The next morning Victorie was being inundated with questions on her way to breakfast.
Despite having stayed up much later than Victorie, her two dorm mates had somehow mustered up enough perkiness to press her on the matter of where she had been last night, and why she had come back so late.
"It can't have been one of your usual secret outings." Delilah reasoned. "Whatever it was obviously took its toll on Teddy. He was not his usual self yesterday." She looked past the redhead, over at Maya on the other side, for confirmation.
"And when she came back they were in a huge row." Maya recalled. Victorie couldn't help but feel like she was exaggerating a fair bit, but let it slide. "It must have been something different... something really bad." She tugged at the girl's sleeve. "What on earth were you doing, Victorie?"
In an effort to prevent the girls from spinning some extreme lie, she decided to just be honest. As well as the fact that she was now finding herself in a friendly relationship with the girls, and she would prefer to keep it that way.
She opened her mouth to speak, the girls held their breaths in anticipation, and then Victoire proceeded to go through the events of the night before. She went through everything; Ethan and her plan; the encounter with the tentacula plant; the spell; the professor reprimanding them and sending them back to their common rooms overseen by the Screechsnap.
Maya looked as if she had sniffed something bad. "I can't believe you two!"
Delilah reflected a mix of awe and distaste. "Yeah, I mean what were you thinking? Did you really suppose you wouldn't get caught?"
"And to steal from the Greenhouses of all places! Professor Longbottom is such a nice teacher, he does not deserve that." Maya said.
"Guys!" Victorie interrupted and put a hand on each of their shoulders. "Remember who came up with the idea? Ethan. Take up your grievances with him."
The girls looked at each other, and she could see the cogs begin to spin in another direction. It wasn't exactly fair. Victorie was as much of a culprit as him, but she still didn't feel like she should be the lone target of all of their judgement.
"I didn't know Ethan had such a wicked streak inside him." Maya said.
"He's always had a weird moral compass, to be fair. But stealing?" Delilah pulled the door to the Great Hall open and the three girls stepped inside. "And dragging you into it too?" She shook her head in disappointment.
To Victorie's surprise, the two of them squeezed her into a hug at once. After the initial shock had settled on her face, she smiled bashfully.
She felt pleased. If there was one good thing to come out of this, it was that she had a feeling she wouldn't see Delilah playing cupid between Ethan and her again anytime soon.
Then Maya's voice quieted into a whisper as they got closer to where a blue-haired boy was sitting at the Gryffindor table. "But so, why were you and Teddy so upset with each other yesterday? It took him ages to come out of our dorm after he went in there with you. And when he did, he went straight to bed. What were you arguing about?"
Victorie didn't answer, but a little chuckle escaped her. She sat down next to Teddy and Jamie without another word. As she did so, Delilah and Maya shared an unnerved look between them, but she didn't care. She let the girls think that she was in a vicious dispute with the boy. It was better than them knowing the truth of what had happened between them and having to try and understand it well enough to explain it.
She was also still feeling quite elated from all the attention she was receiving — and the hug. Let's not forget the hug.
Jamie was in a conversation with Teddy, but he allowed himself a moment away from it to smile proudly at her and the other girls when they sat down.
Victorie looked cluelessly at Jamie. At first she thought he might have caught wind of her mischievous trip yesterday. But when she looked around and noticed that Ethan was nowhere to be seen, neither at the Ravenclaw table or theirs, and came to the conclusion that he must not have arrived at breakfast yet, she reasoned that it must be something else he was smiling about.
Teddy smiled at Victorie as well, but upon receiving this particular smile, she noticed herself starting to blush a little. She smiled back.
His eyes expanded, as though suddenly aware of himself, and he quickly offered her a plate of still steaming hash browns.
"Do you want?" He asked, voice barely audible. He seemed to be doing most of his communication with his eyes, beholding her attentively but at the same time almost too distracted by his own interest to be fully present.
Victorie appeared to possess the same vein of communicative skills that particular morning. She shook her smiling head and mumbled something along the lines of, "No thanks."
"Hello?" Maya snapped. The pair tore their eyes off each other and looked around at the group. They were all giving them puzzled looks. Teddy set the plate of hash browns down self-consciously. "Why are you being pleasant toward one another? You were most definitely in an argument yesterday." She wondered.
Teddy snapped out of his daze then. "Why..." He began, but then the events of last night seemed to slowly pop into his head. He opened his mouth to speak again, but Victorie didn't like his chances of explaining it in a satisfactory way.
