Darkness had already fallen around the castle on the late November evening. This didn't stop Hagrid from dragging little pine trees into the castle to be decorated and dotted around the halls.
The more Victorie looked, the more she began to notice other inklings that Christmas was approaching. Wreaths hung on doors and garland coiled around handrails. It was enough to make the smell of pine lavish the halls.
As she made her way down the castle, she admired the embellishments in silence while the ghost of Sir Nicholas blathered on beside her. She mostly made little hums in agreement, and every now and again she would answer his questions. On this night he had a lot of them.
"How come you haven't dressed up?" He asked.
She looked down at her outfit. The matter of what attire she would adore for the evening had been a significant weight on her mind throughout the day. In the end she had decided to play it safe and remain in her school uniform.
Despite her prior anguish regarding the subject however, she decided to uphold a level of discretion when addressing it. "Why would I dress up?" She replied innocently.
Sir Nicholas took a moment to reflect. "Young women like yourself like to put a little emphasis on their appearance when being courted." He replied.
She gave him an amused smile. "It's not a courtship. It's just a dramatisation of one. For practice."
"You picked a good boy to practice with." Nick remarked elegantly. "Many girls your age seem to find him quite dashing." He sent a knowing look her way.
Victorie looked down at her shoes. A picture of Teddy popped into her head, smiling in that usual playful way he did. She pushed back a smile that threatened to reveal how giddy the person that the smile belonged to had begun to make her feel.
They turned a corner and reached the final staircase. The same one she'd met Ciaran at for their date. She spotted Teddy waiting for her at the bottom of it.
On seeing the very boy Nick was discussing, Victorie reacted by putting her hand through the ghost in an attempt to push him away before Teddy could spot the two of them. She shuddered violently from the chill of putting her hand through a ghost and shushed Nick. She didn't want him to barge in on their date, even if it was only an enactment of one.
Nick looked offended and floated up above her. "What was that for?" He asked while peering down at the girl.
"Thanks for keeping me company, but it's time for you to go!" She whispered heatedly while eyeing Teddy, who was looking around him but thankfully not at them.
Sir Nicholas gave her a reproachful look and clicked his tongue a few times, but ultimately turned in his spot and sailed into the wall. He muttered as he disappeared, but Victorie ignored it and turned doe eyed to the boy waiting for her at the bottom of the staircase.
As she began making her way down, and Teddy heard the footsteps on the staircase, he finally looked up to see her. He watched her descent, surrounded on each side by a decorated Christmas tree at the bottom of each rail.
The first thing she noticed about him was his hair. It was in its usual light blue colour, but he'd done something to it. It was kind of slicked back and had this voluminous quality to it. Even though he was in his usual clothes, he looked more put together than usual. When he embraced her in a greeting, she felt how good he smelled too.
They parted the hug and Victoire decided that it was pointless to fight the gleeful expression she wore.
"Have you seen the Christmas trees?" She redundantly asked and walked up to one of them. The beautiful pine scent hit her and she lightly touched a red bauble hung from one of its twigs. She noticed Teddy reflected in the bauble. He was rubbing his hands against his black jeans nervously.
"Should we get going?" He asked.
"I'm just admiring the tree." Victorie defended with furrowed brows. Teddy's eyes darted down every corridor surrounding them. She wondered if he was ashamed to be seen with her. The thought made her stomach sink.
"It's just that I have this whole thing planned out but I just managed to shake off..."
Victorie let go of the bauble and interjected excitedly, "You have a thing planned?"
But Teddy hadn't heard her. "Oh shit, here he comes." He murmured.
She turned to look down the same corridor as he. Her eyes widened when she saw Peeves the Poltergeist barging along the ceiling toward them.
"Why now of all times?" Teddy grumbled. "Do you think he'll target us while you're here? He likes you."
Victorie looked at the rapidly approaching poltergeist. He had a spark in his eye tonight that made her apprehensive.
She turned to Teddy's deflated expression. "I'm sure it'll be fine." She assured him, despite better judgement.
