Teddy arrived at the clock tower courtyard where he was to meet Victorie. His heart did its usual jolt when he saw her sitting on the side of the fountain with a book in her hand. The reddish orange leaves of the cherry tree behind her matched her hair perfectly. The scene was like something out of a painting.
Unfortunately the pretty picture had a noticeable stain on it — next to her on the same block of stone sat Ethan. The two were chatting and Teddy hesitated before entering the space. The boy was describing some book to her…
"…Anyway, I'm 99.9% sure you'll love it."
Victorie hugged her fingers tighter around the book in her lap and treaded with her feet. "I don't know about that."
"Well..." Ethan smiled, "There's a 0.1% chance that you won't."
"You're that confident in your own estimation, are you?" She challenged jokily.
Before Ethan could reply, Teddy interrupted by sitting down next to them. Victorie smiled at him and he watched as she caressed the front of the book with her hands.
"Should we get started then?" He suggested.
"I should head off." Said Ethan promptly and rose.
A small "Bye." was uttered only by Victorie, as Ethan shovelled leaves away with his steps and re-entered the castle.
Victorie looked after Ethan as he disappeared and turned to Teddy. "If you're going to keep greeting your friends that way you soon won't have any left."
"Suddenly you're the expert? I think I'll be okay." He said absentmindedly while peering at the title of the book in her hand.
The girl twisted the book away and put it in her bag. "Well then, next time you speak with Jamie, tell him I said hi."
Silence settled between the two and didn't really lift as Teddy shoved his own book in her hands and got out his wand. Victorie opened the book to the correct page and for the next half hour the two fell into their routine, albeit an unusually tranquil one.
Victorie voiced her instructions in a tempered mumble with the background noise of the waterworks behind them. Teddy followed as best he could, letting his wand movements speak as confirmation.
A light snowfall began to surround them. It was one of those fickle November snowfalls, the kind you can't depend on to stick around for very long. So neither of the two made any plans to build a snowman or make snow angels for the foreseeable future. Instead they let it go uncommented on, settling on watching it as they went about their more important business.
"Transfiguration is achieved through concentration, precise wand movements, and proper pronunciation of an incantation." Victorie reminded, like she had already done a number of times.
Only this time Teddy added, "And elegance." which proved to be a miss-step.
With the sharpest of stares Victorie refuted, "McGonagall can kiss my ass."
Teddy laughed heartily. He seemed ready to drop his chilly mood from before. After stealing the spell book away from her he said, "Let's focus on your thing now." then crossed his legs under him and rolled up the arms on his long-sleeve and t-shirt combo. He looked ready to pounce. For the first time since sitting down enthusiastic about something or other. "It's almost time for this poetry reading of yours right?"
Victorie tensed and looked up at the big clock on the tower above them. "Which you are coming with me to." She established with a slight urgency to her tone and a leftover pout from the elegance-comment he'd made.
"Don't worry, I'll be by your side. But I want to go over some things before we head there. Some stuff I want you to think about." He said self-importantly.
Something about his perceived self-importance made Victorie forget about the giant ticking clock above them and felt suddenly ready to pounce too. She smiled at him like he was an unknowing little blue tit and she was a cat, probably an orange tabby or something.
"Okay. Just one question before you start."
"Sure."
"Could your hair be blue for this?" She asked with mock innocence. May Merlin help her if she was going to take him seriously throughout this.
Teddy sighed and let his head fall.
"Bright colours are stimulating for the brain!" She defended with childlike enthusiasm. "It's good for learning, okay? That's why I buy brightly coloured ink for my quills from Scrivenshaft's."
"Sure thing Victorie." He began in the most jaded voice he could muster. "...And this isn't one of your little ploys to make me feel discredited because you're unsure of yourself as soon as the dynamic switches and suddenly you're the one who's in the very vulnerable position of not being the top student for once?"
Shoot. Victorie thought. She hadn't expected an index of her psyche to be thrown in her face because she made a joke, and she didn't really know how to respond.
