Victoire put a towel down onto her aunt and uncle's clean, practically new looking sofa. Before she sat, she risked a glance down at her clothes, groaning a little as she saw just how much dried sauce there was. It was caking the entire left side of her body, covering her from her abdomen to her knees. How frustrating it was knowing the exact spell that would clean this up in an instant, but not being able to use it for another three days.

She took a deep breath and looked at the clock that hung on the nearest wall. It was a quarter after ten and she had managed to get all three Potter kids upstairs and to their rooms without a struggle. The sauce was a small price to pay for that alone.

She had decided not to tell Harry and Ginny about the food fight, but instead would insist that she just had had an accident. The kids had been so good, almost scarily good, for the remainder of the night; the boys had even apologized to Lily. It was only fair for her to keep her end of the bargain since, in a sense, the entire night could have ended up being one big fight if James and Albus had really pushed it.

With a silent room now surrounding her, she reached into her bag and pulled out the large book she had been reading for a Potions essay that was due once school was back in session. She thumbed through several pages, searching for the chapter she needed to read, when a sudden fumbling at the front door made her stop. She looked up, wondering if Harry and Ginny had managed to escape their Ministry banquet as early as they had hoped.

The fumbling suddenly turned into a muffled knocking, which made her sit up straight. Her aunt and uncle obviously wouldn't be knocking on the door of their own home. Who else would be calling this late at night?

The person knocked again; this time, the sound of a latch unlocking followed.

Victoire's stomach jumped almost as fast as she did. She immediately reached for her wand, reminding herself that in instances of needing to protect oneself, it was perfectly acceptable to perform underage magic.

What if it was a prowler? She thought about that as she pointed her wand at the door, but then realized that prowlers don't usually knock. Then again, strangers who knock don't usually try to unlock the door on their own accord, either.

It was quiet for a long moment. Too long. Perhaps the person who had been there had left? She didn't want to wait an extra second to find out, so she made a movement forward to relock the original lock and secure the door. As she did, the second lock to the door clicked open and the entire thing began to creak open.

She yelped, taking several steps back but tripping on the bottom stair of the staircase that had stood behind her. She felt herself fall into a sitting position onto the bottom stair and immediately—with her eyes closed—grabbed her wand with two hands and pointed it at the intruder. She was one second away from yelling a stunning spell before a familiar voice said, "Hello?"

She lowered her wand and opened her eyes. She knew that voice.

"What the…?" said Ted, who had just crossed the threshold and was standing there staring at her. "Vic? What are you doing…?"

"What are you doing?!" she yelled. "You're the one who came barging in! What was I supposed to think? I thought you were a prowler or something!"

He stared at her for a long second. "Do prowlers knock now?" He stepped into the house and shut the door behind him. "Why are you on the stairs?"

"I fell," she muttered.

Ted had walked over and offered a hand to help her up. She let herself be pulled onto her feet; she rubbed her sore backside as soon as she stood.

"Right..." Ted said with a nod and a smirk. "Well, hi by the way. Good to see you."

Victoire stopped rubbing her backside and looked at him. She suddenly laughed as she realized how stupid this all looked. Her trying to stun Ted in the middle of the Potter's entry way.

"Hi, Ted." She smiled. "I'd give you a hug, but…" She gestured to her stained clothes.

He eyed her up and down. "What the hell happened to you?"

"Pasta fight."

"It looks like a pasta war."

"Casualties on both sides," she joked.

Without another word, he pulled out his wand and pointed it at her, muttering, "Here, hold still," before adding, " Tergeo. " Within seconds the stain had been lifted; she found herself in clothes that were completely free of any food items.

"Thank you," she said, letting out a relieved sigh as she pulled up the edge of her shirt to make sure he hadn't missed anything. "I've been sitting in marinara sauce for hours now."

"I do what I can," he said as he took a few steps into the house and looked around. "What happened, exactly?"

