Year 6: The Broken Pieces of my Heart
Chapter 53: November 2016
Finally, the day of Hogwarts' November Hogsmeade weekend had arrived. Victoire was over the moon – unlike the previous month, Teddy had the day off and had agreed to meet her in Hogsmeade to spend the day together.
After waiting so long, Victoire was starting to feel like she was going to explode. After his first visit, Teddy had been to the castle twice, to visit his grandmother. He and Victoire had met up both times, but only for very brief visits. And both those visits had been in early September. It had been almost two full months now that Victoire hadn't seen Teddy and now they were going to get to spend the whole day together.
"Kara, Brianna, help!" Victoire cried early that morning. It was still dark out, and her friends had been sleeping until Victoire had roughly shaken them awake in a frenzy to figure out what she was going to wear.
"Victoire, calm down," Brianna insisted. "You're acting like an insane person."
"He hasn't seen me in close to two months," Victoire reminded her friend. "I have to look my best."
"Victoire, he's already seen you in every outfit you own," Kara pointed out. "I highly doubt what you wear today will make a difference in how he feels about you."
Victoire only shook her head sadly. Her friends didn't understand. Ever since Victoire had been back at Hogwarts, Teddy had been really focused on his job. It was the topic of most of his letters, it was the reason he'd barely visited the school, and it was the reason he hadn't been able to make the last Hogsmeade weekend. Somehow, Victoire had to make an impression. She had to make him want to visit more often. She had to show him that she was more interesting than his job.
"What about this top?" she asked, holding up a flimsy piece with spaghetti straps.
"It's November," Brianna reminded Victoire. "You'll freeze."
Victoire sighed, knowing her mission was hopeless. Teddy knew what she looked like. A nice top and some makeup weren't going to rearrange Teddy's priorities. Victoire would just have to try something else. Something she knew was foolproof. Something no guy could ignore.
VvVvVvVvVvV
Victoire wanted to skip breakfast and run to Hogsmeade as fast as she could, but unfortunately the school didn't start letting students leave until nine o'clock, and it was only eight thirty when she and her friends reached the main floor.
"Come on," Kara urged Victoire to join them in the Great Hall. "Eat some pancakes and then we'll go. You're not going to get anywhere just standing in the Entrance Hall and waiting for Mr. Filch."
Victoire didn't feel like arguing, so she followed her friends to the Gryffindor table. She wasn't in the mood for pancakes, but she nibbled on some toast and downed a goblet of pumpkin juice while she waited, eyes on the clock at the front of the room the whole time.
"It's nine," she declared as soon as the minute hand returned to the vertical position. "I'll see you guys later."
"Victoire you barely ate anything," Kara complained, gesturing to the half-eaten piece of toast on her plate.
"I'm too worked up to eat," Victoire insisted. "Look, I'll see you both later. I don't want to waste a second of this day."
Waving behind her as she did so, Victoire hurried to the double doors of the hall and burst out into the Entrance Hall. Mr. Filch was just taking his position with his clipboard and Victoire hurried over.
"Victoire Weasley," she stated her name. She hopped anxiously from one foot to the other as he flipped to the last page to locate her name, eager for him to get on with it.
"Ah yes, there you are," Filch nodded, making a mark next to her name. "Go on then," he added.
Victoire took off at a run, racing through the Entrance courtyard and out onto the ground, along the path that led to the gate at the bottom of the hill. She was out of breath long before she reached Hogsmeade – it was a long run after all – but she refused to stop, pushing herself to move faster and faster until finally the gates of Hogsmeade came into view.
When she wasn't far off from the village, Victoire slowed to a walk, catching her breath and composing herself. She'd wanted to get here fast, but she didn't want Teddy's first sight of her in all this time to be of her panting with her hair in disarray. She brushed her fingers through her hair a few times to make sure it was behaving and waited for her heartbeat to slow down a bit before entering the village and determinedly making her way towards the Three Broomsticks, where Teddy had said he would meet her.
She reached the pub in no time and impatiently threw the door open, hurrying inside and scanning the room with bright eyes, eager to lay her eyes upon her boyfriend. After her first scan of the room, when she didn't see him, Victoire did another, slower scan, her brow furrowing as she realized Teddy wasn't here yet.
Victoire's shoulders slumped. She'd been so eager to get here as fast as possible, she hadn't considered the possibility that Teddy wouldn't be waiting for her with a wide smile on his face. But of course it made sense. At a normal pace, the walk from Hogwarts took an hour, and Victoire had completed the trek in half that time. Teddy couldn't have expected Victoire to arrive before ten o'clock.
"Can I get you anything, dear?" Madam Rosmerta, the aging owner of the establishment, asked.
Victoire nodded, resigning herself to waiting here for Teddy. "A gillywater, please," she requested. She was still a little winded from her run and the refreshing beverage would do wonders for her parched mouth.