When Peeves caught up with them he stopped in the air above with a devilish grin. Victorie met his gaze amicably, hoping for the best. But despite previous notions of their relationship, Peeves' thirst for blood didn't discriminate on that particular night.
He raised his hand slowly. She noticed he was holding something in it, raising it, aiming it. First at Teddy, who reacted by grabbing Victorie's hand, preparing them to run for their lives.
Peeves took note of the meeting of the hands and with a sadistic pleasure turned, ever so slightly, the mysterious object to be aimed at Victorie instead.
With the realisation that Peeves was not planning to spare either one of them, Teddy pulled Victorie along with his hand, and they both made a run for it.
But before they'd made it very far something collided with Victorie from above. She felt water drench her whole body. Spilling down onto her hair, and subsequently onto her clothes. But they had to keep running (one of them now with wet clothes) down the hall.
They leapt for the corridor opposite of where Peeves had come from with steps thudding heavily against the stone floors, creating a loud echo. They panted as they turned corner after corner until finding a set of armour on display to hide behind.
Teddy peered down the corridor, but Peeves was currently nowhere in sight.
"Come back here before he sees you!" Victorie urged him. She pulled him back with their still conjoined hands, and Teddy let himself be guided back into the dark nook they were hiding in.
He looked down at their hands with slightly raised brows, and for the first time Victorie fully registered what was happening. She instinctively recoiled her hand and brought it as a fist to her chest. Their eyes met.
Teddy chuckled and leaned against the wall, careful not to make contact with the armour next to him in the process. "Is that how you would have reacted if this was a real date?" He looked her straight in the eye, as if challenging her.
"I think getting chased by Peeves concludes the date." Victorie stated while using her hands to wrench water out of the tips of her hair.
She knew what she'd been hit by — a water balloon. Not just a regular water balloon, but also a Weasley's product. Designed to fit a disproportionate amount of water to its size.
Somehow being part of the lineage that created the product she'd been targeted with made it so much worse. Shouldn't she be exempt from being pranked with the usage of their products?
While watching the water drip down from her hair onto the floor she realised that Teddy hadn't said anything for a bit. She looked up to see that he was giving her somewhat of a loaded look.
Knowing he finally had her attention he began, "Okay. Rule one: the date is only over when you want it to be." There was a determination in his eyes that wasn't completely unlike the one Peeves had worn when aiming the water balloon at them. "Do you want the date to be over?" He asked.
"No." She mumbled and let go of her hair.
Teddy nodded carefully and pushed himself off the wall he was leaned against. She watched him retrieve his wand and approach her.
Before she knew it, a warmth spread over her and she felt her clothing shift and tingle. He was holding the bottom hem of her Gryffindor pullover in his hand while angling his wand at it. Her eyes darted around his face as he stared at his wand pensively.
"What spell is this?" She asked.
"Just something I picked up in a book." He mumbled without taking his eyes off his wand.
Victorie felt the corners of her lips twitch and she shook her head. Just as Teddy had almost finished drying her clothes, they heard a loud crash and looked at each other in horror.
"Do you think that was-" But Teddy never got a chance to finish his sentence.
Their hands intertwined once again and Victorie pulled him along with her. They left the security of the suits of armour and ran further down the corridor with Peeves' giggles not far behind.
The twists and turns they made through different passageways might have seemed arbitrary to Teddy, but Victorie knew exactly where she was going. She had a plan. There was an old abandoned classroom she knew of nearby. Because it wasn't in use anymore people often forgot that it existed.
And forget she did. For when Victorie had dragged Teddy through about ten different corridors, she realised that they should have arrived by now. She stopped at a crossroad, and for lack of better options opened a wooden door to her right.
Through the door there was a short passage and a spiral staircase. They entered through the door cautiously. When it closed behind them a chill wind came down the staircase toward them, sweeping their clothes back with its might.
Once the wind had settled they saw no other options but to continue straight. Up the staircase they travelled and the moonlight soon hit them, making the stone around them appear blue.
It might have been the dark that misled her, but she couldn't quite figure out which tower this was. It was not featured on any Hogwarts map she'd ever seen.
