2 o'clock, May 2 2016.
The today 16 year old Victorie Weasley was already sitting in the room of requirement having sneaked of early to escape her siblings.
Dominique had been on her about why she never saw her at the festivities on this date and had roped their younger brother Luis into dragging her down to the great hall if they had to.
Victorie managed to slip away whileDominique was in the bathroom though and had been sitting in the familiar green and blue room for about half an hour.
This year she had truly dressed up for this day.
She had slept with her hair in braids so that today the long blond hair hung in waves down her back.
And she had even put on a light layer of makeup something she rarely wore. Partly because Hogwarts dress code did not allow a lot of it and partly because her mother growing up very close to her Veela grandmother was very set in showing a person's true beauty.
But this year she truly wanted to look her absolute best!
She wasn't sure exactly when she had started liking Teddy, like like-like.
Probably earlier in the school year. She supposed she had liked him for quite some time but it wasn't until this year she had really realized it. She had started making an effort to look her best on days when she knew she would see him the hallway and started to stop and talk to him more.
Ever since her 12 birthday, the first time she had set foot in the Room of Requirement and meat Teddy on her own really for the first time, she'd felt so comfortable with him.
She felt safe around him and like she could tell him anything without worry.
She loved how he could always make her laugh and how he would laugh at her lame jokes.
She was unsure though.
Teddy was her aunt and uncles godson, she had grown up with him like a cousin. And she was two years younger than him.
Not a lot but still what if he just saw her like a little kid?
That was probably why she had decided to put on the makeup, to look older.
Ted Lupin was hesitating in the corridor outside the room of requirement.
He was nervous, he didn't like being nervous.
He tugged at his t-shirt trying to straighten it. No use.
He was dressed in well-worn jeans with two chains hanging down on his right hip. They severed no purpose, just looked cool. The t-shirt was dark gray with a light gray print of blossoming lilies and extended vines traveling on to the back of the shirt.
He had spent a long time trying to decide how to dress for this day. How to look good, but like he wasn't trying to look good. Like he just put on something that happened to look great.
Now he wasn't so sure about that.
He had never thought of Victorie as more than this pretty little girl who was Ginny's nice. Not even as he spent her last 4 birthdays with her, had he ever thought of her like more than that.
He did have a lot of fun with her, everything just felt so easy when it was just the two of them. Still the thought of her like… well a girl, never really occurred to him.
Not until earlier that year. He and Vicky had always been civil when they met in the hallways. This year though Vicky had started stopping and talking to him. She probably thought he didn't notice but he could tell that on the days that they would meet in the hall she dressed up a little extra.
And then it was her smile. The way her entire face would brighten up when their eyes met. No matter how happy she looked before, the way she looked at him was always a little extra. The first time it had happened was, in the great hall during breakfast. She had been sitting at the Ravenclaw table laughing with her friends and then she looked up and their eyes met. Her face changed completely and still hardly at all. It went from amused to delighted and seemed to come to a rest at a look of tranquility and outer joy.
At that moment he realized just how beautiful he truly found her. Just how much seeing her made his day better. Just how much he might actually like her.
He had been down to the kitchen and true to his word he had just gotten a cake this year, it was smaller than last years also. And also for the first time he had actually gotten Victorie a present. A small box, wrapped in lilac paper with a white ribbon, was tucked in to his jeans pocket. He hadn't decided if he would give it to her yet.
He took a deep breath, walked up to the door.
He pulled a hand through his blue hair and it changed in to the same lilac color that the present had.
And then he opened the door.
Victorie was picking thrugh her pile of presents on the coffee table as he walked in.
"Hi!" she smiled brightly at him as he entered. "Now who's late?" she teased.
Hi couldn't help but laugh at that as he felt all his nerves melt away just at the comfortable feeling he always got in that room.
"Oh, yeah? Well look what I got!" he hinted to the cake in his hand. It was the same kind of chocolate cake as the year prior and with the writing "Happy 16th Vicky!" on it, with blue frosting.
"Oh, give me, give me!" she reached for the cake from where she was sitting on the sofa. He laughed again and handed it to her. "No plates this year?" he reached in to his back pocket and pulled out two spoons and handed one to her, dropping down next to her. "Thank you" she said and took a spoon full of cake, before continuing to pick thru the presents.