Victoire took a seat at one of her favorite tables and positioned herself so that she was facing the door. When Teddy arrived, she wanted to know immediately.
Madam Rosmerta returned with her gillywater and set it down on the table. Victoire pulled a few knuts out of her pocket and handed them to the woman, and then she was left alone with her drink.
It was about fifteen minutes before someone entered the pub, but it was only a couple of middle-aged women, twittering on about how the Hogwarts students would soon be overrunning the village and they must get their butterbeers now before it was too late.
About ten minutes later, the first of the students began to arrive. First were some fourth year Hufflepuff boys, all clamoring over each other as they hurried over to the bar to order their drinks. Next, a small group of Ravenclaw seventh years arrived, and soon the pub was bursting at the seams from the number of students filling up the space.
Every time the door opened, Victoire would look up hopefully, her heartrate would increase just a tiny bit, and she would be disappointed to see that the person entering the pub wasn't Teddy. Though it was well past ten o'clock, she continued to wait, sure that Teddy was on his way and that he'd simply gotten delayed somehow. By eleven o'clock, Victoire started to doubt her previous conclusion, wondering if Teddy was ever going to show up.
"Excuse me," a Hufflepuff third year asked nervously. "Is this chair taken?" referring to the seat Victoire had been saving for Teddy. Victoire glanced in her direction, noting that the girl's table, which was meant for four, was currently trying to seat ten people. There were students sitting on half-chairs in an attempt to share with their friends, and other students who were simply sitting in each others' laps. The small table was completely covered in glasses and mugs, and it looked like they were going to start falling off the table soon if something wasn't done.
"No," Victoire shook her head resignedly. "In fact, you can have the table and my chair as well," she said, standing up. "I've monopolized them long enough."
Not bothering to wait for so much as a thank-you, Victoire exited the pub. She looked up and down the street, a last ditch effort in hoping that Teddy was still coming. But when he wasn't in sight, Victoire knew that it was no use. She'd been stood up.
Suddenly, Victoire didn't know what to do. She supposed she could try and find her friends and salvage what was left of the day, but she wasn't sure she was ready just yet to face Brianna's judgement and Kara's excessive sympathy. She figured she could return to the school and get some work done, instead of leaving it until tomorrow, but Victoire realized she didn't want to be alone.
Glancing around, Victoire caught sight of her uncles' joke shop and decided she would go there. If nothing else, Uncle George would cheer her up, which was exactly what Victoire needed.
So Victoire walked down the street to Weasley's Wizard Wheezes and entered the shop, already anticipating the bad jokes Uncle George would likely tell and the pranks he might try to pull on her – hopefully only harmless ones that wouldn't turn her hair a funny color.
When she walked in, the shop was bursting at the seams with students. Almost immediately, Victoire felt herself getting bounced around and pushed in the direction of the muggle magic section – a small and usually overlooked section that Uncle George insisted on keeping as a tribute to Grandfather Weasley. It took all of Victoire's efforts to push herself towards the front counter, where an unfamiliar witch – probably a new recruit of George and Ron's – greeted her with a warm, yet slightly frazzled, smile.
"Can I help you with anything?" she asked politely.
"My name is Victoire Weasley," Victoire informed her. "My uncles own the shop."
"Oh, how wonderful!" the witch exclaimed. "Well Mr. Weasley isn't in today – that is, Mr. Ronald Weasley. But Mr. George Weasley is in the back, would you like me to see if he's available?"
Victoire shook her head. "That's alright, I know my way around," she declared, already heading in the direction of the storeroom door.
"Hold on a minute!" the witch insisted. "I'm not so sure Mr. Weasley would like it if students started wandering around in the back – it's really only staff that's allowed back there."
Victoire was about to prepare an answer, explaining that as George's niece, she had different privileges than most other students, but her response was rendered unnecessary when the storeroom door opened and her Uncle George emerged.
"Uncle George, I was just on my way to find you – " Victoire began. Her sentence was cut off when a second person emerged behind George. The last person Victoire had been expecting to see today. "Teddy?"
"Victoire!" Teddy exclaimed, eyes going wide. "I thought we were meeting at the Three Broomsticks?"
Thousands of emotions started coursing through Victoire's body. Confusion, hurt, anger, disappointment, rejection. She chose to embrace her anger.
"Yeah, an hour ago," she said, crossing her arms and leaning back on her heels. "Did you think I was so pathetic that I'd wait around for you all day?"
Frowning, Teddy glanced down at his watch and then back at Victoire, his face showing his surprise.
"Victoire, I had no idea it had gotten so late. George and I must've gotten carried away in our conversation. If I'd known what time it was, I would've come to meet you much sooner," he said earnestly.