After passing the first spiral, the wall opened and let them out onto a half-moon shaped balcony where they stopped.
The pair took in their surroundings — the view over the greenhouses, the ivy climbing the tower and the balcony rail, a rose bush falling over it on one side.
With nothing over their heads but the vast and starry sky they looked at each other. Teddy relaxed slightly, putting his hands on the rail and leaning back against it. His eyes traced the greenhouses that lined the Hogwarts façade.
"So what was your original plan for this date?" Victorie asked, dragging him away from his thoughts.
A mysterious smile spread across his face and he scoffed. "You would not have liked it."
Victorie's eyes went wide. "What? How come?" She asked while rubbing her arms in an attempt to heat up. While Teddy had mostly dried her clothes, they were still a bit damp, and in the chilly outside air was a constant reminder of that.
Hands still attached to the rail, Teddy leaned forward and with a playful smile said simply, "It's not your thing."
His attention floated briefly to the rubbing of her arms, then he leaned back and looked back across the greenhouses, smile not yet faded. He breathed out contently, as though he had all the time in the world to stare at the views. As though they were not in fact on the run from a vicious poltergeist.
Victorie stared blankly at him, baffled by his self-assurance. "But what did you plan?" She asked with an irksome curiosity.
"Oh you know... candlelit dinner, a walk in the moonlight where I offer you my coat..." There was derision in his voice which she couldn't quite understand why he would apply.
"You're not wearing a coat." She noted.
"If I was, would you take it?" His eyes trailed back to her arms once more.
"Well apparently that's not my thing." She impatiently retorted.
"Exactly." Teddy agreed with a cocky grin. His eyebrows were slightly raised and there was a twinkle in his eye. There was subtext here, and she needed to uncover it.
"What is my thing then?" She challenged.
But before Teddy could answer, the door slammed open and the wind draft roared through again...
"FOUND YOU!" Peeves shouted.
Victorie made a run for it up the rest of the stairs with Teddy at her heel. As they made for their escape, she deliberated whether she'd seen a small smile play at Teddy's lips at the arrival of Peeves. But she had no time to ponder, as behind them they began to hear a sizzling sound of something supposedly sinister unleashed upon them.
Teddy threw himself at the door when they reached the top of the staircase, which flew open. He let Victorie out and slammed the door on what they discovered was a Whizz-bang Peeves had let loose on them. They heard a small explosion and the door rattled behind them, but they kept running.
She recognised their location as the fourth floor. "Here, Teddy!" She called and had him stop with her by a tapestry of a Chinese Fireball dragon on the wall.
"Get in!" She demanded and pushed it aside for him to enter. He looked at her apprehensively, but stepped inside. Victorie followed shortly after and adjusted the tapestry behind her.
They came out on the other side of the wall and into another corridor. "Hopefully this should lead Peeves astray." She concluded.
But Teddy wasn't reachable. He was looking up around them. Victorie took in the scene with him.
They were now in one of the corridors that had stone pillars built into the walls, arching toward the ceiling.
It seemed Hagrid had already made it to this particular corridor with his decorations. The large pillars had strings of emerald coloured silk twisted around them and hundreds of big red beads threaded onto the silk, which had been charmed to omit a warm glow.
Victorie followed Teddy through. They stopped in the middle of it and looked up at the twinkling lights, the way they twined around the arches, capsuling the two within them.
The moment passed as quickly as it had begun and when he faced her again, he was back in his educational persona. "Alright, to test you, here comes a hypothetical dating scenario..."
From his pocket he brought out a red rose with a very short stem. "What do you do if your date offers you this?" He fixed his gaze on her, scrutinised her without the slightest reluctance.
Victorie blinked a few times in an attempt to adjust to recent developments. This night seemed to want to keep turning as soon as she thought she would have a chance to settle down.
She focused on his question, debated it in her head while biting her lip. After hesitating for more than a few seconds, she ultimately reached for the sad little rose crown. But before she could grab it, the rose began to wilt before her. Her hand retreated and Teddy let the rose fall to the floor.
He asked, "Are you doing what you think I want you to do, or what you want to do?"