"James and Albus ganged up on Lily and started taking the piss," she said, watching him as looked around the house with the quality of a person touring an art gallery or a museum. "Lily got angry and threw her dinner at them. They threw theirs back and I managed to get caught in the crossfire."

He laughed and looked back at her. "Lily's a spitfire. I've told both of them they'd better watch out for her once she's got a wand in her hand." He turned and faced her head on. "You're sitting for Harry and Ginny then, I take it?"

"They're at a Ministry banquet."

"And the kids?"

"Upstairs," she said, nodding above their heads.

"In bed?" he asked, sounding almost surprised. "You got them all in bed before—" He checked his watch. "Ten-thirty?"

She nodded. He looked impressed.

"Is it supposed to be hard?" she asked with a smug smile.

He grinned at her but said nothing. Victoire couldn't help but observe the obvious change in Ted's appearance since she'd last seen him in June. In the months since his party, his long shaggy hair was gone; instead, he was now sporting neatly kept, short brown hair. It was the first time in ages that Victoire could remember seeing his eyes without his hair falling in front of them; first time in ages that she'd seen it an ordinary color.

"What?" he asked in a self-conscious sort of way, clearly noticing that she was staring at him.

"Your hair," she said, pointing at it. "It's just been awhile since I've seen it that short."

"Oh." He ran his hand over his head. "Yeah, it's easier for work, all the potions and explosions I deal with. The longer hair caught on fire easier." He made a face. "I learned that the hard way."

She laughed, wondering if he was being serious or not. "And the brown?"

"The brown?" he asked, not quite following what that meant. "Oh, you mean the color?"

She nodded.

"My boss is odd. He yells at me if I do anything with it and says it's 'distracting.'" He walked further into the sitting room. "I've got used to keeping it like this when I'm working, and since I just got off of work…"

He trailed off and Victoire watched as his hair suddenly turned it's more familiar teal.

"The brown's not a bad look," she offered. "It makes you look older and more sophisticated, you could say."

He turned back to look at her. "Does it?"

"A bit." She grinned and leaned causally against the door frame of the room. "But the important question is, what are you doing here breaking into the house at this hour?"

"I wasn't…" he began to say before he caught her playful expression and lowered his defenses. "My key jammed."

"Excuses, excuses, Lupin."

"I just got back into town last night," he said. "I wasn't around for Christmas and Harry had asked me to stop by when I got home."

"At ten o'clock at night?"

"It's fairly common, actually," he said. "With the hours I've been keeping, it's about the only time I do get a chance to swing by."

"How is work?" she asked, taking several steps herself into the sitting room before planting herself down on the sofa. "You're keeping busy?"

"I am," he said as he watched her, "It's busy, but good. I actually got back from Russia yesterday."

Her expression quickly flashed surprised before returning to normal. She knew Ted was busy, but she had never expected him to be traveling around the world. "What were you doing in Russia?"

"Meeting with one of the leading experts on dragon pox," he said, faking importance in his tone. "It's all part of this presentation I have to give on Sunday at the hospital, which if I got into it would bore you to tears. So I'll spare you. But I've been working on it for the last few months with some other researchers and Healers. We could be heading towards a revolutionary new vaccine that could eliminate the harsher stages of dragon pox."

"Wow…" she said, looking impressed. "Look at you, Teddy."

"It's sort of exciting," he said modestly. "Most people think it's rather dull."

"I think it's great," she said, matching his enthusiasm. "I suppose it would have to have been great to keep you locked away for the last few months with no word."

His expression turned a bit apologetic. "Yeah, I'm sorry I haven't written or anything. It really has been mad." He sat on the sofa opposite of her. "But how have you been? How's school going? How'd you do on your O.W.L.s?"

"All ten," she smiled, "including five O's. One short of you."

"That's impressive," he said with a smile. "What are you taking this year?"