"Blue hair, please?" She ended up saying, to the benefit of his smile.
For a moment the tips of his hair were black still, but with a cold light blue tone climbing patiently from the roots of his hair. For mere effect, Teddy assumed a slightly kooky composure, with his eyes circling around in their sockets.
Once done and his hair was sufficiently blue, Victorie felt kind of grateful that he had indulged her despite her biting (yet funny) behaviour. Feeling satisfied she had influenced his current appearance, she smiled, and Teddy bashfully pulled his sleeves over his hands and tucked them in his lap.
"Moving on." He said with a slight blush on his cheeks. "This actually kind of intersects with what I wanted to talk about. About the skilful art form… of being supportive."
"You have my full support to talk about that." Victorie commented.
The sun was peeking out behind the clouds now, and the last of the snow was making its place on the ground below them. Teddy blew a dangling snowflake away with one magical breath, and it coiled upward for a second.
"I don't know how these poetry readings usually work, but I thought it could be a good opportunity for you to practise being supportive of other people's endeavours." He said.
"Okay." She tentatively agreed. It wasn't that she didn't want to be supportive of the group, more that she worried she would feel stupid doing it. She was already feeling a little stupid by going back there.
Teddy spoke softly, "When you turn the critical eye on someone, it's more likely they will turn the same eye back on you. If you instead try and give the people around you some positive feedback, I think you'll soon see them repaying you with the same gesture."
His eyes wandered down to the W.P.S.-pin attached to her jacket. "A poetry reading will be the perfect place to try it out because you'll be engaging with people and their work."
"So I can't say something if it's negative?" She asked.
"You can. But it's nicer to skew things toward the positive, I think."
Victorie raised her eyebrows. "Whatever you say puppet master."
He was about to go on, but stopped in his tracks. "Am I meant to read something into what you just said, or is it merely your usual quirk?" He asked, balancing between genuine curiosity and slight annoyance.
She sighed and began toying with the strap on her bag. "I think you're safe to assume that extra reading is required…" She answered, to which Teddy didn't reply. He just looked at her, like refusing to move on unless she expanded.
She complied with only a small protest in the form of a second sigh. "I just sometimes feel like I'm being birthed out of a lab to be your perfect friend or something. I'm a little at odds with it is all."
Teddy watched the splashing well for a second while mulling it over. "That doesn't sound too bad for me actually."
She looked up from her bag strap and was about to give him a big scowl before realising that he was being facetious. She closed her mouth again, so Teddy went on, "But in my head, it's more like I'm teaching you the rules of an art form, and eventually you will know which ones you want to follow, and which ones you want to break."
"Hold on, I can break the rules?" Bag strap no longer interesting, she leaned in closer and asked, "Isn't that frowned upon?"
"You can break the rules." He confirmed with utmost gravity. "However I first want to give you the proper tools you need to be able to make an informed decision in any given situation of whether it will serve you right to do so."
After throwing one glance at the clock tower, Teddy smiled and stood up. "But that is just my opinion. If you want to I can tell the guys at the lab to have your rule-abiding circuit disconnected?"
"I think it's already been dormant for many years." The redhead quipped, then flung her bag around her shoulder and stretched her legs. "Come on, let's move toward the dungeons." She motioned for him to follow her.
He followed her inside the castle where it was significantly darker. They headed up some stairs and Teddy thought he should explain himself further before they dropped the conversation.
"I'm just here to remind you of things you might not otherwise have considered. My hope is that you will be better off for it." He said as they walked up another set of stairs. "I'd hate for you to feel like it's for my benefit rather than yours."
"Very little of what happens between us is probably to your benefit." Victorie joked as she rushed forward.
Once they were up the stairs she began turning corners with an ill-versed Teddy at her tail.
"Shouldn't we be moving down and not up?" He asked.
Victorie looked around at all the paintings as they passed, searching. "The dungeons are far below the castle, it's quicker to head up two flights of stairs and find Timothy."