Victorie cocked her head and raised her eyebrows at him, visibly vexed by his little spoof. "You advised me to accept offerings, you said it makes a good impression!"
"Not if it's some sleazebag trying to charm you on a date!" Teddy exclaimed, as if speaking to the whole room, voice heavy with contempt.
Victorie's eyes turned into little slits as she regarded him. Doesn't that make you the sleazebag? She wanted to retort, but didn't.
Instead she changed the subject. "You never answered my question." She accused.
Curiosity soon took over his previously snide demeanour. "What question?"
"You were going to tell me what my thing is." She reminded him in the same tone of voice one would use while asking for the last cookie.
Teddy shook his head at the floor, then looked up at her. "Shouldn't you be able to answer that question on your own?" He proposed and passed her, continuing to the other side. He stopped in front of one of the pillars and reached his hand up to fiddle with one of the beads.
"Perhaps." Victorie turned his way. "But you seemed to have a pretty good idea..." She trailed off and looked at him pointedly.
"I believe I do." He let go of the bead and looked at her.
Victorie motioned eagerly for him to go on, demanding she get her explanation.
"I think you need some adventure." He reasoned in a soft voice and with a small shrug, not quite meeting her eye.
"How do you know?" She pried.
Teddy's gaze travelled from her eyes to the floor. "When the walls are thin... I hear things." He said simply.
"What things?" She pressed.
The question made him twist uncomfortably, but eventually he replied with a sneer, "Musings of the night."
Victorie rolled her eyes at him. "My musings?" She asked with raised brows. She was beginning to understand what he was referring to.
"...And Roxanne's." He added as objectively as he could while also stifling a smile. He cleared his throat and was about to speak when Victorie pointed in horror above him where Peeves was materialising out of the wall.
"Watch out!" She shrieked. But it was too late. Peeves was ready, with a dung bomb this time, raised like a scythe.
And before Teddy could react, before he could even attempt to move out of the way, the dung bomb made contact with his head. As soon as it did, the orb dissolved and a thick slimy black liquid began seeping down his person.
He didn't need to look up to see who the perpetrator was. Instead he looked straight ahead. He let his shoulders fall as the dung poured down him and took his one clean hand to remove some from his mouth.
"Fucking Peeves." He let out between tight lips.
The Poltergeist giggled. "Got you!" He exulted. Then proceeded to swivel out of the wall completely and continue down the corridor.
While he did so, he gestured with his hands and the strings of silk all flew out of their place around the pillars. The beads went out and the corridor went dark. Silk fluttered in the air and landed callously on the floor as Peeves disappeared down the hallway.
Victorie found herself gaping dumbfounded at the spirit, but when she turned back to Teddy, she saw one who was not the least bit invested in the poltergeist's antics.
He stopped trying to wipe his face off and let his hands fall to his sides, dung splashing from the commotion. "Can the date be over now?" The boy whined.
Victorie held his gaze for a second, but it was difficult to navigate his eyes with all the dung clamming to his face and she burst out laughing.
"But Peeves finally left us alone!" She argued at first between chuckles.
But seeing dark slime seep down Teddy's clothing, she reasoned that he needed her help in ways besides being the person who pointed and laughed. So she made her way over to his helplessness.
"Come on." She held her hand up behind him, careful not to actually make contact, and sheep herded him in the direction of the nearest bathroom...
Victorie pressed her lips together in an effort not to let her amusement show as she waved Teddy into the bathroom, watching out for teachers on either side of the corridor as she did so.
He stumbled toward one of the white marble sinks while dragging his t-shirt off as quickly as he could. The shirt dropped to the floor as he turned on the faucet and splashed the water in his face frantically.
And just like that Victorie found herself in the fantasy of many of her peers (disregarding the dung). In an attempt to distract herself from the scene she looked down at the mud trail leading from the corridor into the bathroom. She didn't want to guess what the teachers were going to do when they found it tomorrow.
She pondered what the time was while she took a tour of the bathroom. It was one of the roomier ones with the sinks displayed in a circle in the middle.
