Year 4: Listen To Your Heart
Chapter 33: November 2014
"So how was your evening of solitude?" Brianna asked the following morning at breakfast.
"Good," Victoire nodded as she ate her pancakes. "Actually, as it turned out I wasn't actually alone."
"Really?" Kara asked. "Who else was there?"
Victoire hesitated to reveal it, but knew that it would come out eventually. "Teddy," she said.
"You've got to be kidding me!" Brianna cried. "You ditched the party because you didn't want to see Teddy there and be sad, and then Teddy ditched the party too?"
Victoire shrugged. "He didn't want to go, so instead we just hung out in the common room."
"Don't you realize though?" Brianna insisted. "You could have come to the party! He wasn't there, so there wouldn't have been any reason not to go!"
"Well actually, I think the only reason he didn't go is because he saw that I wasn't going…" Victoire muttered, knowing that Brianna wasn't really listening to her.
"I can't believe this! You know Johnathon Cadwallader had to dance with Sara Pucey because we didn't have enough Gryffindors to all pair off evenly?" Brianna cried.
"Well what's done is done," Victoire shrugged. "It's not like I can go back in time and go to the dance… which I wouldn't do anyway."
"You're saying you'd rather sit around on a couch drinking tea than dance with your friends at a Halloween party?" Brianna demanded.
"Yes," Victoire asserted. "That's exactly what I'm saying. I'd rather lounge around with Teddy than dance with Johnathon Cadwallader any day."
"You have so got to get over this Teddy obsession," Brianna groaned. "Date someone your own age. It's been almost a year since you and Nathaniel broke up. Don't you think it's time?"
"I don't know," Victoire said. "I guess I figured it would be time to move on when I found someone I was interested in. I'm not going to just start dating some random guy out of the blue."
"Not a random guy." Brianna insisted. "Johnathon Cadwallader. You know him, we have classes with him."
"Is he even interested in me?" Victoire asked doubtfully.
"He might be," Brianna said. "If you gave him the chance to be."
"What are you girls talking about?" Teddy asked, sliding up next to Victoire on the bench.
"Nothing," Victoire said quickly. "Are you ready to go?"
"Where are you going?" Kara asked questioningly.
"To class," Victoire replied, grabbing her things and standing up with Teddy. "Teddy dared me to go to Defence with him this morning. I probably won't last long, so I'll see you soon."
Before Kara or Brianna could persuade Victoire otherwise, she headed for the Entrance Hall, Teddy following behind her.
When they arrived in Professor Derlid's class, Victoire immediately realized that she was going to be a lot more conspicuous than she'd realized. This was a N.E.W.T. level class – so only the students who'd excelled in their O.W.L.s were taking it. Most obviously, this meant that the class was less than half the size Victoire was expecting.
"He's going to notice I'm here in the first two seconds," Victoire muttered to Teddy, following him in and sitting down next to him in one of the chairs along the wall of the room. "This is dumb; I should just leave."
"A dare is a dare," Teddy reminded her.
"Everyone's staring at me," Victoire muttered uncomfortably. "They know I don't belong here."
Billy entered the room then and immediately sought out Teddy and Victoire, sitting down on Victoire's other side.
"Teddy told me about your little experiment," Billy smirked, dropping his bag on the floor. "My money's on five minutes."
"Money?" Victoire frowned. "You're betting on how long it's going to take him to notice that I shouldn't be here."
"Five knuts," Billy confirmed.
Victoire rolled her eyes. "You're wasting your money Carmichael," she said, using Billy's last name for effect. "I won't last one minute, let alone five."
"We'll see about that," Billy said.
At that moment, Professor Derlid swept into the room and began the lesson.
"Today, we are going to be continuing our work with non-verbal spells," Professor Derlid announced. "Please pick a partner and pair off – you'll be alternating between offensive and defensive spells. Feel free to choose any spell you deem appropriate – the aim is not to master any particular spell, but rather the difficult task of performing it without speaking. Furthermore, I would request that all non-N.E.W.T. students please leave the room. Miss Weasley, that means you."
Blushing furiously and trying to ignore the whispers from Teddy's classmates, Victoire grabbed her bag and practically bolted for the door. As she pushed it open, she saw Billy reluctantly handing over the promised five knuts to Teddy.
