RoonieTunes: Thanks for the review! Nessa's power will come into play much later, but I'm STOKED about it.
Bookcozy: No worries, the long reviews get me so excited for some reason LOL. I missed the George/Nessa dynamic and I'm so excited to get back to it. It's like a breath of relief. The day George and Alicia break up will be the best day of my life. Also, I sometimes go back to some of the chapters in Trial and Error just to see some happier times, so I totally get it!
Wikked: Hahahaha, it is my biggest cliffhanger so far. Irrationally excited about it. Sirius is the only Marauder without a child (well, except Peter, but I don't count him on principle) and he just deserves it.
readerfaye: I had several scenarios in mind for when to have Tori figure out that Sirius was her father, but this one just sort of fit so easily, so it was the one I went with. Plus the fact that Harry is tactless in general makes it so much more fun LOL. Well, not for Tori, but for me.
As a heads up, I did not proofread this chapter. It's been a long week — I'm having an autoimmune flare and also, why did this week feel like it lasted an entire month? — so I just did not have the energy to do so. I apologize for any spelling or grammar mistakes! Enjoy!
Chapter Fifteen
The next day and a half were the most awkward, painful days of her life. She could not even remember what had happened after Harry had dropped the biggest bombshell of her entire life. Multiple of them. One right after the other.
She could remember the look of shock on Tori's face pretty clearly though. She'd turned paler than Nessa had ever seen her. Nessa had known, deep in her soul, that whatever Harry had been about to say was going to change everything. But she hadn't been totally prepared for what it was.
If Nessa had been a better friend, she might have tried to control her reaction to the shock of the news. But she'd frozen completely in surprise — she wasn't even entirely sure if she had kept breathing for several seconds after the words had left her brother's mouth. No one had moved or spoken for so long that it had felt like the entire world had stopped moving. But Tori's gaze had not left Vanessa's and, though Nessa could not see her own face, the horror must have matched her best friend's because before anyone could say anything to her, Tori had run off.
Fred and Harry had been the ones to react first, both of them calling after her frantically and Fred had taken off at a sprint in an attempt to catch her before she disappeared. Nessa had had no idea how to react to the situation — how did you react to a situation this serious? It was mind-altering. World-bending. Somewhere between devastating and emotionally numbing.
She didn't remember coming back to the castle. No idea how she and her brother had managed to get back through the Honeydukes cellar and through the tunnel back to their common room. She didn't even really remember if she'd even said any words to her brother on their trip back. Dinner had been awkward afterward and Tori had not been present. Fred had not managed to catch Tori before she'd come back to the castle, and no one had been able to find her since. He'd spent the entire time staring at the doors into the Great Hall and hadn't touched any of his food.
No one had spoken during dinner, she did remember, and George kept throwing nervous glances at her throughout its entirety, which resulted in him having to ask Alicia to repeat herself on several occasions. She'd tried to pick a fight with him at some point, but Nessa wasn't even sure George had noticed. When they'd gotten back to the common room, Fred and George, under the guise of 'celebrating', had set off as many Dungbombs as possible in an attempt to gas Tori out of their dormitory, where they all assumed she was hiding.
It had not helped, even when they'd resorted to chucking some up the girls' staircase and attempting to get the gas as close to their dorm as possible. When Nessa had gone up to their dormitory after another hour of sulking, the dorm had been dark and the smell had been atrocious, although not nearly as bad as it had been downstairs. She was certain she was going to have to burn the clothes she'd been wearing.
Tori had been there, or so Nessa assumed, because the curtains around her bed had been drawn, but she had no idea what she should say. If she should say anything at all. And a part of her wasn't sure she really wanted to. Which was selfish and stupid, but she wasn't sure at the time how to reconcile what she'd heard with the person she'd been friends with for four years. She wasn't even sure she knew how she felt about the situation at all, let alone how her best friend could possibly have been feeling.
The next morning when she'd awoken Tori had been gone already and Nessa had not left her bed until mid-afternoon. She'd spent the majority of the day staring at her ceiling and attempting to sort through the emotions she was feeling.
Sirius Black had been her father's best friend. He was now a murderer seeking to kill his own godson.
It had been the last thing she'd been expecting to hear, even after Mr. Weasley had asked them not to go looking for him. She'd pulled out the photo album that Hagrid had given to her and Harry when they'd come to school. They were identical in every way, copied using some spell Hagrid was not authorized to use. There was a picture of them at their wedding near the middle. Her parents looked so happy — her father, his hair sticking out at all angles, was beaming and arm in arm with her mother, whose entire face was alight with happiness. Next to them…
She'd startled then because the blonde haired woman next to her mother was Carla Hastings. She was just as beautiful as she'd been in the photos Tori had shown her, and she had no idea how she'd never paid much attention to her. How she hadn't made the connection immediately. But she'd always avoided the pictures unless she was feeling nostalgic and when she chose to look at them, she hardly looked at anything else in the picture that wasn't her own parents.