"Honestly, I was just pissed off because I didn't want another party in our common room. It disrupts the peace." She explained and poured herself some chamomile tea. "But we've worked it out since then." She looked over at Teddy, who nodded along in an appropriately casual manner.
They all gave her critical looks. Not because they didn't believe her, but because they didn't agree with her. The explanation was deemed satisfactory, and the subject dropped quickly after that. Relief washed over Victorie and she sipped her tea.
In that very moment, several students around the hall squealed out in glee as the troop of owls sailed in through an open window, one by one. They came gliding over the tables, dropping parcels and envelopes to their recipients' imminent joy.
One letter fluttered down and landed right on Teddy's hash browns. He smiled and waved at the owl before it turned and flew back out the window. The envelope was pearly white and shimmering. His mouth shifted from a smile into an o-shape when he saw his name hand-written on it and encircled with a heart.
Just as Victorie noticed the envelope along with everyone else, a large package flew through the air toward the student beside her. He jumped up to catch it, but missed his shot and the package crashed onto his morning porridge. Milk splashed all over Victorie and her tea fell over and spilled out. She gasped and began dabbing up the spilled water on the table.
"Sorry." The boy piped, but instead of helping began unwrapping the package.
Victorie shot the boy a venomous look, which he didn't see, but decided to pay him no mind.
After Teddy retrieved the encased note from his envelope, he got out his wand and began using his drying spell on her clothes. She smiled tiredly at him. As he pointed his wand at her, his eyes soon drifted toward the note still held in his other hand, and Victorie's did the same.
In the midst of her curiosity, she failed to see another owl casting a shadow over her own head. The owl dropped a blood red envelope above her, and it dangled down patiently toward her.
Victorie leaned in ever so slightly behind the secrecy of Teddy's shoulder. She tried her best to spot any gaping spelling errors in the note. What she found instead was the words 'Yule ball', written in sickly sweet cursive along with some other words she didn't have the time to read before she was interrupted by a loud voice.
"VICTORIE WEASLEY!" The voice called. The girl in question nearly jumped out of her skin and looked around to find the source of the voice.
To her horror, she spotted the red envelope lying before her on the table, and guessed it must have been the very thing that had spoken. She watched the envelope rise of its own accord in front of her and open its mouth-resembling flap. She shut her eyes tightly, hoping it would soften the blow of what was coming.
"I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU!" The voice of her mother, Fleur Delacour, roared in that French accent of hers. "HAVE YOU LOTS YOUR WITS COMPLETELY? DO YOU REALISE HOW WORRIED YOU'RE MAKING BILL AND I WHEN WE HEAR YOU CONTINUALLY BREAKING THE RULES AND GETTING IN TROUBLE?"
The voice echoed through the room and everyone stared at the cringing Victorie, whose shoulders were nearly making contact with her ears.
There was a pause and she opened one eye carefully. When her mother's voice spoke next, it was softer, but more distressed sounding. "How am I meant to sleep at night knowing that you're putting yourself in danger by performing spells of unknown effects?"
The envelope's trap hung open in defeat. Victorie opened her other eye and tears welled into them, but none fell. Teddy's hand discreetly overlapped her own where it lay resting on the bench under the table, but Victorie couldn't take her eyes off the envelope.
The howler leaned back, as if breathing in, readying itself to leap. Then the voice came back with full force. Victorie flinched and shut her eyes again. Teddy's hand squeezed her own.
"YOU'RE LUCKY YOU WEREN'T EXPELLED! HOW DO YOU PLAN TO GET A JOB IF YOU HAVEN'T GOT YOUR NEWTS? IF I RECEIVE ANOTHER LETTER FROM ONE OF YOUR TEACHERS YOU CAN BE SURE TO EXPECT ANOTHER HOWLER EVERY DAY AND FOR THE REST OF YOUR SORRY LIFE!"
Then the envelope finally faltered and fell back onto the table limply. Victorie could finally open her eyes, although reluctantly. Everyone turned their eyes from the envelope and back to the redheaded girl. Teddy retracted his hand.
It was dead quiet for a moment until Teddy exhaled some air out of his nose in amusement and said cheekily, "Mrs. Delacour sure has a voice on her."
Victorie blinked the wetness out of her eyes and looked catatonically over at the boy. Deep inside her though, she couldn't help but feel better looking at the charming way his skin crinkled around his eyes when he smiled.