By the time Victoire arrived in Charms, Professor Flitwick hadn't even finished taking the attendance. She was able to slip in while he was still somewhere in the P's without him even noticing she was late.
"So how'd it go?" Brianna practically sneered.
"He noticed me almost immediately and asked me to leave," Victoire admitted, still a little embarrassed over what had happened. How she was going to show her face in Defence the next day, she had no idea.
"Was it worth it?" Brianna asked.
"It was a dare," Victoire replied. "You can't refuse a dare."
Either unable or unwilling to come up with a retort, Brianna focused her attention on Professor Flitwick and ignored Victoire for the rest of the class.
VvVvVvVvVvV
"So did you miss a lot in Charms?" Teddy asked later after apologizing for making Victoire go to his Defence class.
"I did actually," Victoire lied. "I missed practically the whole lesson. After I left the Defence classroom, I just started wandering around the school all disoriented. I couldn't remember where I was supposed to go, and by the time I got to Charms, the lesson was basically over."
"I hope it wasn't an important lesson," Teddy said.
"It was," Victoire replied. "We started working on the summoning charm today. I'm going to be so behind. Everyone in my class can do the spell now except me."
"Okay, well that's definitely not true," Teddy said. "Because I remember when I was a fourth year, it took weeks before everyone in my class could do the summoning charm, so there's no way everyone in your class could have mastered it this fast."
"What can I say? My classmates are all brilliant," Victoire shrugged, forcing herself not to smile.
"Alright, well let's test this theory out," Teddy decided. "Kara, can you do us a favor?" he asked, dragging Kara from the textbook she was reading for History of Magic. "Can you just cast a simple summoning spell on my quill here?"
Kara shrugged. "I guess so," she said, retrieving her wand. She pointed it at Teddy's quill and cast the spell. "Accio Teddy's quill," she said.
The quill immediately zoomed off the table and into Kara's hand and Victoire silently thanked Merlin that Teddy had chosen Kara – one of the top students in her Charms class – as his test subject.
"Told you so," Victoire smirked.
Teddy rolled his eyes. "You got lucky. If Brianna was here…"
"Well she's not," Victoire said. "She's off with Cameron somewhere."
"Convenient," Teddy mumbled.
"Well anyway," Victoire said, going back to the topic at hand. "I don't know what I'm going to do now, because I'm so far behind everyone else in the class. I'm probably going to have to stay at Hogwarts over the Christmas holidays so that Professor Flitwick can privately tutor me."
Teddy rolled his eyes. "You really want me to help you with the summoning charm?" he asked.
"Yes please," Victoire said. The last time Teddy had helped her with Charms, it had been extremely helpful, and when it came to her worst subject, Victoire could use all the help she could get.
"Alright, try it out so I can see if I can figure out what you're doing wrong," Teddy instructed. "Go ahead, cast it on my quill, Kara still has it."
Nodding to affirm that she understood, Victoire produced her wand and steadily pointed it at the quill. "Accio Teddy's quill," Victoire said, flicking her wand to the right. When nothing happened, she shrugged her shoulders and turned to Teddy. "See?" she said. "I'm miserable at this."
"Well for one thing your wand movement is wrong as usual," Teddy said. "You're jabbing your quill to the right in a straight line, but what you really want to do is make an arc."
"An arc?" Victoire repeated. "That's it?"
"Well also, you need to be really focused when you cast it," Teddy added. "I get the feeling you weren't all that focused just now."
"I was focused!" Victoire cried indignantly.
"You were not," Teddy disagreed. "Try it again, but this time, focus and make an arc."
"Make an arc," Victoire nodded, holding her wand out again. She took a deep breath and focused on the quill. "Accio Teddy's quill," she cast the spell again.
This time, the quill twitched.
"See?" Teddy said with a smile. "Something happened."
"Not really," Victoire grumbled. "It barely moved."
"Well that's what practice is for," Teddy said. "Now just do that a thousand more times and you'll have it. Meanwhile, I have to translate this runic document for tomorrow…"
While Teddy got to work on Ancient Runes, Victoire continued to attempt to summon his quill. Since his quill was occupied, Teddy stole Victoire's quill to complete his homework. Eventually, Victoire got bored of practicing the charm. She'd made it twitch a few times, but apart from that nothing was happening. She wished Teddy could just fix the problem as easily as when she'd been having trouble with the size spells, but she figured that now that she was a fourth year, spells were going to be more difficult to learn.