Next to her father stood Sirius Black. He didn't look even close to the same as he did now. His face was handsome, bright, full of laughter. But he looked so startlingly like Victoria. His hair was black as night, his eyes the exact same shade of gray, the same nose, the same cheekbones. She'd never given him much notice either. But the four of them — they looked so close, so happy. It was hard to imagine, looking at this photo, that everything would go so horribly wrong only a few years later.
She'd stared so long at that photo, trying to reconcile what she was seeing in front of her with the news she'd been given. At what point had Sirius Black started working with Voldemort? Why had he? How could he have rationalized the horrible things he would do to his own best friend? Did he think it would be worth it? What purpose did it serve?
And he'd had a daughter. With a Muggle-born witch.
Nessa was not aware of the date her parents had gotten married, but she could imagine that even in the photo she was looking at, that it was possible that he'd already had Victoria by the time it had been taken. That her parents had already had her. Neither she nor Victoria was in the photo, but it wasn't implausible.
And if that were true, Nessa found this even harder to reconcile. Why would Sirius Black, Voldemort's second-in-command, have had a daughter with a Muggle-born? Would that not have been the kind of stain on his legacy that Voldemort would have found somehow disrespectful? From what Tori had told her of her mother's murder, his followers had certainly thought so.
But maybe that's why they hadn't known of her, why they'd had to find out from an informant that Tori existed. Because Sirius Black had not told them that he'd had a daughter at all. Until after he'd been arrested.
Did that make sense, though? What purpose would telling them about Tori serve? Killing Carla? And if that were the case, why would he be more concerned about murdering Harry than clearing off the daughter who stained his legacy?
Why murder anyone at all and not just go straight to the master he was so eagerly trying to serve?
Even more important…did it matter? Did it really matter to her that Victoria, her best friend, was the daughter of a man who had betrayed her parents and murdered countless others?
She'd pushed the photo album away from herself then because she didn't want to look at the man who had betrayed them when she was trying to figure out the answer to that question.
If someone had asked her at the beginning of the year, she'd have said there was nothing in the world that would change her relationship with Victoria. They'd been through such a great deal together, the idea that anything could erase that seemed ridiculous. Tori had dealt with her anxiety and panic attacks without a complaint. She'd learned that compression in the middle of her worst attacks helped bring her back down. She'd learned to spot the signs of Nessa's overstimulation and given her space when she'd asked for it without getting offended by the reason she needed it.
Tori had understood what she felt about her parents because she knew it firsthand. Never pushed her to talk, never asked stupid questions about them, never told her that she needed to cope in a different way. She'd gone to bat for her little brother when Nessa had not been there to do it herself — would likely have put her own life on the line to make sure that Nessa never had to know what it was like to lose him.
They had always been close enough to guess what the other was thinking just by a single expression. They'd even spoken in unison on several occasions and been told by Ron and Harry that spending time with the twins was clearly rubbing off on them. Tori had hexed people who bullied her, forced her outside her comfort zone, never let her be swallowed by grief or anger or anxiety. Tori had supported her even when she didn't agree with the choices Nessa had made and never judged her for anything, even though she could be judgmental about everyone else.
And Nessa had never in her life considered turning her back on Victoria. Had been prone to defend Tori in the same way that she would her own brother. Had always thought that she was the sister she'd never had and had always wished for. She was a pain in the ass, she was rude, she was outspoken, she was loud, she was occasionally vulgar and hurtful. But she was also passionate and brave, funny and loyal, selfless and honest.
The idea of giving that up now was more painful than even her current relationship state with George was. The thought of it made her feel like she was missing a piece of herself she'd never have willingly given up. A piece of herself that she wouldn't recover from if she lost it.
She'd never put much stock in something as ridiculous as a soul mate, but maybe a best friend was as close as you got to one.
So did it really matter that Tori's father had betrayed her parents? No, she didn't think it did. And the fact that Tori assumed it would have, that she was avoiding her…well, that pissed her off a little.
Tori was not responsible for her father's choices.
She'd shot out of her bed then and dressed hastily. Because her best friend was clearly out of her mind and she was suddenly sick and tired of her avoiding her like the plague. The twins would either tell her where she was or she'd hex the both of them so severely that their own mother would avoid looking at them.