Not entirely surprising for Hogwarts, but the conversation went back to normal unbelievably fast after that ordeal. Not a minute later, Maya was already discussing the popularity of the sign up sheets for the auditions she was going to hold the next day along with Teddy.
"I can't believe how popular they are!" She rejoiced and held up one of the sheets. It was covered in signatures, transpiring beyond the designated lines and all the way unto the margins of the paper.
The blue haired boy nodded pleasantly along and gave her his words of encouragement. Victorie wasn't entirely listening however. She was looking at the time and sighed grimly, then began scanning the room to see if Ethan had arrived yet.
Over by the entrance she spotted him with McGonagall. She met the professor's gaze, who gave her a nod. Victorie took this as her cue, and stood up to leave.
She waved goodbye to the gang and dragged her feet toward the entrance.
The teacher didn't say much when Victorie greeted them.
"Hi." Ethan replied. Although his came out sort of like an apology.
McGonagall exited through the doors, leading the way. Victorie followed and Ethan hesitated before joining her side.
"Something about detention on a Saturday seems sinful." She whispered to him as they made their way to the Transfiguration classroom.
"I suppose that's the point." He muttered.
They turned into another corridor and Victorie felt another jab of guilt when she thought back to last night. The jabs had been coming and going throughout the morning. "On another hand it almost seems like we got off easy considering what we did."
Ethan perked up a little. "Totally! They didn't even confiscate the Puffapod I stole!" He rejoiced once making sure that McGonagall was out of hearing distance ahead of them. "Longbottom did take what was in my pockets when he caught us, but I suppose he hasn't noticed that there's another plant missing."
Victorie narrowed her eyes and felt another jab in her stomach. The way that the boy was still keeping her informed about his stolen possessions made her feel like she was still part of his scheme.
She also noticed that it was actually bothering her that the Puffapod remained in his possession, even though before yesterday she probably wouldn't have thought twice about it.
But now that she was walking toward her penance for a crime she found that she didn't actually stand for (in contrast to general mischief she had got up to in the past) she realised that she no longer wanted to be the person who looks the other way when a peer misbehaves.
She comforted herself with the notion that she had just wanted to make a new friend, and the prospect of succeeding at that was like a trophy at the end of a long and excruciating competition.
It was interesting though. Now that she was walking alongside him, like a partner in crime and with the trophy in hand, she felt nothing but indifference. It made her wonder what had made her so desperate to be his friend in the first place.
They turned into the last corridor. McGonagall was almost at the end of it already. She stopped when she arrived at the door opening and awaited them.
Victorie and Ethan approached her with caution and stopped in front of the poised woman. She gave Ethan a stern and prolonged look, but when it came to reprimanding Victorie with the same, McGonagall lost some of her vigour midway through and curtly spun around instead. Her robe flared behind her as she strode toward the front of the classroom.
"Come along!" She ejected.
They did as they were told and sat down in two of the seats at the front. Victorie felt scared to move. She'd never seen McGonagall quite so cold toward her. Now she seemed utterly beside herself. She wouldn't even look at her.
Nevertheless they got out their school supplies and books and prepared to do extra homework for the next three hours, assigned to them by their professors.
McGonagall sat down at her desk, and Victorie was just about to put pen to paper when a clanging in the distance startled her, making her pen drip a large blob of ink onto her parchment.
Professor McGonagall's head shot up and she gave the door (behind which the sound had come from) a suspicious scowl.
When the professor finally decided to pay it no mind and return to her study, Victorie exchanged a glance with Ethan, who looked just as confused as she, then smudged the stain out into her parchment and placed her pen on it once more.
But another more jarring clang was heard, followed by several more. It sounded like it was coming closer. Ominously approaching.
McGonagall looked between the two students for a moment, but soon the banging and clanging became so loud that she had to stand up.
Everyone turned their heads to the door. Then the most piercing crash yet bombarded everyone's ears. Victorie was sure it must have been something crashing down onto the stone floors just outside. But what could be crashing down just outside in the corridor?
McGonagall pursed her lips and approached the door. The noise had turned so disruptive that she would now have to see to it. She twisted the handle and carefully pulled the door open a crack. Between the crack she peered out into the corridor.
Victoire looked on tensely, but when she turned to Ethan, she noticed that the corner of his lip had curled a little, and he didn't seem all that keenly interested in what was going on. Instead of acting as an audience for McGonagall's investigation, he had turned back to his desk.