VvVvVvVvVvV
"Hey Victoire," Raina said a few days later, approaching Victoire while she was studying for Herbology in the library.
"Hey Raina," Victoire frowned. "Did you want something?"
"Can I sit for a second?" Raina asked.
"Sure," Victoire said, gesturing to the chair next to her. "What's up?"
"I just wanted to let you know… well ask really… Well I know you weren't at the Halloween dance…"
"I wasn't," Victoire agreed, unsure where Raina was going with this.
"Right," Raina said. "But if you'd been there, you'd have known that Nathaniel and I danced quite a bit."
"Okay," Victoire nodded, still waiting to see where Raina was taking this.
"Well we had a really great time and… well he asked me to go to Hogsmeade with him this weekend," Raina revealed.
"That's great Raina!" Victoire smiled, happy for her dorm mate.
"Really?" Raina asked. "Because I know you and him dated for a while last year, and I wouldn't go out with him if you were uncomfortable with it in any way."
"I'm not uncomfortable at all!" Victoire assured her. "Really, I think it's a great idea. Go ahead and go to Hogsmeade with him."
Raina smiled. "Okay," she said. "Thanks Victoire."
"Sure," Victoire nodded as Raina got up and went back the way she'd come.
As she attempted to re-immerse herself in her Herbology reading, Victoire found herself smiling. She was glad Raina had found someone. She didn't care that it was Nathaniel at all – in fact, she was glad he was moving on too. She would hate to think that he was still pining over her or something… not that's she'd thought that to begin with. She knew Raina had been afraid she'd be jealous or something, but Victoire didn't have room in her heart for jealousy over Nathaniel. She was just happy that they were happy.
VvVvVvVvVvV
With the end of November came the end of peace in the fourth year Gryffindor girls' dormitory. Victoire knew it was coming when Cameron sat with his own friends at dinner instead of with Brianna.
"Is everything alright?" Victoire inquired.
"We broke up," Brianna muttered, angrily stabbing a piece of meat and shoving the whole thing into her mouth. It took her a while to chew, and while she did that, Victoire and Kara exchanged a worried look.
"And how are you doing with that?" Victoire asked cautiously.
"Obviously I'm fine," Brianna said, raising her eyebrows as if this were obvious and not worthy of being asked. "Can't you see? I don't care if he thinks I'm too 'immature' or whatever. It's his problem, not mine."
"He called you immature?" Kara asked.
"Immature, petty, selfish… among other things," Brianna said.
"Well that's just awful!" Kara cried. "How could he say things like that?"
Victoire felt that it wasn't the moment to point out that Cameron might have been right about some of it.
Brianna shrugged. "It's no big deal," she said. "He's a jerk and I was wasting my time with him anyway. I can't believe I was dating someone who enjoys Quidditch!"
"Well I'm sure next time you'll find someone even better," Kara assured her.
The rest of dinner passed relatively smoothly. Brianna might have been a little more forceful than necessary with her fork and knife, and might have taken bites that were a little too big for her mouth, but otherwise, she acted pretty normal. When they returned to their dorm later though, things started getting ugly pretty fast.
"This room is a sty!" Brianna cried immediately upon entering. "Why are Caitlin's clothes all over everyone's stuff? This room isn't a hamper!"
"It was like this this morning," Victoire reminded her. "Remember?"
"And that makes it okay?" Brianna cried. "How long has it smelled like this in here? Someone should cast a scent-freshening charm."
"Why are you looking at me?" Kara asked when Brianna looked at her.
"You're the best at charms," Brianna pointed out.
"Trust me," Kara said. "If I knew a scent-freshening spell, I would have used it weeks ago."
"Well if she's not going to clean up, then I will," Brianna declared. She began tearing through the room, grabbing any clothing that wasn't packed away in a trunk of dresser and throwing them down the laundry chute. Even some of Victoire's clothes got swept up in the hurricane that was Brianna, but Victoire chose not to say anything.
"What's going on in here?" Caitlin demanded upon entering the room and discovering that all her clothes were missing.
"Just something I like to call cleaning up," Brianna stressed the last two words. "This room was a disaster."
"You didn't seem to care this morning," Caitlin pointed out. "Or yesterday. Or last week for that matter."
"Well today I care," Brianna declared. "In fact, from now on, just assume that I always care."