Teddy stopped. "Timothy?"
Victorie turned. "The Timid." She explained.
"Will he be joining the meeting?" The boy looked desperate to piece everything together in his head.
"You know, it can be quite rude to talk about someone while standing right in front of them." A decrepit voice said.
They turned their heads to see right beside them on the wall, the exact portrait Victorie had been looking for encased in a thick golden frame. But as soon as Teddy and Victorie both turned their attention toward the man in the photo, his demeanour drastically changed.
He twisted uncomfortably and would no longer look straight at them. "It's also quite rude to stare." He mumbled.
"Sorry Timmy, don't have time to hang around and chat!" Victorie swung the portrait to the side and pushed a mysterious door behind it open. She ducked and entered while holding the door open for Teddy.
The door shut to the sound of Timothy's hushed mumbles. It was dark for about one second before Victorie lit her wand and the two headed forward across the stone tunnel.
She proceeded to smoothly wave her wand in a pattern, causing the light on the tip of her wand to duplicate methodically. The light swished forward like bullets and paved the way, lighting up the whole tunnel in their wake.
Teddy walked forward, although reluctantly. "Can I ask why you stopped going to the meetings?"
Victorie looked down at her shoes. "After Jamie stopped talking to me, a lot of things became quite difficult to do. The poetry society being one of them." She cleared her throat and looked at the boy at her side. His jaw was clenched shut and he wore a stony expression. "I just felt like everyone there hated me."
"So why are you going now all of the sudden?"
"Because I miss it. And now I have you to come with me. That's one other person who hopefully won't hate me." She laughed. "Plus, it'll be a good challenge for me, don't you think?"
Teddy agreed and the two kept walking until Victorie's little bullet lights all stopped and hooped together. When they got closer to the ball of light Teddy noticed that it had stopped where the corridor ended and a door appeared.
Victorie turned out her light and swung the door open so that she and Teddy could exit.
He recognised the place they arrived at as the corridor outside the potions classroom. He looked over at his secret passageway companion. She was closing the door, which turned out not to be a door but another portrait, substituting as a door. Thankfully his companion grabbed his arm and rushed him along before they could stay to find out what quirky personality this portrait's inhabitant had.
This time as they walked, the sconces lit up by some kind of magical motion detection. Victorie smiled at him and he wondered if it was actually her doing it. She bounced forward in her black and white gingham skirt. She looked almost dressed up for the occasion, in a white dress shirt and a black vest on top.
Then she abruptly stopped and Teddy looked around to see where they were, but it was just the same plain old corridor as before.
"I think we made it." She said, then placed both her hands on the wall, leaned in and whispered something inaudible.
She moved back from the wall and watched an outline begin to draw itself across it. Her heart pumped as they waited while the door appeared before them.
But Teddy was on a different train of thought. "That day when I ran into you down here while trying to find the Potions classroom. It was my second week here. Is this where you disappeared off to?"
Victorie shook her head. "That was another trap door in another part of the dungeons. We move our meeting locations around."
"Pretty secretive for a poetry reading." Teddy commented.
"Not secretive enough considering you'd already heard about it your second week." She shot back, remembering that he had pressed her on the matter.
He shrugged sheepishly. "Blame Jamie. He let it slip before leaving me to find my way to Potions all by myself. So instead I tried to go after him."
The outline had now fully shaped itself into a door, but Victorie was still not quite ready to drop the subject and enter. Something else was bothering her. "By the way Teddy, it's not just a poetry reading." She explained. "This is a secret society."
"What's so secret about poetry?" He questioned while staring at the line with his arms crossed.
Her voice took on a newfound ostentatiousness. "It's only for the elites. The dedicated ones."
"Dedicated to what?" He questioned.
"To poetry!" She burst. "To sourcing, to reading, to reciting." She recounted while pointing at her palm three times.
Teddy processed what she said. "Wait, does this mean I have to-" But a boy opening the door cut him off. His hair was dark and wavy and he wore a duffle coat and a cross body satchel even though they were indoors.