The professor didn't need a long peek out into the corridor to get a good read of the situation. She gasped and yelled out, "PEEVES!" while letting the door slide open. After taking one determined step forward she hesitated though. She swivelled around and beheld her students with utmost contempt. Between tight lips she hissed, "Stay put."
Before McGonagall closed the door completely, Victorie stretched her neck forward and just managed to catch a glimpse of Peeves gliding along the ceiling, throwing saucepans at the walls and the floor. McGonagall stormed after him while flicking her wand behind her in the direction she'd come from. The door slammed shut and locked itself in one smooth movement.
Victorie let out a breath, feeling thankful that she didn't have to deal with that.
Ethan however, stood up almost immediately. He shot Victorie a grin when he presented the same penknife he'd used to unlock the Greenhouses. She didn't reciprocate, but gave the boy a confused stare. Ethan was already onto his next move however, when he began packing down his stuff into his bag.
"What are you doing?" Victorie blurted.
He grinned again as he fitted a book into his bag. "I'm getting us out."
Victorie stammered incoherently at first and had to collect herself. She was struggling to catch up with everything that was going on. She pointed at the door with her thumb. "Did you know that Peeves was going to do that?" She finally managed.
Ethan looked her in the eye and nodded, like he'd expected her to understand already. "I bribed him." He said offhandedly and zipped his bag up. Every one of his movements seemed to be happening in a frenzy. "Ten galleons worth of Zonko's products. That 'geist is not cheap." He explained as he made his way over to the door and kneeled down in front of the lock.
As he began fiddling with the knife inside the lock he peered back over his shoulder at Victorie. But she remained seated, staring dimly at the floor.
Not long after, Ethan got the door open. He put the penknife back in his pocket. "Are you coming?" He asked curiously.
"No thanks." Victorie muttered without even thinking, almost catching herself off guard.
He took another step through the door frame, but despite his prior urgency didn't feel quite ready to leave. "Why not?" He pushed, desperately gazing at her detached frame.
Victorie looked over at the boy. "I'd prefer not to receive another howler." She said, voice dripping with derision. Ethan gave her a hesitant nod and left the room without another word.
Everything went quiet. The clanging sounds of pots and pans hitting the floor had faded, and she wondered for a moment how far McGonagall had gone to pursue her hunt for the poltergeist.
She checked her wristwatch. Two hours and 45 minutes left. She sighed and sat forward in her chair, leaning over her work. It took another 15 minutes before McGonagall got back, and Victorie felt oddly at peace living out her punishment without any worry of repercussions. The very ones she knew Ethan would have to face sooner or later.
When the professor came in through the door, immediately noticing that it was no longer locked, her eyes became two thin slits and she stormed over to Ethan's desk. "Where has the other miscreant gone?" She demanded of the remaining student.
Victorie lifted her head and pen from her parchment. "He left." She explained simply as she watched McGonagall. All the while feeling an odd sense of contentment and lack of curiosity as to what would happen next. She was in the clear, so it didn't exactly matter.
"And he's not coming back." She added. Normally she wouldn't want to throw Ethan (or anyone) under the bus. But as it were he was already in a lot of trouble, and her being honest about it wasn't going to affect that fact, or add fuel to the fire. Lying about it would only cause trouble for her.
"But you're here." McGonagall's expression had changed to that of a perplexed one as she stated the blatantly obvious.
As the professor stared at her, for the first time since getting there actually taking her in properly, Victorie was beginning to wonder if she had unwittingly turned into a ghost sometime in the last few minutes. "Yes." She confirmed.
"Very well." McGonagall straightened, and was about to return to her desk when she snapped her penetrative gaze back at Victorie once more. "And you're not lying to me?"
After a moment's thought, Victorie motioned at the books on her desk. "I'm here to repent for my sins." She said innocently. "Not to commit more."
McGonagall breathed in. Perhaps the amount of oxygen at once was a bit much for her, as she seemed almost lightheaded when she let it out. She circled around her desk and sat down seeing as she wasn't about to go and chase after another culprit when they weren't for the moment causing a disturbance.
At least one punishment would have to be served today.
For the first time, Victorie felt almost relaxed in McGonagall's presence. She scribbled notes down on her paper, not really caring how she carried herself. For the moment, she was in the good books. Nothing she did (or planned to do at least) could trump escaping detention.