"Where is she?" Nessa demanded angrily when she reached the common room and found the twins working on products on the sofa, surrounded by Lee, Katie, Angelina, and Alicia.
"Rise and shine, sleepy head," said Fred dryly without looking up at her. "It's been a great day for us actually —"
Nessa slammed her wand on the coffee table and eyed him hard.
"I wasn't sleeping, you insufferable prat," she snapped as he recoiled a little and Lee started snickering. "I don't have time for this right now. The train leaves in two hours. Tell me where Victoria is."
"We haven't seen her," George said placatingly before Fred could answer. "She hasn't said anything to us since — er —" he shifted uncomfortably as the others eyed him in interest. " — since yesterday."
Nessa stared at him as if he'd just said he'd murdered her.
"And you're just sitting here?" she said indignantly. "How does that not bother you? She's clearly upset!"
Fred winced at the words and looked pained at the thought, but he only sighed heavily.
"Sometimes it's best to let her work things out on her own, y'know?" he said. "She can't avoid us forever. We were going to track her down on the train if she hadn't said anything to us."
"That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard," Nessa said seriously. Fred bristled. "She could have blown up half the castle by now. And besides, Tori is a pro at avoiding her problems. You'll be lucky if she doesn't pretend she missed the train and avoid you altogether."
"Well, what do you suggest, oh wise one?" said Fred sarcastically.
"I'm not suggesting anything," she snapped, pointing a finger at him in warning. "I am telling the both of you to get up and help me find her because this is ridiculous and I don't have time for it."
Fred rolled his eyes and opened his mouth to retort, but Lee cut him off, looking confused by their sniping.
"I don't understand what the big deal is. Why would Tori be avoiding the three of you?"
"No reason," Nessa and George said together immediately, although Nessa refused to stop glaring at Fred.
Lee raised an eyebrow, but appeared to take the hint that they weren't going to discuss it. It didn't stop any of them from continuing to listen very closely to the conversation, however.
"Love —"
"Don't you 'love' me, George," she said, turning her glare on him. He rolled his eyes up to the ceiling and huffed out a breath. "And why do you look like you're five seconds from jumping off a bridge?"
She hadn't really taken a good look at him when she'd come down, but God, he looked terrible. Well, not terrible. She was sure most people wouldn't have noticed if they didn't know him so well, but she did. He was sitting very awkwardly next to Alicia and seemed to be somehow trying to rest his arm behind her and sit as far away from her as possible. And his eyes looked a little dull.
Fred snorted and raised an eyebrow at her as if to say 'why do you think?' Nessa rolled her eyes and shot an annoyed glance at Alicia before she could stop herself. She really needed to talk to George about what the hell he thought he was doing, making himself so miserable for someone else. She wasn't even entirely sure why he cared so much about upsetting Alicia anyway. She'd never really known him to be hesitant to stir the pot.
Alicia tensed and opened her mouth to respond to the harsh look, but Nessa raised a hand to cut her off and reached down to grab her wand. She had no interest in having a go with Alicia at the moment. She had nothing nice to say to her anyway.
She jumped a little when there was a loud pop and the wand in her hand turned immediately into a rubber chicken. It was not at all irritating. Really. She only chucked it at Fred's laughing head because she was testing her throwing strength.
"Are you kidding me," she snapped, grabbing her wand off the table and sighing in relief when it didn't change. "With this?"
George was grinning at her, but very clearly on the edge of laughing and she restrained herself from stamping her foot like a toddler.
"Well, I mean, practically speaking, I suppose we are kidding you," he said, laughing when she huffed and lost the battle with her self-restraint and stomped her foot at him in irritation. "No need to throw a fit, love —"
"I am not throwing a fit," she said, huffily, crossing her arms across her chest.
"What are you doing then?"
This felt like deja vu and she did not like it. Nor did she really have a response to that because she was clearly throwing a fit. His grin widened when she continued to glare at him without saying anything.
"It's very charming, love, don't worry," he said with a chuckle. Alicia glared at him, but George pretended he didn't notice and pulled himself into a stand. "We'll go find Tori with you. "
"If she hexes us, I want it to be known that I told you both this was a horrible idea," Fred said with an eye roll. "And we're adding another mile onto our runs in the morning, munchkin, because it is clearly not working."
She growled and took a swipe at his head, but he ducked and laughed maniacally.
"Or maybe you could help me relax with one of your stupid jokes —"
"Now, now," said Fred with a grin. "There's no need for flattery, Vanessa —"
Maybe she was insane or just on edge or a little stressed from the thought of confronting Tori, but she growled and lunged at him like she was going to hit him. Never mind the fact that she'd never really been physical with anyone unless she felt threatened. Maybe she was channeling her inner Victoria or something.