"Ciaran?" Teddy registered. The surprise of it all took away the surly attitude, but as soon as he gathered himself it settled on his face instead. He shook his head and passed by him without another word.
"Why are you standing outside? Come in." Ciaran told Victorie pleasantly.
She too stepped in. While doing so she caught a glance of Teddy's scrunched up nose waiting for her inside.
The inside was the same old dark and stuffy room she was so familiar with. With the walls lined with mahogany bookcases and a few dimly lit floor lamps. It felt good.
She looked around at all the familiar faces, some of them smiled at her, even Jamie did.
He was standing in front of a microphone on a makeshift stage in front of a small bunch of chairs with the rest of the members pointed at him. One of the floor lamps was directed toward him, the stark light centred him, drawing all the attention toward him. He held a small piece of paper in his hand. They looked at each other while Ciaran and Teddy sat down.
"Jamie was just about to start us off." Ciaran explained. "Why don't you have a seat Victorie?" He petted the chair next to him and she eventually made her way over.
When she sat down Ciaran smiled at her and she tried to force one back. He was holding in his hands the same old scrappy notebook he always carried. Seeing the notebook caused a non-forced smile. She reached into her bag and grabbed her own notebook. She had after all come prepared.
Jamie began, "Languid is the force that concludes it
Reluctant is the voice that concedes it
Yet be one wedded, far I've come
Yet be one subsumed, still I grasp
For my oeuvre will still mention you
And you
And you."
When he was done people applauded and he went to sit down at the front.
Ciaran stood and walked up to the microphone. He corrected his glasses, drew a hand through his hair and sniffled. He then began reading from his notebook:
"If the wails of the wind has to weather our spirits, I wish it to be in the form of freckles on our cheeks
If our cells have to cascade along our contours, I wish it to be in the colour of apricots
If the poems we procreate have to be pronounced, I wish it to be with a voice, soft but sincere
And if the essence and these attributes somehow entwine, let it be at an equilibrium."
When the poem ended Teddy put his feet up on the chair in front of him and watched as Ciaran got off the stage and began talking to some other members.
"If I had known that this was why you wanted to go..." He muttered.
Victorie jabbed him in his side and whispered heatedly, "I've told you why we are here!" Then her voice got softer while also eyeing the boy in question. "…Ciaran is just another bird with the same stone."
"That's some very morbid imagery." Teddy commented under his breath.
She ignored his attempt at being funny and went into a deeper explanation, "Honestly, we've only spoken a few times before. He had no idea I was coming today. If I'm being honest I don't really know where all the attention is coming from."
Teddy bit his lip and he looked to be seriously considering it for a moment. "Perhaps something about not keeping to yourself all the time has made you seem more approachable." He suggested knowingly.
But they were both snapped out of their brainstorming session when Ciaran came up to them. "Victorie, would you like to go next?" He asked as he sat back down.
"Sure thing." She replied and got up.
She ascended onto the stage and looked out at the small crowd. Specks of dust were being lit up by the harsh lamplight. She looked at Jamie at the front, then at Ciaran and Teddy next to each other at the back (one of them with his arms crossed) then down at the scribbled words in her notebook. She took a deep breath and began reading…
"I am the negative space
The isn't
I am the redacted
The Anomaly
You take me to a flat field I will skyrocket to the sky
You take me to a forest I will plumb to the bottom
You take me anywhere I will diverge
The weakest link in the unity
Subtracted from its original source."
After she finished she looked up again, but not at the people in front of her. She rushed off the stage and slammed herself down on her chair in the back.
"That was great!" Ciaran whispered to her. She smiled and there was a moment of silence where all that could be heard was the mumble of the audience.
Ciaran poked Teddy at his side. "Would you like to go?" He quizzed.
Teddy leaned forward and looked at Victorie, who shielded herself off with her shoulder like she was about to be shot daggers at.