"Potions, Transfiguration, Charms, Herbology, Defense Against the Dark Arts, and Ancient Runes," she said in one quick breath.

He let out a low whistle. "Keeping busy."

"It's what I do," she said in a weak impersonation of him. "But I've managed so far."

"And how are those stupid cows...?" He stopped and forced a deliberate cough. "I mean, delightful young ladies you call your friends?"

She grinned a little, but looked away at the mere mention of those girls. "I don't know or care. I'm trying to distance myself from them, to be honest."

"Really?"

She nodded and glanced back at him. "I'm tired of it all."

"Took you long enough. I've been telling you for years—"

"Would you like a prize?" she asked, not quite in the mood for a Ted Lupin 'told you so' session. It was bad enough that his lectures about her friends over the years were now jockeying for placement in her mind.

"I would," he joked, nodding as he said it. "Honestly though, good for you. You're better than those girls."

She smiled because she knew he meant that. Granted, he'd been saying it for years, but given her recent opinions of them and how far they'd fallen in her eyes, it was always nice to hear someone agree with her. "I've started hanging out with some new people. One girl in particular is really great."

"Who is it?"

"Jane Whitters. She is in my year in Gryffindor."

"Sounds familiar," he said, now propping his feet up on the coffee table in an attempt to stretch out.

"She was in Gobstones Club for a bit," she said, watching his face for recognition.

"Oh, yeah..." he said as if it'd dawned on him. "She was a nice girl. Really quiet. I don't think she ever spoke."

"She's very sweet. We were actually talking about you just earlier today. She told me she remembers you from back then." She paused before laughing. "You'll appreciate this. She also said she thought you were cute."

"I am," he joked.

"And so modest," she teased. "I almost wanted to ask her to go and have her head checked after I heard that. Her eyes at the very least..."

He threw her a look. "Thanks, Vic."

"I suppose someone has to find you attractive," she teased.

"You're going to give me a complex."

"Oh, as if you actually believe me," she said with a shake of her head. "Plus, you've always got Celia to stroke your ego for you. You don't need me doing it."

Ted's expression turned funny then. He was quiet for several extra seconds than typical before mumbling, "Yeah, about her…"

Victoire watched him curiously. He was now staring at her as if he expected her to know the next words he was going to say before he said them. She, however, didn't know what he was playing at.

"You're going to make me say it, aren't you?" he asked.

"What are you on about?"

"Celia and I split up."

Victoire didn't immediately let herself react. Ted was watching her, clearly waiting for her reaction, but there were too many thoughts and feelings now pulsing through her. Shock was probably the most prominent, seeing as she was not expecting this at all; it soon followed by complete and utter excitement. A smile that she suddenly couldn't control spread across her face.

He smirked. "I knew you'd be upset."

She tried to wipe the smile off of her face, but couldn't seem to do it. Ted and Celia had split up? This meant no more having to deal with Celia and her attempts to keep her and Ted from being friends. It meant no more Celia! Victoire was seconds away from doing a little dance around the room before a sudden concern crossed her mind.

"Wait," she said, her smile faltering. "Tell me you chucked her and it wasn't the other way around?"

"It was sort of mutual," he said. "But I'm the one who suggested it—"

"Ted!" She jumped up from the sofa. "It's about time!"

"So I take it you're happy about it, or…?" he asked, still smirking.

"Of course I am!" she said, still smiling. "I wish I could offer you some sort of condolences, but...I'm really not sorry."

He rolled his eyes, but kept smiling; he seemed more amused by her behavior rather than anything else. "Tell me how you really feel?"

She stopped and stared at him. "Am I being an arse? This isn't still a fresh wound or anything, is it?"

"It happened months ago," he said. "Our relationship was dead in the water for the last few months. Work demanded more of my time and I barely had any time to see her. We were fighting all of the time in the end and it wasn't working anymore."

She nodded. Her heart was actually beating rapidly and she was shocked by how happy this news made her. Good riddance.