Fred seemed to find the entire thing very amusing and danced out of her range with a delighted laugh. The delight really made her so much more irritated because what kind of person laughed when someone wanted to throttle them?
"Such an angry little piglet," Fred said with a grin.
She was going to kill him. Perhaps having two Weasley twins was just one too many for the world.
George caught her around the waist and lifted her off of the ground before she could lunge again. Struggling against him only seemed to make Fred laugh even harder and she couldn't be entirely certain, but she thought she could hear a grin in George's voice when he spoke next, even though he was clearly trying to be serious.
"Stop trying to rile her up, Fred. Tori's rage is enough without adding in Vanessa's."
Nessa huffed and pushed against his arms until he released her. Glaring at Fred still, she adjusted her shirt primly, which sent Fred into another fit of laughter, and stomped away from the two of them. She heard George hastily saying his goodbyes to Alicia, who was clearly still very irritated with him before he raced after her and Fred.
"I hope you both get coal for Christmas," Nessa snapped, climbing through the portrait hole.
"If it hasn't happened in the last fifteen years, love, I don't think it's going to happen for this one."
-o0o-
Her irritation was not helped by the fact that it took them nearly thirty minutes before they could find Victoria. They'd checked the Owlery, the Quidditch pitch and locker rooms, Hagrid's hut, and the kitchens, but Tori seemed to suspect that they would eventually come to look for her. Nessa was seriously reconsidering her stance on their friendship because this was getting ridiculous. Her feet hurt from walking so fast around the grounds and they had only an hour before the train left for London — she did not want to have to wait the entirety of break before she could speak to Tori about the situation and it didn't really seem the sort of thing that was acceptable to talk about in a letter.
George's suggestion of checking the Astronomy Tower in the event Tori was distracting herself with 'some bloke who hopefully isn't Oliver' was the tipping point. The comment seemed to irritate Fred a great deal and Nessa had had to bite her tongue to prevent herself from smirking or asking him why he was so concerned about who she was snogging. George shot her a strange look when Fred suggested angrily that they borrow the map from Harry because he wasn't checking for her if she was snogging another bloke. Nessa just rolled her eyes and made a motion not to say anything to him.
The last thing they needed at this point was to get into some weird conversation about Fred and Tori's relationship with someone who likely considered her as close to a sister as Ginny. Although, logically speaking, George was likely the safest option in the entire Weasley family to talk to about the whole thing, all things considered. But if Fred hadn't said anything to his twin about it, she certainly wasn't going to bring it up. Especially not now when they were already in the middle of one emotional crisis.
Fred had only relaxed when they'd demanded the map and he'd seen that Tori was not, in fact, with anyone at all. She was alone and seemed to be wandering aimlessly, which explained why they'd had a hard time finding her. Nessa had never known Tori to pace the corridors of the castle at any point and did not like what that could mean for the impending conversation. By the time they'd caught up to her on the fifth floor, all three of them were running thin on patience and were out of breath from racing around the castle.
Tori, who seemed very lost in her own thoughts, didn't even notice the three of them when coming up directly behind her. Nessa rolled her eyes and grabbed the back of her robes and pulled her into an empty classroom.
"Vanessa, for Merlin's sake —"
"Don't start this conversation by pissing me off, Victoria, because I've been running around with these two buffoons for the last forty minutes and I'm already wishing I'd stayed in bed," Nessa said with an eye roll.
"Ignore her, sunshine," said Fred charmingly, despite the fact that he seemed to be bouncing on his heels in a nervous sort of way. "Someone pissed in her cereal this morning —"
"I am so very sick of you, Frederick," Nessa said, pinching the bridge of her nose as George snickered.
"Well, if you two are going to bicker like a married couple, I'll just be off —" Tori said hastily.
"Not a chance," Nessa and Fred said together firmly.
Tori huffed and crossed her arms across her chest.
"Look, y'know, we really don't have to talk about what happened, okay?" she said, sounding exhausted. "In fact, it's better if we don't because I don't know what I'm supposed to be saying anyway."
Nessa stared at her for a moment. Tori was not prone to talking about her feelings much at all, so the immediate resistance wasn't terribly surprising, but her friend did not look good. There were bags under her eyes that suggested she'd not slept the night before, even though she'd spent the entire rest of the day in their dormitory. Her clothes were rumpled in a way that suggested she hadn't changed since the day before and Nessa was fairly certain this was the only time in her life that she'd seen Tori wake up without makeup. She was about as meticulous about her appearance as Malfoy was.
Putting it lightly, Tori looked like shit at the moment.