At the lack of a reply, Ciaran concluded, "It's not for everyone."
Teddy raised his eyebrows, but was still staring at Victorie, mentally telling her off for what she had dragged him into. But the girl was much more interested in looking down at her own lap right that second.
"Okay. I'll go." He said defiantly and got up.
When he got on the stage he saw Ciaran scooting closer to Victorie and whispering something in her ear.
Teddy forgot for a second that he was on stage and watched as the interaction unfolded. Only when Ciaran leaned back, away from her ear, did he come back to the present.
He slapped his legs with his hands awkwardly, feeling a significant lack of any paper or book to read off of.
Every second that passed he realised more and more that he would at some point very soon have to figure out what he was going to recite. In the end, he decided to go with the first thing that popped into his head...
"From the start it was the right regret,
My wrong correct…"
In the back of the hazy room Ciaran leaned in once again to whisper something to Victorie, but she was too intrigued by what Teddy was reciting to pay attention. So intrigued in fact that before she could stop herself she ended up accidentally shushing him.
Panicked at what she had just done, the only thing she could think to do was smile stalely at a startled Ciaran, then look ahead at Teddy and pretend that nothing had just happened.
"...An opportunity to miss,
you.
Now a failure to catch,
up.
And now writing's just a waste of time,
with you.
And I am just a waste of space.
'Cause why would you find any joy,
In the same old short poem,
boy?"
Victorie grinned triumphantly at Teddy as he made his way back with slumped shoulders. "So it's little gems like these that I'm missing out on for not owning any Dark Potions records?"
"Not really, seeing as that particular one was a huge flop. Still I thought you should get to hear it, it is your favourite after all." He rolled his eyes and sat back down.
Victorie grabbed his arm and squealed a little.
"You're that excited about it, are you?" He asked sardonically.
"Yes! Thank you."
After all the poets had been listened to the light came on and the three of them stood.
Everyone around them began chatting loudly, but there was an awkward pause when no one of the three said anything.
Victorie felt unsure of herself. It had been so long since the last meeting she attended and she didn't remember how she used to mingle, although she assumed that Jamie had had something to do with it.
She looked at him now, chatting to some guy in Hufflepuff. He looked focused, with his hands on his elbows, leaned in and his lips pursed — like he was considering something.
She wanted a thrilling conversation of her own and looked to her company. Teddy was treading from foot to foot with his hands in his pockets. Ciaran was looking around the room like he was inspecting it for any structural flaws. She did the only thing she could think to do.
"Hey Ciaran, thank you for the chocolates." She said sweetly.
Ciaran blushed and breathed out a, "That's okay." then dug his hands into the pockets of his jacket.
Teddy was staring at him, and she figured that Ciaran had probably noticed, because he began gesturing between the two of them. "Did you guys come together?" He piped.
"One would think you would have noticed that, since you opened the door for us?" Teddy shot at him.
"I'm Teddy's tutor." Victorie interjected quickly before Ciaran could reply.
"Oh." Ciaran smiled and Teddy and Victorie exchanged a glance.
"We're also good friends." Teddy added, but it didn't have quite the effect he'd been aiming for.
"Oh." Ciaran smiled even wider. "Excellent."
Suddenly a lot of his tension seemed dispelled. "What did you think of my poem, Victorie? I avoided similes because I know you're not a fan."
She turned her head to its side. "Really? I appreciate that!" She beamed, then immediately went on, "I'm also not a huge fan of alliteration though if I'm being honest. Also your structure could use some work…"
As Victorie went on to explain Teddy zoned out of the conversation in an attempt to not let her social blunder bother him. But the longer she went on, the more he looked like he was about to start perspiring at any second.
"Hey Victorie, I've got to talk to you." He finally burst and pulled her along by her wrist to a corner of the room, while Ciaran had to accept the abrupt ending to their conversation and return to his friends.
"Remember what we said about being supportive?" Teddy asked.
Victorie considered for a second the points she had made to Ciaran. "I don't think I said anything he couldn't take." She reasoned.
