Year 6: The Broken Pieces of my Heart

Chapter 55: January 2017

Victoire spent the remainder of the Christmas holidays in bed. She'd held things together pretty well for the remainder of Christmas at the Burrow, but as soon as she and her family had returned home, she'd locked herself in her room and cried until there were no more tears left to cry. And then she'd slept. And then she'd cried some more. And slept some more.

Her mother was worried about her. Her father was worried about her. Dominique kept coming to her bedroom door with snacks, hoping that she could coax Victoire out of bed, if even for a short time. Louis kept trying to convince her to come outside and get some sunlight. In the end, Victoire spelled her door shut with a locking spell that only she could open. Actually, Bill could probably open it too, given she was a sixth year student who wasn't even taking N.E.W.T. level charms, and her father had worked for years as a Curse-Breaker for Gringotts. But he left her alone, and Victoire was grateful for that.

The day before it was time to return to Hogwarts, Fleur came to the door and knocked on it gently.

"Chèrie," she called out softly. "You know you have to go back to school tomorrow, right?"

When Victoire didn't answer, Fleur sent Bill up in her place. He repeated the same question, and out of the simple desire not to have her parents try to force their way into her room, Victoire called out, "don't worry, I'll be ready."

The next morning, Victoire did set an early alarm on her wand and forced herself to get up. She took her first shower in over a week, got dressed, did her hair and makeup, and packed the last of her school things away in her trunk. She was ready to go and sitting on the front stoop before most of her family were even awake.

If Victoire had thought getting up and being active would make her feel any better, she was wrong. All her actions seemed so meaningless now. What was the point in showering, in doing her hair, in putting on makeup, when there was nobody in her life to look nice for? What was the point of being in the world if she was alone?

Victoire sat and stared out at the beach and the water for hours, waiting for her family to be ready to head to King's Cross. She could hear them inside, dishes clanging against each other, panicked shouts of 'where's my herbology textbook?' and 'I can't find my brass scales' coming from her siblings.

Eventually, they were ready to go, and Victoire went with them silently. They might have been talking to her, asking her questions, but she didn't hear anything. All she could think about was how hard it would be, being back in that castle with things being the way they were. She almost considered not going back at all. She thought about riding the train to Hogsmeade and then skipping town. But she had nowhere to go, and at least at Hogwarts she had a bed she could curl up in and she wouldn't have to worry about her father coming after her.

When Victoire got on the train, she knew her friends were the last people she'd want to see. They wouldn't let her sit in silence, they'd force her to talk to them, insisting that she tell them what happened, and she wasn't ready to do that. So she grabbed the first compartment she could find, locked the door with the same spell she'd used at home on her bedroom door, and pulled the blinds down so that nobody would know she was there. Then she took a seat by the window and just stared out at the passing scenery.

She finally ran into Kara and Brianna as she was heading to the carriages that would take her up to the school.

"Victoire!" Kara exclaimed in relief upon seeing her. "We were worried, we couldn't find you anywhere!"

"Yeah, what gives?" Brianna frowned. "Were you that busy with prefect stuff that it took the whole train ride?"

Victoire shrugged, her throat constricting even at the thought of answering them, and instead she just walked away and climbed into one of the carriages. She could see them frowning at each other where she'd left them, but her carriage took off before they could do or say anything else.

When she reached the school, Victoire considered heading into the Great Hall for dinner, but decided against it. She wasn't hungry, she didn't feel like being surrounded by a crowd of people, she really didn't want to talk to her friends quite yet, and all she really wanted to do was go to sleep. So instead of going straight through the doors to the Great Hall, Victoire turned right and began the climb up to the seventh floor.

About halfway there, she remembered that she would need the new password, so she detoured to the prefect's lounge on the fourth floor. One benefit of being a prefect was that the passwords were always written on pieces of parchment in the prefect's lounge, magically written so that only someone from the house in question could read them. It meant that Victoire wouldn't have to go all the way back to the Great Hall and find another Gryffindor prefect to get the password, and that she could still get away with not talking to anyone.

Unfortunately, when she reached the prefect's lounge, she found that she wasn't alone.

"Victoire?" It was Joe Sanders, one of the last people Victoire wanted to deal with at the moment.

"Just need the password," Victoire muttered, avoiding eye contact with the Hufflepuff prefect.

"Why aren't you at the feast?" Joe wondered.

"Don't feel good," Victoire managed. It was more words than she'd said in days, and already it was feeling like an overwhelming task.

"Maybe you should go to the hospital wing," Joe suggested. "I could take you there. I was just up here on an errand for Kurt before the feast gets started, but I have some time."

Unable to form a third sentence, Victoire just shook her head, grabbed a peek at the Gryffindor password, and bolted from the room.

She didn't care if it had been rude. In fact, it didn't even cross her mind that it might have been rude. She wasn't thinking about Joe, she was just thinking about her bed, and the beautiful distraction to her miserable life that she would get once she fell asleep.