She noticed that she had two eyes on her. The redhead lifted her gaze to McGonagall's big desk before her. The lady was sitting with her elbows on the armrests of her chair and her hands clasped together just under her chin. When their eyes met she smiled softly. "Perhaps you're growing." She mumbled, and returned to her work.
Victorie smiled back. Doing the right thing felt pretty good at that moment, and she decided that she would tell her about the missing Puffapod too at some point before leaving.
When she entered the relatively busy Gryffindor common room approximately three and a half hours later, something was weighing on her mind.
She scanned the room for Teddy, and much to her delight it was one of those rare occasions when he wasn't surrounded. He was studying, so he had picked a remote corner table, away from the fireplace.
"You know what?" Victorie confidently opened when she had made it up to his table.
Teddy looked almost frightened when she broke his attention to his sprawled out papers. His shoulders hunched up when he snapped his head up to look at her.
"Hi." He said. The sentence was heavily punctuated, and Victorie pressed her lips together after sitting down.
She took note of how strange he seemed to find it — being approached by her instead of the other way around. The rarity of the phenomena made her self-conscious suddenly, and her next sentence didn't come out with quite the same fluency she had expected it to.
"Perhaps it's a good thing that you're like your father." She piped, jumbling a few of the words together.
Teddy expelled a breath of air out of his nose after the words sunk in. "How can you think that? He was a prefect! You're like... the opposite of him." He smiled.
His smile calmed her a little. She raised a finger. "Yes. But don't you think the Marauders needed someone to oversee them and make sure they never went too far?"
"I guess." Teddy conceded.
They nodded toward one another, and the air settled.
Victorie took a moment to examine his work. She supported her folded arms on the table and leaned over. "You're being studious." She remarked as her eyes scanned the bits of parchment.
He shrugged and opened his mouth to speak, when his attention was stolen away by Jamie, coming up behind Victorie.
"How was detention?" The boy smirked and put a hand on her backrest.
"Transcendent." She said airily.
Jamie chuckled. "That sounds about right. I saw Ethan about an hour ago, and he was not in fact in detention."
"Yes. He left."
Jamie's eyebrows shot up, his eyes fitted over to Teddy, then back to Victorie again. "He left? So you stayed behind then?"
Victorie smiled confidently, feeling pleased with herself. "I'm a rule follower now." She declared.
He chuckled again, a little louder this time. "I refuse to believe that."
But Victorie smiled coyly at him, refusing to back down on her statement.
"Speaking of," Jamie began, "I just need to grab my bag in my dorm, then I'll be right down and we can head off." He clapped his thighs awkwardly in a conclusive fashion, and with a nod from Victorie and a wave from Teddy, he departed.
Victorie turned back to Teddy. "We're going to plan our big prank for the Yule Ball." She explained.
Teddy scoffed and shook his head. "That's very ironic considering what you just proclaimed."
Victorie also stood up to leave. "I'm a walking contradiction." She said with a lopsided smile.
Teddy reciprocated her smile. Just as she turned to head to her own dormitory to drop off her books, he spoke up again.
"One more thing before you go..."
Victorie swivelled back and eyed him expectantly.
"I was thinking about what you said at breakfast..."
She peered up at her own right eyebrow, thinking back to the conversations that had unfolded that morning.
"About how you didn't want another party in the common room." He quickly added when he noticed her confusion. Then his voice turned softer and he continued, "Most people like parties. It's good to be positive about them, as a way to get on people's good side."
"So I should pretend to like every party for the rest of my life?" She suggested cheekily. "I'm not going to do that."
Teddy opened his mouth. He looked like he was about to argue, but something changed in his eyes and he shut his mouth again. "Yeah, you're right... That's probably for the best." He agreed with a sheepish smile.
"I skipped a turn in the social game that time. Maybe next time I'll play." Victorie ostentatiously concluded. Then she decided to drop the playful façade. She relaxed her shoulders and breathed out, "And I'm not going to hide who I am."
She held his gaze for a while. A smile gradually made its way up his cheeks, and her face flushed a little at the way he was beholding her. Like he was seeing a whole world before him that she just couldn't see.
"You know..." Teddy began. "Maybe my dad needed the rest of the Marauders to make sure he had some fun every once in a while too." He conjectured, backtracking the conversation a bit.
Victorie grinned at him, then had to hurry off to her dorm as she noticed Jamie coming down the stairs.
Published: 18 April 2022