Teddy stared at her. "It's not about whether or not he can take it. It's about whether or not you want to return to these meetings as the supportive space that it currently is. If you want people to be supportive of you, you have to support them back." He explained.
Then he leaned against the wall and reluctantly added, "Also, it helps to be kind if you want the Slytherin boy to like you."
Victorie stopped to think over what had been said, though Teddy didn't give her much time to. He took her arms and rotated her around to face the rest of the room. With a whisper into her ear he said, "Now find someone else to practise being supportive on."
She caught sight of Jamie again and whispered back, "I liked Jamie's poem." But those words only caused Teddy to twist her back around, and in a jiff the room was gone again. "What's wrong with Jamie now?" She asked, knowing full well that it was a sore spot.
"You mean besides the fact you have been in a row with him since I first started Hogwarts?" He inquired and let go of her arms once he was sure she wouldn't go barging up to said boy.
"That's all in the past now though. I think these days you're the one who has a bigger problem with him." She crossed her arms.
Teddy refused to look at her.
"Come on Teddy! It hasn't exactly slipped my notice that you haven't gone near each other in weeks. Whatever is going on between you and him, I'm sure it wasn't bad enough that you can stay mad at him forever. You should fix it."
When she finished talking she noticed that he was stretching his fingers and clenching them into fists over and over. "What's wrong?" She asked.
But Teddy wouldn't answer. He met her eyes reluctantly.
"What happened between you guys?" She pressed.
Teddy studied her for a prolonged moment, then relaxed finally. "I sort of… told him off…" He mustered as quietly as he could.
She stared at him, and he felt compelled to continue, with a little more ardor this time, "After the Halloween party when he got back to our dorm I told him: what you did to Victorie…" though by the end of the sentence he'd grown self-conscious, and ended up finishing on an anticlimax, "...wasn't cool."
The redhead placed her fingers in front of her mouth, half in surprise, half in an attempt to stifle a laugh. As sweet as it was for Teddy to try and defend her, he sure could have rehearsed it better. "And what else was said?" She asked between her fingertips.
"Anyway, he's kind of been ignoring me ever since." Teddy continued, evading her question. "And honestly I'm not exactly dying to get back to being friends with him either after finding out what he did to you."
He looked around the room, suddenly finding the other members of the Witches Poetry Society very interesting.
"Teddy." Victorie began sternly. "You need to make up with him."
"Why?" He moped.
"Because I'm over it! You need to get over it too!"
Teddy looked her in the eyes. "You're not over it." He asserted.
"I am." She argued. "I'll prove it."
Then she tugged at the bottom of her shirt and marched over to Jamie finally, after having exchanged numerous glances with the boy since she'd first arrived at the meet-up.
Jamie smiled at her as she approached. She looked back at Teddy. He was watching her with a murky expression and his back still leaned against the wall.
"It's good to have you back." Jamie opened and put a hand on her shoulder briefly.
Victorie, still with the visionary image of Teddy in her head, had to remind herself to uncross her eyebrows. "Yes. Very."
She cleared her throat and hugged her left arm with her hand. Her mind was lost on what to say next and she immediately began digging through her memories of his poem for something to comment on, something to dissect, but more importantly — something to praise.
Jamie however seemed in no drought for topics. "It hasn't been the same without your writings. You can be so raw. It's great I think."
She nodded in response to the compliment and there was a pause, right after which he jumped in with the exact subject she was prepared to strain something over in an attempt to pirouette around.
"When you stopped coming, I figured you didn't want to be friends anymore."
He looked at her with eyes like two perfectly round little shiny marbles. His voice was soft and his composure slightly reclined. It was the epitome of vulnerability displayed before her. He might as well be holding a sign that read: Tread lightly!
But none of it mattered because of what was bubbling inside her. She couldn't help the oncoming storm.