"We ended on decent terms," he said, rubbing his jawline in an absent-minded sort of way. "We don't talk, but that's not to say we wouldn't."

She went over and joined him on his sofa, plopping down just beside him. "But you don't have to, you know? Dead wood should be cut. Someone told me that once."

He didn't want to smile at that, she could tell, but he did. "At least I can always count on you to be honest."

"That's my job!" she said, reaching out to pat him excitedly on his arm. "This is a really good thing, Teddy."

He leaned back onto the sofa and started staring up at the ceiling. "I've wondered several times if I did the right thing."

"You did the right thing," she reiterated. "There's bound to be someone else out there that will have you."

He made a face. "When you put it that way…"

"I didn't mean it like that," she said, shaking her head. "It's more that you can really explore your options now and find all sorts of girls. You're not limited to the girls at school anymore."

"At the rate I'm going, unless she's in a lab or a hospital, it's going to be hard getting out there to find someone." He paused for a moment. "I did meet this fit girl in Russia." He looked back at her. "That dragon pox guy bloke I was telling you about visiting, she was his assistant. She was blonde with a really sweet face—"

"Since when do you fancy blondes? You were always keen on girls with dark hair?"

He waved her off. "I don't have preferences. You were the one who cooked that up."

She laughed. "Whatever you say. But perhaps we should try a little closer to home when it comes to finding you someone?"

Ted sighed. "I'm so busy with work that I don't have the time for anything else." He paused." I do miss the..." He grinned a bit. "Closeness."

"You can admit you miss the sex."

He laughed before resorting to his usual, "We're not talking about this," comments and looked at her in a way that Louis had a tendency to do when she would ask him about girls or his personal life.

She didn't know why he did it about the topic of sex specifically, though she had a sneaking suspicion that it had to to with the timing of their original fight. She's been in fourth year and he'd been in sixth. They'd been in very different stages of their lives at the time—she was in a more juvenile stage and coming into her own; he'd been on the brink of adulthood—and she sometimes suspected that he'd frozen them in time where they'd left things back then; he hadn't quite adjusted to present day her and present day him.

But she wasn't frozen in time. She was a sixth-year now herself; she was days away from proper adulthood. She wasn't a child and she was fully aware of sex and the things it entailed; even if she'd never had it she'd been close and she'd experienced things. Ted was going to have to accept that.

"You've still got hang ups talking about your sex life with me?" she asked.

"You mean lack thereof?" he said, glancing over at her. "And I've never talked about that sort of thing with you."

"No," she said, pointing her finger at him. "It's not that you've never talked about it. It's that we've never talked about Celia. There's a difference? We can talk about sex."

He stared at her for a few moments, almost as if examining her, before he finally said, "Fine. Are you having sex with anyone right now?"

She shook her head. "No."

"Neither am I," he muttered. "There. We've talked about sex. Happy?"

She swatted him in the arm. "You need to stop. Nothing has ever been off limits between us, why should sex be? I'm not a child. I know things."

"I bet you do," he said lazily. "I bet you know loads of things. Why wouldn't you?"

For some reason, Victoire found herself getting caught on the way he'd said that. There was an exhaustive quality in his tone, which...could have been genuine exhaustion, but it also could have been something more. Something that didn't sit right with her.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

He looked quickly over at her and she could see he was surprised by her tone. He actually seemed to be scanning her face for signs of what she was thinking; whether he'd said something wrong.

"Nothing. Why would it have meant something?"

Victoire looked away. He'd probably meant nothing by it—Ted wasn't a cruel person—but she couldn't help but be touchy about the idea of someone even joking about her being well versed about sex or sex acts. After the rumor about her giving blowjobs in the library, she'd had so many people making comments to her about how she "must know a thing or two" or how "she's the one you want to ask" with loads of winking and innuendo thrown in. Many of the comments were made in jest—they were meant to be playful, even—but she'd never seen them that way. They'd always made her feel so small.