She came to the seventh floor, barked out the password, and passed through the mercifully empty common room to her dorm, where she collapsed onto her bed, still fully clothed, pulled the curtains around herself, and passed out.

VvVvVvVvVvV

The next morning, Victoire awoke to the sounds of her roommates moving around, doing their usual morning routines. Her curtains were still drawn, so she didn't have to see them, but she was familiar enough with all of them by now that she could have imagined what they were doing. She knew she would be expected to get up and go to class – it was Monday morning after all. But her energy was at zero, her level of caring at all was an negative ten, and her desire to just lie in bed all day was at a whopping one hundred percent.

Unfortunately, Victoire's friends were extremely predictable, and their concern for Victoire eventually resulted in Kara pushing open the curtains and trying to shake Victoire awake.

"Hey sweetie," Kara murmured softly. "We know you're tired, but it's time to get up or you'll be late for class."

"Not going," Victoire muttered, shoving her face into her pillow and pulling the covers over her head. She couldn't look at her friends yet. She had barely managed to stand being on the train, and then being in the castle. Conversation was something she would have to work up to, but she was still pretty convinced if she looked at her friends or tried to talk to them for too long, let alone get up and go to class, that she would just break down completely.

"Victoire honey, you have to go to class. But don't worry, if you're still tired, you have a nice long break right after Care of Magical Creatures and you don't have to go to Herbology until this afternoon," Kara said, as if this would change Victoire's mind.

Instead of responding, Victoire just stayed put, hoping the message would get across that she had no intention of leaving her bed at all. To her dismay, her actions had different results.

"Just rip the blanket right off the bed," she heard Brianna suggest. "Force her to get up. I run into this all the time with Savannah. Once she's exposed to the cold, she'll start to wake up, and once she's awake, she'll be more inclined to get out of bed."

Victoire knew it was going to happen, but it happened too quickly for her to tell them not to. Suddenly, her blanket was ripped away from her and the cold air descended upon her. Victoire gritted her teeth and tried to force the sudden onslaught of pure rage down. She knew it wasn't Kara and Brianna's fault, they didn't know what was going on. But she couldn't stop herself, her emotions were too raw, and the anger was too much to contain.

"LEAVE ME ALONE!" she screamed, grabbing the blanket off the floor where it was now resting and pulling it back over herself. "I'M NOT GOING TO CLASSES TODAY, NOW GET OUT OF MY ROOM!"

There was a moment where Kara and Brianna didn't know what to do. Victoire wondered if they would push, or if they would let her be. When they chose option two, closing the door behind them and leaving Victoire alone in the dorm once again, she felt all the anger dissipate in seconds.

Allowing herself to feel the anger had unfortunately opened the floodgates to more emotions, and suddenly Victoire was filled with a more intense loneliness and despair than she'd felt since the couple of days following her and Teddy's break-up. She felt the tears coming and just let them fall, curling her knees into her stomach and hugging them as she let her body rid itself of all the hurt and pain she was feeling.

She was still crying when she fell asleep, and she woke up with tears staining her cheeks and a still wet mark on her pillow. She didn't feel the sadness anymore. Now all she felt was numb. When her friends and other roommates returned at the end of the day, they left her alone. From the volume at which everyone was talking, Victoire figured that Kara and Brianna must have warned Caitlin and Raina prior to coming upstairs of Victoire's foul mood. Nobody tried to talk to her or ask how she was doing, and Victoire was grateful for that. Eventually, she assumed she'd be ready to talk. For now, just existing was hard enough.

VvVvVvVvVvV

The next day proceeded in much the same manner as the previous, minus the unfortunate morning incident where her friends tried to force her to go to classes. Kara did come by and softly inquire as to whether Victoire intended on getting up that day, but Victoire's silence was enough and her friends left her alone for a second day.

The pattern continued until Friday morning, at which point Professor Longbottom made a visit to the dormitory to inform Victoire that if she didn't start attending classes, he would have to write home to her parents. He also declared that her prefect status was being suspended given her current state and gave the badge to Kara.

Though Victoire didn't care a bit about the prefect's badge, she knew having Professor Longbottom write home could only end poorly, so she reluctantly got out of bed and prepared herself to go to class.

She knew it was going to be hard. She had been trying to prepare herself for the day that she would return to the world. She'd hoped that when she did, she would feel less of the emptiness and hopelessness that she was feeling now, but she knew nothing would ever fully prepare her for the onslaught of emotions she would be facing once she ventured out of the tower.

She didn't say anything to Kara or Brianna. They walked with her to class, watching her like she was about to explode – which given her performance on Monday morning wasn't completely unlikely. She tried not to think about Teddy as she walked through the familiar halls and remembered their times spent patrolling, or just walking, hand in hand. But even the most insignificant of spots were causing her to recall all of her many memories of the two of them, even going as far back as her first year when he'd been more of a big brother to her. Even then, they'd had a connection she'd never felt with anyone else in her life.

