure she had heard wrong. "Excuse me?" she asked.

"I didn't realize how late it was," Teddy admitted. "I was down in the library, and – "

"You've been down in the library all this time?" Victoire asked. "It's way past curfew."

"I'm a prefect, I won't get in trouble," Teddy waved his hand in front of his face. "But that's not the point. I found a spell that will fix L'Ourson."

"Really?" Victoire asked disbelievingly.

"I did. Go get him and I'll show you," Teddy said eagerly.

Victoire didn't know whether to let herself get her hopes up or not. If it worked, it would be a miracle. But if it didn't work, she was going to be very disappointed.

Deciding it was worth a shot, Victoire ran back upstairs to grab L'Ourson.

"What's going on?" Brianna asked, reminding Victoire that she'd left Brianna behind when she'd gone to see what the commotion was.

"Just Teddy being an idiot," Victoire replied. "I'll be right back."

Victoire hurried down the stairs, which were empty now that the girls had all returned to their own dorms, realizing that nothing interesting was going on.

"Here," Victoire said, handing L'Ourson to Teddy. "Do your best."

Teddy placed L'Ourson carefully on the ground and pointed his wand at him. He closed his eyes, began turning his wand in a counter-clockwise motion and said, "emantur ligna!"

Suddenly, stuffing began to materialize and stuff itself inside L'Ourson. Parts of the bear's body that had been ripped through sewed themselves back together and right before Victoire's eyes, L'Ourson turned into L'Ourson again.

"Teddy, thank you," Victoire cried, running forward and picking L'Ourson up in a tight hug. "He's just like he was."

"Good as new," Teddy smiled.

"I can't believe you went to all that trouble for me," Victoire commented.

Teddy shrugged. "It was no big deal," he said. "Besides, if Remus ever got all ripped up like that, I wouldn't rest until I found a way to fix him."

"Your stuffed wolf?" Victoire asked. "You still have him?"

"Of course!" Teddy said. "All respectable wizards have a stuffed animal to sleep with at night."

Victoire laughed. "Well thanks again," she said, giving Teddy a quick hug.

"Goodnight Victoire," Teddy smiled.

"Goodnight Teddy," Victoire returned, walking back up the stairs to the dorm and crawling into bed with L'Ourson.

That night, Victoire slept more soundly than she had, even before she'd lost L'Ourson. When she awoke the following morning, her roommates were delighted to find that L'Ourson had been mended, relieved not to have to deal with more meltdowns at bedtime for the rest of the foreseeable future. Everything was back as it should be.