While Caitlin and Brianna went back and forth, Victoire and Kara slowly backed out of the room and headed down to the common room.
"We'll go back up when things have settled down," Victoire said.
"Brianna doesn't need us right now," Kara agreed. "She's too worked up anyway. She just needs to vent."
"Who needs to vent?" Teddy asked, taking a seat next to Victoire.
"Brianna and Cameron broke up," Victoire caught him up.
Teddy raised his eyebrows. "So I guess she's upstairs screaming at Caitlin about dirty clothes?" he surmised.
"Exactly right," Victoire said in surprise. "How did you know – ?"
"I can hear her from here," Teddy interrupted. "Can't you?"
Victoire listened and realized that even from the common room, the sounds of Brianna and Caitlin's argument could still be heard.
"Wow," Victoire said. "They are really going at it."
"I hope it doesn't go on too long," Kara confessed. "I left all my work upstairs."
"I know!" Victoire said. "We could practice summoning charms!"
"But I already know how to do a summoning charm," Kara pointed out.
"Yes, but I don't," Victoire clarified.
Kara sighed. "Alright, practice away."
"Well I don't want to practice alone!" Victoire cried. "You have to practice too. We can see who can summon Teddy's prefect badge first."
"You know I'm going to win, right?" Kara pointed out.
"Actually girls, as much as I'd love to stay, I can't," Teddy admitted apologetically. "I've got rounds with Pamela."
"Pamela?" Victoire inquired.
"Sixth year Hufflepuff prefect," Teddy clarified.
"I thought prefects did rounds with their housemate," Victoire commented, subtly trying to ask why he wasn't patrolling with Beverly tonight.
Teddy shrugged. "Head Boy and Girl make the schedule," he said. "I just follow it. Sometimes I round with Beverly, sometimes I round with Pam or Marcus or George. Sometimes I round with seventh year prefects. Sometimes I round with fifth year prefects. It just depends on the schedule."
"Very interesting," Victoire nodded, secretly glad Teddy wasn't patrolling with Beverly. "Well go ahead, we wouldn't want to keep you from your very important rounds."
"Thanks," Teddy said, leaving his things behind as he headed out to meet the Hufflepuff prefect.
With nothing better to do, Victoire and Kara practiced summoning charms. Surprisingly, Victoire was even able to get the sheet of parchment that was her target to make it a quarter of the way to her before quitting.
Eventually, the shouting from upstairs died down, and Kara and Victoire decided it was time to see how things were going. When they entered the dorm, they were greeted by a very surly Caitlin, who informed them that Brianna had lost her mind and that she would be sleeping in the common room that night. Raina was taking a shower in the bathroom – probably to avoid the screaming match – and Brianna was ensconced inside her four poster bed with the curtains drawn around her.
"Should we - ?" Victoire gestured to Brianna's bed.
Kara nodded affirmatively and the two girls slowly approached Brianna's bed.
"Bri?" Kara said softly. "Are you in there?"
When they received no response, Victoire decided to just go inside regardless of Brianna's state. She opened the curtains and was shocked to find her friend curled up in a ball with tears running down her face.
"Oh Bri!" Vic cried, climbing into the bed with the girl and wrapping her arms around her. Kara followed immediately after, closing the curtains behind her and getting into the bed on Brianna's other side. There wasn't much room, and both Victoire and Kara were practically falling off the bed, but neither cared.
"It just came out of nowhere," Brianna sobbed heavily into Victoire's shirt. "Yesterday we were so happy, and today suddenly he'd breaking up with me? What changed? I don't understand."
"Sometimes these things just happen," Victoire said, stroking Brianna's hair softly. "Some people just aren't meant to be, and that's not anyone's fault. It just is."
"One day, you're going to find someone so much better than Cameron Philbrick," Kara assured her. "And when you do, you'll be glad that Cameron broke up with you, because you'll be available."
Brianna chuckled at that. "I guess that's true," she agreed. "Now that I'm not with Cameron, I can date whoever I want."
"That's not exactly what I – "
"Thanks Kara," Brianna smiled, wiping her tears away.
VvVvVvVvVvV
"What did I say?" Kara whispered to Victoire later as they crawled out of Brianna's bed and over to their own respective beds.
Victoire shook her head. "She's just tired and emotional," she assured Kara. "I'm sure it'll be fine."