"Are you kidding me?" She spat. "I stopped coming because you refused to speak to me!" It all came out too loud and too hurtful, but she didn't care. "How easy do you think it would have been for me to come back here after you'd spread your poison about me to everyone? All because my friendship just wasn't good enough for you!" She stopped for breath and watched as her words sunk in with their recipient.
He scanned the viewers of their little display briefly, the people behind Victorie who were without a doubt going through great lengths to conceal their interest in their conversation right about now. Then he looked down with his lips shrunk into a dot, like he was paying his respects to someone. "Admittedly I could have handled that better." He said in a manner suddenly valiant. "But I was embarrassed, and I needed more time to get over it before I could properly face you again."
Their conversation was interrupted when Teddy suddenly appeared at her side. Jamie's mood transfigured. It turned dark at the sight of Teddy, and he excused himself and left. The two turned and watched him leave briskly through the door.
"Are you okay?" Teddy asked. "What happened?"
But Victorie didn't stay to explain. She went after Jamie into the corridor. When the door closed behind her it sealed itself and disappeared. The chatter from inside a second ago now seemed hard to believe.
Jamie was walking briskly further down the corridor. She continued after him. Her shoes caused an echo as they hit the ground, but the boy didn't stop despite the sound of her coming after him.
She didn't want to call out to him. It would make it seem like she was desperate or something, so she quickened her pace instead.
When she finally caught up to him they were outside the potions classroom. He had already opened the portrait and was just about to close it behind him when she shouted, "Hey!"
Jamie stopped and the portrait hung ajar, still he wouldn't let go of the handle fully. "Hi." He said, marking the full stop clearly with his tone.
"Are you going to freeze Teddy out now too?" She inquired. "How do you think he feels about that?"
"Victorie, there's literally a line formation every time he sits down to eat in the Great Hall — I think he'll be okay." Then he stepped one foot inside the hidden passageway, ready to make his departure.
"Still," She began, slightly louder so as to catch his attention before he disappeared. Jamie stopped himself yet again with a growing impatience. "You can't just abandon people when it gets uncomfortable. It wasn't fair when you did it to me, and it's not fair to do it to Teddy now. No matter the circumstances."
He sighed, but paused to consider what she had said.
"You're right, and I'm sorry." He looked at her unflinchingly as he said it and she could hear the genuine regret behind the words.
It should have been enough, but still she felt herself choking up. Jamie took a step closer out of reflex, but stopped himself.
"It's not like I chose to not be in love with you." She reasoned. It was the thing that had been at the forefront of her mind ever since the first meeting she had missed because of him. Yet as soon as she'd let it slip she regretted it. She would have preferred to stay focused on Teddy, to keep pretending that this was about him. But her emotions had a different agenda.
This time his reaction was unexpected. He made no further attempt to inch closer or to comfort. Instead his shoulders went limp while his jaw was attempting to form some type of utterance. He looked at her with a desire for something, like he was urging something on.
"…It was more than the fact that I had a crush on you." He finally divulged, like he was giving up some sort of battle.
All she could do in response to that bit of information was wonder what lame excuse he was going to think up with for not having been her friend when he should have been. "What else?" She demanded.
Her tone revealed her lack of faith in what he was telling her, but she didn't care. The tears that were beginning to form were going to reveal whatever emotions she felt anyway.
He swallowed and looked into her tear-filled eyes. "I was your crutch." He explained with a shaky voice.
"When we stopped talking, I no longer had to look over my shoulder constantly. I no longer had to make sure that I, Merlin forbid, hadn't left you to have a simple conversation with someone on your own. I didn't want to have to do that anymore. I didn't want to always have to worry about supporting your weight as well as mine in every social setting." His hand shook as he gestured.
"And that was nice." He admitted, emphasising the last word.
It was silent for a long time after that. The longer the silence prolonged, the stupider Victorie felt. Her tears had reclined slightly and she was more stumped now than anything else.
"Please don't leave me hanging."
A second went by where they were both equally confused as to who had spoken. Then Jamie made a face and flipped the portrait around to its rightful place.