She looked out of one of the dusty diamond gridded windows at the moonlit grounds below them. The moon itself hung high up in the sky, and she guessed they were approaching curfew.
Ignoring the passage of time for now, she turned and let herself walk through the rays of moonlight and through the dust that floated in the air, which it lit up so unashamedly.
She walked up to Teddy, but instead of taking him in she turned to her own reflection in the mirror and pulled her hair back behind her ears, revealing her face fully to herself. Her cheeks were flushed from all the running around, so she ran some cold water over her hands and pressed them against her face. She closed her eyes while enjoying the chill.
When she opened her eyes again Teddy was giving her a bleary eyed smile, happy to not have his face covered in dung any longer. After turning around and leaning against the sink, she looked at him properly. But was immediately reminded that he wasn't wearing a shirt. Her eyes darted to her own hands.
This seemed to give Teddy an odd sense of satisfaction, and he smirked. "You better get used to it if you're going to be dating." He suggested, but picked his t-shirt off the floor and rinsed it off under the faucet, then proceeded to start drying it with the same spell as before.
I'm not going to be dating Teddy Lupin though. She reasoned in her head. Ignoring the irony that she currently was. "I wouldn't count on that happening." She muttered.
"You dating, or getting used to seeing me shirtless?" He pressed his lips together, a laugh threatening to push past them and his shoulders tensed as if expecting retaliation.
Correctly assumed, once his words had sunk in Victorie's hand acted on its own accord, hitting his bare arm with one potent blow.
"Me dating, you idiot!" She burst, albeit with a small blush.
"Give Delilah some time." He joked. But after he'd said it his eyebrows contorted somewhat. Looking down at his t-shirt he finished the job drying it, and swung it over his head.
About two seconds passed where Teddy's t-shirt was separating them as he attempted to find the correct hole with his head, and Victorie had nothing to look at but his chest.
Just as Teddy's head appeared and the piece of clothing fell like a curtain over the rest of his torso, her eyes had successfully trailed up to meet his. Only she found his eyes to be an even more daunting thing to behold given what had just happened. She turned back to her own reflection once more.
"You have to tell me how you got Peeves to be nice to you." He pleaded.
This forced Victorie to remind herself they'd been conversing. "He hit me with a water balloon." She remarked. Feeling like the injustice she'd suffered had been undermined.
"And he hit me with a dung bomb!" Teddy countered while tugging at the remaining dung in his no longer slicked back hair. He let the streaks of hair fall in front of his face along with the rest of his unruly hairdo while he awaited a statement from her.
Be thankful it wasn't stinksap, she thought to herself. But she knew that that answer wouldn't cut it, so she pursed her lips in thought.
"It's because whenever I'm witness to a prank of his I never tell any of the teachers on him." She admitted and turned on the faucet to run her hands under it.
"Why don't you?" He asked curiously, not realising that his probing questions were the very thing that would set alight the same mischievous dwell inside her.
The second thing he failed to see was Victorie's hands inverting under the faucet, to begin cupping the unwitting water instead.
"So that he'll repay the favour..." She mumbled distractedly.
Teddy paused for a second. "You mean to say..." He met Victorie's eyes, but before he had a chance to continue his line of thought, she heaved the water at him without a single hesitation in mind.
The water splashed onto his recently dried t-shirt and he stumbled backward. He shielded himself with his hands as a few drops flew toward his scrunched up face.
When he opened his eyes there was a loaded moment where Victorie was staring wide-eyed at the boy, his arms held out in shock and with a wet patch trailing down the centre of his shirt.
His blinking eyes turned cold in a matter of seconds. "I just dried this shirt." He said, pushing every syllable.
She stood like a statue. The only movement she made was to let out a shaky breath.
They weren't close. Or maybe they were, but they hadn't been close long enough for her to gauge his level of sportsmanship when it came to pranks. They were in the early days of closeness, and Victorie had to push back any growing fear that she'd just made a grave mistake.
"Yes. Well your shirt seems to have quite a fickle relationship with dryness at the moment." She remarked. Then pressed her lips together and like a deer in the headlights awaited a reaction.