"Are you ready?" Teddy asked, giving Vicky a serious look. She sight deeply "I think so." she proclaimed. "Then here we go" he stated and turned forward.
The two teens were standing on the sofa looking down at Gabrielle's card for the year, both with drawn wands ready to subdue whatever crazy things would fly out of it this time. "1… 2… 3" Teddy made the card fall open on the table with a flick of his wand. They both jumped back over the back of the sofa as the singing started far louder than expected. They fell against each other behind the sofa and pressed themselves against the back of it, trying to hide. It took them a moment, first it seemed like there was nothing coming out of the card this time… Then a cloud of glitter fell down covering every inch of the room. They both screamed in surprise as the glitter hit them, sticking to their clothes, hair and unfortunately finding its way in to their mouths. "By Merlin!" Victorie screamed outraged. She still had her eyes shut, worried of getting glitter in them if she tried opening them. "She's mental that woman." Teddy agreed with gritted teeth. He brushed of his face and carefully opened his eyes to get a look at the room. It truly looked like a glitter bomb had been set off and a layer of about 2 or 3 cm of glitter covered EVERYTHING.
"The food!" He exclaimed with a tragic tone that made Victorie laugh out loud. She finally got the glitter out of her face and got a look around her. "I think I'm going to have to talk to Aunt Gabrielle about calming the card thing down a notch." Teddy raised his eyebrows at her. "Or five" she suggested and he nodded with a serious look on his face.
The music finally died down and they spent the better part of the next hour cleaning the room of glitter. Most could be swopped up easily, but some small specs of glitter seemed to be completely imperative to magic and refused to be moved. Finally Victorie tried to brush it up with her hands. That worked better, but mostly just made her hands covered in glitter instead.
Most of the glitter on the food disappeared and they agreed that they had both swallowed enough of it that a little more on the cake probably wouldn't matter.
The cake was in fact just as delicious with glitter on it.
They ate, played some games and danced around the room some.
They had waited with opening the rest of the presents this year, feeling that they needed to calm down after the glitter shock.
As Vicky opened packages with books, clothes and other knick knacks, laughing and commenting about them Teddy listened with only one ear, as his mind was distracted with whether or not to give her his present.
Then he looked up and she was smiling at him, laughing about the book she had just gotten from her aunt Hermione and he couldn't help but to smile as well. She was so pretty like that. He reached out a hand and brushed away a strand of hair from her face and let his hand rest at the side of her face. Her smile fell, not in dislike but in surprise and he smiled at her and she smiled back carefully.
Then the alarm blared.
It was like a cliché moment in a romantic comedy. There they were, so close, right next to each other and both feeling happy about the moment and then the loud piercing hunk of the alarm ripped thru the moment.
The alarm was one of the new things installed as the school was rebuilt after the war. It was an immediate way for any teacher or prefect to signal a dangerous intrusion at the school. This was the second time the alarm had gone off during Teddy and Victories years at the school.
There were three different kinds of alarms.
There was one that was low and far more discreet saying that you should stay put where you were.
The one that only the students and teachers could hear. That one was only used if it was really bad. It meant; stay where you are, hide and prepare to defend yourself.
And then there where the one that was signaling now, that sounded loud all over the school and for all to here, which signaled the students to make it to their common rooms as quickly as possible.
They shared one more look and both rolled their eyes at the alarm, then they laughed at their shared reaction.
They quickly filled Vicky's bag with the presents and Teddy quickly stuffed his face with the last piece of cake. "We can't let it go to waste" he proclaimed as Vicky gave him a skeptic look, she just laughed.
Just as they were going to leave Teddy made a decision, he grabbed Vicky's arm, stopping her from leaving. "I got you a present as well" he pulled out the present, there where faint traces of glitter on it, the bow was squished and the paper had ripped at the corners. He put it in her hand and leaned forward and kissed her cheek. Then he opened the door.
Vicky didn't stop to listen to her sister's complaints about how she had disappeared all night or to hear the explanation for the alarm that was still blaring. She hurried to her dorm room, dumped her bag on the floor and climbed in to the bed and ripped open the present.
She noticed that the paper had had the same color as Teddy's hair had had at the beginning of the evening.
Under the paper she found a small black box. She removed the lid and quickly removed the pink paper inside to find a necklace.
A thin silver chain that held a small silver butterfly at the end.
She pulled it out of the box and smiled as she put it on.