Written for Morning Lilies' Connect the Weasleys challenge at HPFC. Prompts: Victoire-Dominique; fireworks
Victoire wanted to run down the Hogwarts Express, scream out the windows, hug the first years (they look terrified of everything, bless them), and do cartwheels. She wanted to slap herself silly. She wanted to cry. Again.
Teddy likes her back.
She took a deep breath and walked, calm as you please, to a particular compartment. Inside were four Ravenclaws, one of whom was her reason for being there.
"Hi," she said, making eye contact with someone, "Can you spare a second? Outside?"
She wasn't a particularly shy person, but she always did this when emotions were involved. When the dam breaks, call Dominique. That's protocol. To confide in anyone else seemed embarrassing. And her sister understood, coming out of the compartment without question, closing the door behind her.
"What's the matter, Vic?"
So many times has this scene played out in their lives, Victoire wondered how they'll manage when they have their own families.
"Are you alright?" She remembered saying. It was an afternoon in the week before fourth year, when she found her sister balled up in a corner, shoulders shaking in mute sobs.
"I think it's scorched. It hurts, so much," the younger girl stammered, burying her hand in a damp towel. When Victoire finally managed to pry the towel out of Dominique's clutches and look, she felt like she'd been doused with ice water. A few feet from them was a box of Miniature Wildfire Whiz-bangs. Victoire's box of Miniature Wildfire Whiz-bangs.
That day, she learned how to clean her room, heal a mild burn, and hold her tears in.
"Why'd we have to go all the way here?" Dominique said, almost a year later, when she followed her older sister to a far-flung cove off the beach. Only the roof of Shell Cottage can be seen from this far, and she stared at it as she waited for Victoire to respond.
"I'm a prefect," she finally said. "A prefect."
"Are you serious? That's great! What's so wrong about that?"
"I'm not you," she said, wringing her hands. "When you talk, you make people listen."
Dominique hugged her sister. "But people like you. You don't have to worry about it."
On this went, a chain of confidences, until they could scarcely make a move without first consulting the other. They were two peas in a pod, hardly ever seen apart. Once she speaks of what happened with Teddy, who knows how things will turn out? She took her sister's hands, and looked into blue eyes almost identical to her own.
"Victoire?"
"Teddy—he kissed me today."
A heartbeat. And then, "Oh."
"Should I go for it, Dee?"
A strange look crossed Dominique's face; it was cheerful, yes, but too cheerful.
"I'm happy for you," was all she said. Well, if her sister said she's happy, then there's no reason for her to believe otherwise. Dominique has never lied to her since the Whiz-bangs, hasn't she?
They're stronger than that, Victoire hoped. They must be.
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