Victoire felt her resolve start to melt – she never had been able to stay mad at Teddy for long – but she held onto the anger she still had left.
"So all that time that I was sitting in the pub, watching the door and waiting for you, you thought your time would be better spent talking to my uncle?" she demanded.
"Of course not!" Teddy insisted. "Victoire, you have to know that I'd much rather have been with you. It was a simple mistake – please don't be mad."
Victoire clenched her teeth and held her arms tighter as she tried to stay mad, not ready to let Teddy off the hook yet.
"I ran here, I was so eager to see you," she said. "I was up before dawn, waiting impatiently as the minutes ticked by until the time came that the gates would be opened and I'd be let out of the castle. And you didn't even bother to check the time?"
"I'm sorry Victoire," Teddy said. Victoire was very aware that this was the first thing he'd said that was an apology and not an excuse. "I don't know what else you want me to say."
Victoire sighed, letting her arms fall to her sides. She wanted Teddy to say that he'd been dying to see her all morning. She wanted to know that the past two months had been torturous and that living without Victoire by his side had been excruciating. She wanted to know that she was the most important thing in his life, and that the only thing that could have stopped him from meeting her at the Three Broomsticks that morning was that Uncle George had been holding him hostage, refusing to let him go until they finished their conversation. But Victoire realized that just because she wanted these things to be true didn't make them so.
"I guess I just want to know that I'm as important to you as you are to me," Victoire said sadly. She crossed her arms across her chest again, not because she was angry, but because she didn't like how vulnerable she was making herself.
"Victoire," Teddy said, taking a step forward so that he was close enough to wrap Victoire up in his arms. He took her hand and closed both of his around it, encasing it and raising it so that her hand was pressed against his chest. "You are more important to me than anything."
And just like that, Victoire felt the last of her resistance crumble to dust. She leaned forward the tiny amount necessary to wrap her arms around Teddy and press herself against him. She felt his arms move to encircle her and pull her in closer and she sighed contentedly. She'd missed this feeling.
"Come on," Teddy insisted, pulling back and taking Victoire's hand in his once again. "Let's get out of here. I can talk to George anytime."
Victoire nodded, unable to form coherent words, and waved goodbye to Uncle George with her free hand as Teddy led the way through the sea of students to the door that led out onto the street.
"Where do you want to go?" Teddy asked, once they were standing in the main street. "The Three Broomsticks? Madam Puddifoot's?"
Victoire shook her head. She'd just spend a very depressing hour and a half sitting in the Three Broomsticks and didn't particularly feel like reliving the experience. And Madam Puddifoot's was just too over-the-top for Victoire's liking. Not to mention the experience of being surrounded by other snogging couples wasn't really that big a turn-on for Victoire.
"Let's take a walk," Victoire suggested, leading Teddy towards the Hogsmeade gates and out onto the path, taking one of the forks that didn't lead to Hogwarts and walking down it at a leisurely pace.
They walked in comfortable silence for a while, but soon Victoire felt the need to break it.
"So how have you been?" she asked conversationally. "Has work been good?"
"It's been crazy, actually," Teddy replied. "Our Ministry has just opened up a new trade agreement with the Nigerian Ministry, so we've been working on creating a chart comparing our measurement systems to come up with some standards for trade."
"I thought Nigeria used the metric system," Victoire frowned.
"Muggle Nigeria uses the metric system," Teddy agreed. "Unfortunately the magical Nigerian community uses a measurement system derived from local traditions that apparently has never been compared to any other system in our records."
"Sounds like a tough project," Victoire muttered. "But I'm sure you'll figure it out. Just like how I'm managing to figure out non-verbal spells, even though I'm not taking charms or defence against the dark arts."
If Victoire was hoping Teddy would bite and ask about her schoolwork and her difficulty with non-verbal spells, she was very wrong. He was still completely caught up in his work story to even have heard what Victoire had said.
"And more difficult still, their currency system is completely out of balance, making it quite difficult to line it up with our own," he continued, his voice already getting worked up. "They have a monetary unit smaller than a knut that can buy all sorts of things for. How do we balance that with our own system?"
"It does sound difficult," Victoire agreed. Though she didn't completely understand Teddy's situation – how could she, when she knew next to nothing about it? – she wanted to at least be supportive. She understood what it felt like to be faced with a seemingly impossible task, so she knew that Teddy must be feeling incredibly frustrated.
"And the bloke I'm supposed to be working on all this with!" Teddy exclaimed. "He does nothing! He just sits around all day griping about how hard it is without contributing anything at all useful. My boss is demanding that we have this finished by next Friday, and I've no idea how we're going to do that unless he starts putting in the effort."
"Oh," Victoire said, frowning. She contemplated whether or not to ask her next question, but decided that she needed to, or else she would worry about it for the rest of the term. "Would you have preferred to go into the office today, instead of coming to see me?" she wondered nervously. "You could have gotten some of the work done and lessened the pressure for the coming week."