But not long after she had managed to push the sentence out, a daunting reaction awakened in her — a laugh. Bubbling from within. She covered her mouth, but it didn't prove successful in masking what was going on, and it made Teddy behold her with utter disbelief.
If it was the original transgression, the sarcastic comment or the evident harm-joy she was exhibiting, Victorie wasn't sure, but something pushed Teddy over the edge. His eyes went from looking at her, to singling in on her.
This told her it was time to make a break for it. But it was okay. She was prepared for this. Before Teddy had even come to that particular conclusion, Victorie had her hands grasping at the sink behind her back, preparing for that moment.
Just before he leaped at her, she'd already pushed herself away from the sink. Once he inevitably missed her she was already charging out of the door, careful not to slip on the dirt trail on the floor.
But Teddy wasn't far behind, currently also in the process of trying to figure out what in Merlin's name he was planning to do when he caught her.
Instead of debating it, he decided to wing it and focused on catching up to the shrieking girl.
"They'll hear you!" He called after her.
About two steps further than him down the corridor she ran with her ginger bob bouncing against her shoulders. "Then stop chasing me!" She insisted with a panicked tenor. But her wigged out attitude only egged him on.
They turned a corner and Victorie wailed as they did so. The loss of momentum from the course change lost her a step, and Teddy managed to graze her arm with his hand as he reached out for her.
She shrieked once more and he found himself laughing gingerly despite their current strife. Her shriek turned into a giggle too, and somewhere along the way, the chase turned somewhat flirtatious in nature.
The two kept giggling as they flung across the halls in a zigzag, one of them always millimetres away from the other until Victorie reached the grand staircase.
The large portraits on the wall caught sight of the girl and gasped as she flew by them and continued down the circled structure with the blue haired boy close behind her.
She quite impressively made it to the second floor without being caught. It was only as she had just managed to drum down the last few steps of the staircase that plateaued onto the first floor, and she took those first steps on flat ground, that Teddy managed to clasp his hands to her hips and swing her around to face him.
She tensed and looked at him tentatively. This was the moment when she'd also find out what he was planning to do, and she was growing curious.
"Have you been petrified?" He teased, without letting go of her hips.
The comment made Victorie try to twist away, and his loss of focus let her out of his grasp. She hurried toward the wall and let the small of her back collide with it. While letting a breath of amusement out she let him catch up to her.
He caged her in with an outstretched arm on either side of her. They took a moment to breathe and watch each other. Both their smiles disappeared, as if forgetting to communicate.
They were stood at the top of the last staircase, the one that led to the ground floor and the main entrance. Above them were hundreds of portraits continuing up the dark castle and its walls.
She took in his look of concentration directed at her face. His soaked shirt, stuck to his body, pressed against her.
"If he kisses you goodnight, what do you do?" He asked.
Great... Another pop quiz, she thought. "Uhh..."
"You reprimand him for not asking you first." Teddy filled in. "That's an important one!" He squinted at her carefully, making sure the words sunk in.
When he saw only a vacant expression he wearily went on, "Perhaps we should do a test run?" then nodded in wholehearted agreement with himself.
Victorie did an eye-roll. But before she could say anything he began, "So if you're on a date, and he asks: Victorie Weasley, can I -"
"Yes." She responded smugly before he could finish, only to put even more fear in him.
Teddy chuckled to himself. "You know... I'd feel more relaxed about sending you off to one of these things with a disposition that wasn't quite so adamant."
"You got my consent, isn't that good enough?" Victorie challenged, feigning ignorance to his concerns. She debated in her head if she should suggest practising the actual kiss once too, but had to remind herself that she'd already used that trick.
"I wouldn't say no to an apology on top of it." He suggested casually.
Victorie's gaze flicked briefly to the south of Teddy's neck and she groaned. "We're back on the wet shirt thing?"
"The very one I had just finished drying off..." he held up the collar of his t-shirt to her, "...when you decided to pay homage to Peeves the Poltergeist!" His eyes looked like they were about to pop out of their sockets.
Victorie shrugged. "Thought you liked pranks... Your father was big on them." She tried.
