A/N: Written for the Grab a Song; Write a Story Competition at HPFC. My song was "Thanks for the Memories" by "Fall Out Boy" and my characters Teddy Lupin and Victoire Weasley. Thanks to mew (mew-tsubaki) for betareading.

A taste of bitter Victory

(this night he would think of it one more time)

Everything was calm. The sea in front of him was blank and silent like a pane of glass. The trees to the next of him were like high stone statues, frozen in their movements. And everything inside of Teddy was tranquil. He wasn't numb, that wasn't it at all; he just felt content, at ease with everything inside of him.

They had had their time, and now it was over, and that was actually okay. He had never thought he would say it, but it was true. Truer than anything.

Suddenly a wind blew over his face, and the swirling waves that had begun rolling were white clad in silver. But they didn't upset him, as they once would have. Instead they filled him with a warm, easy feeling, the feeling one got when one was reminded of something in one's childhood and didn't miss whatever it was, only remembered it fondly.

(he wouldn't forget and he didn't want to)

They sat in front of each other in the kitchen. The foam that rose over their steaming coffees made her face fade away a little and look as though it was blurred.

"I've also been thinking, Teddy," she said and he nodded.

"I almost guessed so," he said and smiled. "What do you think everyone will say?"

She laughed a bit, and it sounded like bells as usual, but the bells were no longer calling for him, and that didn't even matter. "I'm not looking forward to tell Maman, but at least Dom will be happy."

He laughed as well, and groaned mockingly. "Oh, Dominique... Can't we pretend in front of her?"

She giggled, swatting him on his arm. "She is my sister, you know that?"

"Of course, of course. It's just that she'll never let me out of her sight now that I'm single." Teddy grinned.

"Guess she won't," she agreed, and then they were silent until their coffees were finished.

They had both grown up so much. So that was why this was final.

(and he couldn't stop longing for tomorrow, to see what the future had in wait for him)

"What are you even talking about? Teddy, you can't do that to me!" Her eyes were burning like two torches, burning him, and it hurt, it hurt so badly. But there was nothing he could do now. She had only herself to blame.

"Can't I?" He didn't even recognize his own voice; it was so un-Teddy. It was as though he stood next to himself and listened, not able to steer his own body, just watch it. "Why not—tell me that, Victoire, tell me!" His arms were flying all around him. Usually she stood for the fierce body language, but she was now so tiny and unmoving. Except for those eyes again.

"Because what I did to you isn't as bad as this!"

"Oh, really? How can you know that? How can you know anything about what I feel?" He turned around and began walking away; he could still sense her glaring at him, and it made chills run up his spine.

And since the chills refused to leave him, he returned to her after a month, when her eyes had been haunting him whenever he wasn't prepared for it for so long that he couldn't stand up to it any longer, and he finally had crumbled.

Back then, they were both still so young and so insecure of everything.

(he just wanted things to be good between them)

"I think we should take a break," she mumbled, not meeting his eyes.

"Why—what—Vic?" he stuttered, almost falling off the armchair in which he was half asleep.

They were completely alone in the common room, and it was raining outside, and had Victoire just said that?

"Yes. I mean, maybe not for long or anything, but just for a while," she said in a little bit louder voice.

"But why?"

Her eyes were big, opened widely, and he wanted them never to look like that again. Not at him, at least. They were too hurting and too wrong and too cold. "Because I want to, do you need to have another reason? You can't possibly want me to stay with you when I don't want to." Her words were now like whips, and he felt himself cringing.

So when she came back to him, a bit later, he didn't even bother being angry with her—he needed her to heal him as fast as possible.

(he was never truly hurt by her and neither was she by him)

"I think this won't work, Vic," Teddy whispered in her ear when they were hiding in the tree house. "You are too young for me."

"I am not," she said, putting her hands on her hips. "You asked yesterday if I wanted to be together with you, you can't take it back already!"

"Why not?" He narrowed his eyebrows, and her pouting only annoyed him now. "I don't want to anymore."

She tilted her head, her locks bouncing, and then she walked out of the tree house and began climbing down the rope ladder. "Sure, then it's over, Lupin!"

Teddy just shook his head, a bit angry that she now had destroyed their hide-and-seek game, because James would find him without problems now with her throwing a fit so loud it hurt everyone's ears.

That time it had all been games and pretending to be older than they were and trying to impress on her cousins. So there hadn't even been more than a hitch in their friendship because of it.

(the past would walk on his side as an old friend)

A star suddenly lit up in the sky, thousands following just behind, and Teddy rose from the ground. He brushed the sand off his trousers, grabbed his shoes with one hand, and began walking.

The trees to the right of him formed a thick, firm, green wall, and the sea to left of him was an impenetrable ice cold mass, and he had no option but to follow the beach.

And so he did, and he had still never felt freer.

(and in case it wouldn't be good, in case all would be worse, he still had the memories)