Teddy paused and turned so that he was facing Victoire.
"Of course not," he shook his head. "I couldn't justify missing two Hogsmeade weekends in a row. I promised you I'd come and visit and I'm not about to go back on that promise."
Biting her lip, Victoire nodded her understanding. But she was painfully aware that what he'd said had sounded more like he'd only come out of a sense of duty than out of desire and love for her. More than anything, Victoire wanted him to have wanted to see her so much that he'd put his work aside, damn the consequences. But that's not what it was sounding like.
Starting to feel that sense of rejection and unwanted-ness from before creeping back in, Victoire knew that she had to do something. She needed to remind Teddy how much he loved her. She had to remind of why he'd made the promise to come and see her in the first place; to remind him of why he'd wanted to visit her today.
Reaching up, Victoire wrapped both arms around Teddy's neck and forcefully crushed her mouth to his. At first, Teddy seemed surprised and like he didn't really know what to do with himself. But in moments, he was responding, his mouth moving in time with Victoire's. As they continued to kiss, Victoire let all her thoughts and motivations behind the kiss melt away and simply poured everything she had into it – all the longing and desire that she'd been feeling all term long, the feelings she'd had to keep bottled up inside her while she focused on her coursework and her prefect duties, and all the other distractions she'd made up for herself. Victoire kissed Teddy as passionately as she could, with every fiber of her being, drinking him in for as long as she could, knowing that this wouldn't last forever.
After a while, Victoire knew she needed more. A simple kiss wasn't enough – not after months apart. She moved her hands from Teddy's neck down his chest and pushed away his cloak, reaching underneath to start undoing his robes.
Suddenly, Teddy's mouth stopped moving and he pulled back a bit, looking down at Victoire with surprise written all over his face.
"What are you doing?" he asked, frowning at her.
Victoire pulled away, as if he'd burned her, and took a few steps back.
"I – I just – I need you," Victoire said, a crushing wave of emptiness filling her when she realized that Teddy didn't want what she wanted. "I thought – "
"Victoire I'm not going to do this in broad daylight in the middle of the path where anybody could find us," Teddy said. "This is hardly the time or the place."
"I'm sorry," Victoire said in a small voice. "I just – I feel – "
"Look, I know this long-distance thing is difficult," Teddy said. "And obviously we're not experts at it yet, but we'll get better at being apart. I promise."
"I suppose," Victoire muttered sadly. None of the words coming out of Teddy's mouth were words she wanted to hear. She didn't want to get used to being apart from Teddy. She wanted them to find a way to be together despite the distance. But suddenly Teddy felt further away from her than ever, even though he was standing right in front of her.
"Come on," Teddy declared, reaching for Victoire's hand. "Let's go to Gladrags. I'll let you try on everything in the store, and I promise I won't complain once."
But Victoire shook her head. "I don't really feel like going to Gladrags," she said, taking a step away from Teddy and dropping his hand. "Actually, I'm not feeling very well at all. I think I should just go back to the castle and lay down."
"Are you sure?" Teddy frowned. "It'll be at least a month before your next Hogsmeade weekend. Don't you want to take advantage of our time together?"
"I just need some time to think," Victoire said. "I need to be alone. I'm sorry Teddy. I'll write you later though, I promise."
Without waiting for an answer, Victoire turned and hurried back down the path, returning to the gates of Hogsmeade and then turning onto the path that led back to Hogwarts.
How had this day turned out so poorly? This morning she'd been so excited to see Teddy, so eager to spend the day with him, being near him and talking to him. But now all she wanted was to get away from him. This wasn't the Teddy she remembered. The Teddy she remembered was loving and caring and open. This Teddy was closed off in a way that her Teddy never had been. Suddenly, Victoire felt herself become overwhelmed with a crushing reality. What if their relationship couldn't withstand being apart? Teddy had said they needed time to figure it out, but what if it simply couldn't last?
That thought left Victoire feeling more empty and hollow than anything else that had happened that day. What if she and Teddy couldn't make it work? All this time, they'd thought that the two years they would have to spend apart would be hard, but manageable. Victoire would finish her schooling, and they would fall right back into their old patterns. Victoire would move in with Teddy, and they'd start their life together. Victoire had never questioned her future with Teddy one bit.
Now Victoire's future stretched out like a blank canvas, covered only by a looming question mark. She couldn't see ahead, and that realization terrified her. If Teddy wasn't in her future, then what was?
Reaching her dormitory, Victoire lay down on her bed and curled into a ball. She tried to let herself cry, knowing that if she could just let her tears run their course, she would feel better in the long run. But the tears wouldn't come. There was nothing but a void in her soul. And Victoire had no idea how to fix it.