"My father's friends were big on pranks." Teddy corrected. "Whereas he was big on being head prefect." The last two words were followed by a huff. He averted his gaze and paused, falling into his own thoughts.
She detected a hint of contempt in his tone, but decided not to push it. "Very well..."
While Teddy was distracted she slipped her hand down to the side of her leg and under her skirt where she had her wand attached with a strap. Acting as quick as she could while still maintaining a level of stealth, she flicked her wand with one quick motion, conjuring a flurry of disembodied wings by Teddy's ear which began to flutter rigorously at once.
Teddy flinched away. "Shit!" He cried out and waved them away with his hand. The flutter was gone a second later, but while he had lost his focus Victorie had gotten away.
She rushed down the stairs with Teddy not far behind. When she reached the ground floor she dove behind the statue of The Architect of Hogwarts.
Teddy stopped in front of it and beheld her tensely for a second from the opposite side. The fluttering wings had disjointed his hair further.
Both of them, unsure which path to take, hovered instead, leaning toward each side of the large statue intermittently.
Eventually Victorie made an impulsive decision and ran away from the statue. She escaped behind the house-point hourglasses, but soon found it to be a mistake as the tight space behind the hourglasses and the wall slowed her down significantly.
Teddy slid through between two of the hourglasses and caught up with her.
She stopped in the corner when she realised that it was too late and awaited her repercussions. Teddy sealed her off with his arms once again.
"Which brilliant hex of the ones you've taught me should I use on you, eh?" He teased. Yet despite his obviously empty threat, his voice still shook with agitation.
Victorie instinctively tried to reach for her wand again.
"Oh no you won't!" Teddy grabbed her wrists and pulled them up against the wall with a puff. "You..." He began.
She refused to look at him, so with a lack of better options he put his nose next to hers and steered her face forward with it. Their eyes met.
"The girl who seems to know every hex in the world..." He continued. The action had earned him a glare from the girl and she puffed some hair away from her face. "...Are the most infuriating..." He murmured.
His voice was calm, but there was a scorching flame within him. It radiated through his arms and into his grip on her wrists. He couldn't help himself any longer. His eyes drifted to her lips. He was close enough that she could feel his hot breath against them. Then he leaned in even closer, testing the waters. "Can I kiss you...?"
Victorie approved the waters by closing the distance between them, a breathy "Yes." uttered when she was already halfway there.
As soon as she kissed him, Teddy didn't waste a second. He let go of her wrists and grabbed the sides of her face, pushed himself closer to her. With heavy breath he hungrily kissed her back. They pushed and pulled, almost climbing each other. His scent enveloped her. His perfume made her stomach tug excitingly. His intoxicating breath rewarded her senses.
After a few minutes they came apart only slightly. While still panting rigorously their actions dawned on them like a brick to the skull. Both of their eyes were wider than usual as they looked at each other.
He let go of her face and there was an awkward silence where the both of them debated ways to smooth things over in their heads.
Teddy was the first to give an attempt. "Okay so..." He began, voice breathy and expression slightly dazed still. "Now that I've demonstrated how the date could end..." He trailed off, put a hand on his hip and then dropped it immediately, well aware of how feeble his façade was.
"And remember that this is just one of many potential outcomes, many of which don't involve any physical contact at all." He shrugged, speaking as though it was a matter of fact and with a scrunched up nose.
Victorie nodded as though she was actually taking any of his nonsense on board.
Teddy turned solemn. "How long past curfew do you think it is?" he asked.
Victorie laughed at the question, feeling like they were so far past curfew that attempting to care served no purpose.
Teddy chuckled along with her. The laugh turned into a lingering smile at one another, and without voicing it they began the walk back to their common room side by side.
She couldn't help but feel like the date had been successful despite circumstances having been less than preferable. No matter what trials they'd faced they had both run with it.
Perhaps that was what had been missing from her first date — a mutual determination for it to work.
Once again Teddy had managed (while perhaps not in the most conventional of ways but still successfully) to show her the right way. Or at the very least proved to her that it was possible to have a good date.
Published: 9 April 2022