It was all starting to get too much. Victoire couldn't handle it. And since going back to her bed and blocking out the world was no longer an option, she went for the next best solution. She disengaged. She put her body on autopilot and tuned out everything around her.

She knew she must have gone to class. She could feel herself sitting, she could hear someone droning on and on. But she had no idea what was going on. She couldn't let herself pay attention, because to pay attention to one thing would be to pay attention to everything. And everything was just too much. So she chose nothing.

At some point she must have eaten something, because later that day she felt something solid in her stomach. It was a weird feeling. She hadn't eaten real food in so long, even what was probably a few small bites were feeling like she'd overindulged on Christmas dinner and was close to throwing up in her grandparents' bathroom.

Somehow, she managed to make it back to the dorm, at which point she climbed into bed, pulling the curtains, and fell asleep. She was exhausted. Being out and about after spending so many days immobile had put more strain on her body than she'd expected. She slept soundly that night.

VvVvVvVvVvV

Victoire spent the weekend confined to her bed just as she had prior to Professor Longbottom's appearance. Come Monday, she forced herself to get up again, and the day passed by in the same blur that Friday had. She continued the rest of the week in this fashion, not speaking to anyone, not registering much of anything, and most importantly, pushing all thoughts – Teddy or otherwise – from her head. By the time the second weekend rolled around, she was starting to think she could do this. As long as she remained disengaged from the world, it didn't make her want to fall to pieces in the middle of the corridor.

Her friends thought differently.

"Victoire you have to talk to us," Kara insisted Saturday morning. She and Brianna had been trying for over ten minutes to convince Victoire to join them in the common room for some exploding snap, but Victoire was adamantly ignoring them. "You have to tell us what's wrong. We're getting really worried here."

"Yeah, this isn't normal," Brianna replied. "And if you won't tell us what's going on, then we'll just have to owl your parents. Or Teddy. He'll probably know what's bothering you."

This got Victoire's attention. She peeked her head out from under the covers and made eye contact with Brianna for the first time since being back at Hogwarts.

Afraid to startle Victoire, Brianna didn't say anything for a moment. Then she took a tentative step forward and knelt by Victoire's bed.

"Victoire," she said softly, acting a lot more like Kara than her usual abrasive self. "Hey there hon."

Victoire blinked, maintaining eye contact with Brianna. So far, nothing was crumbling inside her. She wasn't imploding or falling apart or anything. In fact, finally looking at her friend made her feel a strange warmth flow through her.

"Hey Victoire," Kara added, appearing next to Brianna. Victoire flicked her eyes over to her other friend, then back, then back again. "It's good to finally talk to you."

Though Victoire wasn't actually talking, she understood what Kara meant. It was the first time she'd been really aware, or engaged in any way with something other than her own depressing thoughts.

"Do you think you're ready to tell us what's going on?" Brianna wondered. "It's okay if you don't, but we're here to listen if you want to talk."

Victoire bit her lip as she thought about it. She did want her friends to know what was going on. She didn't like knowing that they felt helpless and lost. While she might be in despair, she didn't want to be inflicting it on others. But she wasn't sure she would be able to utter the words.

"Did something happen over the Christmas holidays?" Kara wondered.

Victoire gulped and nodded, forcing thoughts of that day as far from her mind as possible. This wasn't the time to be recalling everything that had happened all over again.

"Did something happen with one of your cousins?" Brianna asked.

Victoire shook her head.

"Did something happen with you and Teddy?" Kara guessed, the tone in her voice indicating that she was pretty sure she knew what had happened without having to be told.

Victoire nodded.

"Did you guys break up?" Brianna wondered.

Unable to stop them, tears began to push their way out of Victoire's eyes as memories of Christmas Eve flooded through her mind. She saw Teddy clearly in her mind's eye, telling her he didn't want to be with her anymore. She saw him walking away from her. She saw him sitting at the adults table, laughing with the aunts and uncles, while she was doing everything she could to hold herself together.

"Oh sweetie," Kara cooed, climbing into Victoire's bed with her and wrapping her arms around her friend. Victoire felt the arms, solid and real, and leaned into them. She hadn't realized until now how much she needed the comfort and support, and now that she had it, she clung to it like a drowning man to a life preserver.

Brianna crawled into the bed with Victoire too, on the other side, so that Victoire was the middle of a three-person sandwich. It was a little tight, seeing as they were three girls lying on a single mattress, but Victoire liked the squeeze. The contact reminded her that she wasn't alone, that she still had people in the world that cared about her, and that she was loved.

She still wasn't ready to talk about what happened, and wouldn't for awhile still. She still wasn't ready to do much more than lie in bed, and then zone out whenever she ventured out for meals and classes. But she was finally on a healing path, and not just a lonely pit of despair. She knew she would get over this eventually. It was just going to take time.