And while the rumor had mostly blown over now and people barely cared anymore, for her, having the whole school think you were a cheating slut for even a few months had certainly had an affect on her.

"It's nothing," she finally muttered.

He was staring at her; she could feel his eyes on her. "If I said something wrong, I didn't mean anything by it."

"It's fine," she said, forcing a smile.

He continued to stare at her, evidently not believing that. "It's clearly not. What did I say? Because I'm lost here as to what—"

"Did you hear that rumor last year?" she said, cutting him off mid-sentence. "The one about me and Tom Haines in the library?"

Ted stared at her. If she had to guess by his expression, he certainly had heard it, but he wasn't about to admit that.

"Colleen started it," Victoire continued, looking away. "Tom and I had been studying for O.W.L.s for days on end, but she decided to tell everyone we were up to something because..." She made a face. "I don't even know. I don't even care. All I know is that everyone had a comment or something to say about my sex life. I got a bit of a reputation; one that I didn't properly earn. So when you said that I must know loads of things—"

"Oh no, Vic," Ted said, shaking his head immediately. "I didn't mean...No, nothing like that. I was only…" He shrugged. "I don't even know. It meant nothing. I wouldn't cut you down like that—even if you had noshed him off in the library."

Victoire found herself smirking a little. "So you did hear the rumor?"

Ted made a throaty sort of noise that sounded as if he was desperately attempting to figure out how to respond to that. "Even if I did, I didn't believe it."

She sighed. "You would have been one of the few." She glanced down at the sofa and ran her hand along its edge. "That was a shit couple of months."

"I bet," Ted said sympathetically. "Sorry I wasn't around."

She shrugged. "We weren't talking, let alone friends when it happened. I didn't expect you to be." She looked up. "What I did expect were my actual friends at the time to be there for me; not being the ones starting and spreading the rumor to the rest of the school." She paused. "One of the many reasons I'm trying to cut them completely out of my life."

He smiled encouragingly. "You've got a few more months. Then they'll be gone for good."

"It's not soon enough," she muttered, thinking then how there were still months left of dealing with Colleen before term was over. Not to mention the inevitable struggle over Stuart that was bound to make lots of waves. She didn't even want to think about the rumors that were bound to surface about her this go-around once Colleen got wind of her trying to stand in her way.

"Well, come the new year," Ted offered, his tone a bit brighter in an apparent attempt to lighten the mood. "I'll actually have free time again. So you can always write to me if you need someone to talk to. Or bitch to. Or send random doodles to. Whatever."

Victoire threw him a doubtful look. She had been writing to him since the start of the school year; she'd sent him two letters that had gone unanswered. "Will I actually get a response this time?"

"It's a possibility," he joked, though he immediately followed with, "I swear, after Sunday my life goes somewhat back to normal again. I can go out more, I can sleep more than five hours a day, I can eat normally again…"

"Sunday?" she asked as a realization hit her. "Does that mean you can't come over on Saturday, then?"

"What's happening on Saturday?" he asked.

"My birthday," she said obviously.

Ted's expression turned rather pensive, as if in that moment he was mental visualizing a calendar and playing out dates in his mind. "Shit, your birthday. That's this Saturday, isn't it?"

She pulled a face. "Nice of you to remember."

"I know your birthday," he said immediately. "It's the 30th. I just always get the days muddled this time of year between Christmas and New Years. It's always been this lost week."

"Well, on Saturday, my parents are throwing me a party since I'm turning seventeen."

"Shit, you're turning seventeen…"

"You had to have known that," she said.

"Of course I know," he said automatically, sounding as though he may have known on some level, he clearly hadn't given it much thought. "I definitely knew, but work's been killing me and…" He trailed off.

"I wrote about the party in my last letter to you," she said. "I thought that if I gave you enough time, you might be able to come."