"Thank you." The crumpled old man in the photo said and bowed in that janky robotic manner the painted population of Hogwarts always moved with.
"No worries." Jamie responded while eyeing Victorie from the side. He faced her and said, "I should go." like he was excusing himself for something.
"Okay." Victorie said, not quite accepting the conversation as being over.
Jamie looked around at the man in the photo again. "Uuh…" he hesitated before reluctantly opening the portrait again as carefully as he could.
Victorie smiled at his cordial manner. "Before you go…" She opened, drawing his attention from the portrait. "You're right. I was using you as a crutch." She admitted. "It wasn't fair."
He smiled, letting her know that it was alright, then stepped aside and gestured for her to go through the trap door alongside him.
"Actually, I should meet back up with Teddy at the meeting I think." She said and pointed behind her.
They both smiled at each other out of exaggerated politeness, ensuring each other over and over that everything was alright. Jamie nodded and disappeared behind the portrait once and for all.
Without wasting any time she journeyed back to the meeting as briskly as she could, figuring that Teddy had been waiting for a while.
As she hurried along she skimmed through a dozen thoughts in her head, not giving any one of them proper attention.
One of the candles in the scones on the wall sizzled as she passed. She picked up her pace. Suddenly the flames felt closer than usual in the slim corridor, like every one of them was right by her ear and she could hear every move of the fire. They chased her all the way back to the room and when she arrived she found herself catching her breath as she waited for the door to conjure itself.
She burst into the room, finding only a few of the members still there. When she realised that Teddy wasn't one of them, she panicked.
That in turn was followed by the worst possible thing that could have happened — she locked eyes with Ciaran, who was chatting casually with a few of his friends.
The group melded together with their mutually emerald and black coloured attire into one big intimidation front. Victorie turned her back to them and froze in fear, attempting to balance as best as she could on her own.
With her back turned to the group the tears didn't just form but actually began to fall. She thought of Ciaran behind her, began weighing her chances with him after having torn apart his poem and caused a scene in the middle of the meet up, supposedly in the midst of causing another.
Then a hand fell on her shoulder, but she didn't turn around, just attempted to quickly wipe the tears away as Ciaran placed himself in front of her.
"Are you okay?" He asked.
"Yeah, why?" She replied, more reproachfully than was ideal.
But Ciaran wasn't fazed, his brows furrowed and he gave her a onceover. "Well, you look like you're about to start crying." He evaluated factually.
His tense was slightly off, other than that she assessed his reading as pretty much spot on. She blinked away any remaining wetness in her eyes and looked up at him.
Ciaran's eyes went wide as he rethought his words. "…Or perhaps something a little less blatant, and a lot more comforting in your time of distress." He laughed nervously and adjusted the strap of his bag on his shoulder.
Victorie snorted, happy to indulge his light-hearted approach. "I don't know what that would be." She admitted.
"Okay well..." He rubbed the back of his neck. "At the lack of a sane approach perhaps this is as good of a time as any to ask if you'd like to accompany me sometime… on a walk… around the Hogwarts grounds perhaps?" He rushed the sentence out then stared at her in a way that made her feel at one with Sir Nicholas the ghost.
"Sure!" She exclaimed as quickly as she could in order to put an end to his misery. Then, lacking a more thought-through response, she threw her arms around the boy.
Shit, she thought once her arms had gone around him. Thankfully he hugged her back in what seemed to her like a willing manner. She wished Teddy could have been there so that she could gloat over her bonding breakthrough.
When she released him from her arms he seemed suddenly more exhilarated than before. She retroactively deemed the hug to have been the right choice.
"Okay." He happily said and anticlimactically returned to his friends without another word.
Victorie did a little victory smile and pulled her arms behind her in a stretch. Her worries had been washed away and she felt suddenly more confident. After that she finally left the meeting and returned to the Gryffindor common room.
If social interaction really was a game, she deemed herself in the lead.
Published: 24 March 2022