"No, I know you did," he said as he rubbed his face in a frustrated sort of way. "And you're turning seventeen…"

"But your presentation is the very next day."

Ted lowered his hands and looked at her; his face was already apologizing for the words she knew were seconds away from following. "It is." He looked away. "I'll be up all night preparing…" He turned back to her. "I'm so sorry, but I can't. I absolutely would, but I've just been working on this for months."

"I figured," she said as she forced a smile. She'd be lying to herself if she had said it didn't matter if Ted came or not. Sure, all of her other friends were going to be there and she knew she'd have fun regardless, but she so rarely got to see him these days. She hadn't been around for his seventeenth; she'd been hoping he'd be around for hers.

"I'll make it up to you," he said. "Now that you'll be legal, when you're home, we can go out to really cool places and have a good time together."

She eyed him skeptically. "Since when have you been cool enough to get into really cool places?"

"Better question is when do I even have time to try to get into really cool places?" he said.

Victoire forced a smile, deciding not let her disappointment show. Instead she said, "You know, it's probably better that you don't come. You'd be annoyed with some of the people, what with Colleen, Aspeth and Penelope planning to turn up—"

"You invited them?" he asked. "You hate them, but you invited them?"

"I had to," she said. "I invited loads of people—nearly everyone. If they hadn't been invited..." She let her face flash fear for a brief moment. "Things would have been much worse had they not been invited."

"Now I'm rather glad I can't come," he teased, earning him another swat on the arm.

The pair sat and caught up for quite a bit on the sofa, with him regaling her with tales of job, the hospital, and his trip to Russia. She offered him some of the more interesting parts of her school year thus far; all while catching up on other people's business and what they were up to. It was honestly much like the old days where the two of them could talk for nothing and anything for hours on end and it always felt like a worthwhile conversation.

At nearly midnight, Ted checked his watch.

"Do you have to go?" she asked from her spot beside him on the sofa.

"I probably should have gone ages ago," he said. "I have to get up early."

"Don't let me keep you, then," she said, checking the clock herself and seeing how late it was. "Ginny and Harry should be back any time now. Seems they got stuck at the banquet for the entire thing."

He started to pull himself up off the sofa, grabbing her playfully on her lower leg since it had been resting beside him. "I still feel bad about your birthday."

"Don't," she said as she got up as well, ready to walk him to the door. "I have one of those every year. You've only got so many chances to revolutionize medicine."

"You're making it sound far more worthwhile than it really is," he said with a smile. "I appreciate that."

"It is worthwhile," she said as she reached up and wrapped both arms around him to tightly hug him goodnight. His response was just as tight and he picked her up from the ground just a bit. Perhaps she was imagining things, but he seemed taller than she remembered.

"It was good to see you," she said. "Believe it or not, I miss you."

"I miss you too," he said as he set her back down and pulled away. "Maybe we can hang out and do something fun before you head back to school? You've never even seen my new place."

She nodded, seeing as she'd like to do that very much.

"Tell Harry I stopped by," he said, right as he pulled on his cloak and stepped into the icy night.

"Good luck on your presentation," she said at the door, leaning against it's frame to watch him. "Let me know how it goes."

"Will do," he said with a quick wave. "Happy birthday."

"Thanks, Ted," she said with a smile, observing as he took a few steps into the night before Disapperating with a pop.

One he was gone, Victoire shut the door behind her, locked it, and made her way back to the sofa. That had been nice, some proper time spent with Ted after all this time. They hadn't had one of those marathon conversations since Celia had come into the picture; back when she'd been that little fourth-year and he'd been that practically grown sixth-year. Two people they clearly were not anymore.

It would take some time to work out what their new friendship would look like, but if tonight was any indicator, things would be alright. They'd find their way. Adult-them could have something just as special as their younger selves had. Maybe even something better.

A/N: Since I originally wrote this story, Victoire's birthday has been revealed to be on May 2nd. I'm aware. :)