"Tori, did you even sleep last night?" she said softly.
Tori flinched at the question and there was an odd spark of panic in her eyes, as she took a hasty step back and pointed at her with a shaky hand.
"Don't do that, Nessa," she said in a quavering voice. She cleared her throat roughly and Fred made some sort of agonized noise behind her. Nessa shot an arm out when he made to step forward and shook her head minutely when he looked over at her —- Tori did not look like she could handle comfort at the moment and she was prone to lashing out when she felt overwhelmed with it. "Don't act concerned about me, okay, because I can't handle that right now. Not when my — when my — just don't."
Nessa held up her hands in placation.
"Okay, I won't," she said. "If that's what you're worried about then we don't have to do the whole concerned thing, alright? But you can't keep avoiding us —-"
"I'm giving you space."
Nessa tried very hard to fight the urge to roll her eyes because Tori was clearly somewhere between panic and full-blown spiraling
"Call it whatever you want, Tori. I don't need space. And you have to go home in an hour —"
Tori scoffed.
"Home?" she said, her voice taking on a hysterical edge. "Molly and Arthur — they knew," Nessa flinched this time at the thickness in her friend's voice and her hand tightened on Fred's arm when she felt it flex as if he were going to reach forward. "I'm not going home."
"Avoiding this isn't going to make this any easier, Victoria," Nessa said quietly.
Tori shook her head and took another step backward, as if there were some way for her to escape the conversation entirely if she could just put some distance between herself and her three friends.
"What am I supposed to say to them? How am I supposed to — Merlin, Molly didn't come racing into my room over the summer to check on us when Black broke out. She did that to check on me," The hysterical edge was coming back to her voice as she tugged on the hair at her forehead. Nessa met George's eye next to her and saw the concern she felt reflected back at her. "She wouldn't tell us anything about Black because she didn't want me to know. They were never going to tell me, were they?"
"You don't know that," said George gently. "They would have told you eventually —"
"Would they?" said Tori, angrily. "They had ten years to tell me, George. Ten. They never even — they told me they didn't even know who he was."
"They were just trying to protect you —" said Fred painfully.
Tori scoffed again.
"A great deal of good that did, didn't it?" she snapped back. "Because now I know everything and I can't decide if I even trust the people who raised me and my dad —- my dad killed your parents, Nessa." Whatever anger Tori was feeling seemed to drain out of her the instant the words left her mouth. Nessa closed her eyes to avoid seeing the devastation on her friend's face. Or maybe it was to try to pretend that she wasn't feeling devastated herself. "How am I supposed to live with that? How am I supposed to look at you knowing my blood is the reason you're an orphan? How am I supposed to be friends with you now?"
"What the hell are you talking about?" said Nessa, suddenly angry at the question. "Of course, we're friends. Do you think I'd just stop talking to you because your father happens to be a lunatic?"
Tori snorted indelicately.
"It has nothing to do with what I think about you, Nessa," she said with an eye roll. "But it doesn't change anything. He betrayed your parents and I —"
"And you are not responsible for his choices, Victoria," Nessa interrupted, throwing her hands up in exasperation. "I don't give a rat's arse about who your father is, for God's sake. He might be a piece of shite, but you aren't."
"What if I end up doing the same thing to you?"
Nessa would have laughed except the words were said in such a devastated whisper that she knew Tori wasn't joking. The thought was irrational and absurd, but she supposed the entire situation was as close to insanity as any of them had ever been. And she really had no idea what this must feel like for Tori. Confusing, for sure — about herself, her mother, her father, where that left her with her surrogate family. Angry at the Weasleys, obviously, for not having said anything. At her father for betraying his friends. Sadness, probably, because who really wanted to know that their father was a murderer? The list of emotions had to be endless. And Nessa really didn't know how a single soul could be rational when trying to sort through all of those emotions at once.
It didn't stop her from gaping at the question though.
"Tori, I love you, but that's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard," she said as gently and seriously as she was able. "You would never do something like that."
"Your parents said the same thing, you know," said Tori stubbornly. "What if us being friends is just part of the cycle?"
Nessa looked at Fred and George incredulously, but neither of them seemed to be totally sure what was happening.
"What cycle?" she exclaimed when neither of them said anything. "There is no cycle."
"What do you call us being best friends then?"
"I don't know. Fate's idea of a joke?" said Nessa dryly. "You aren't going to sell me out to Voldemort!"
"Yes, but what if —"
"Look, if it bothers you this much, I'll make Fred my Secret-Keeper —"
"I'm not joking, Vanessa!"
"Neither was I!"
"Alright, alright," said George suddenly, eyes volleying between the two of them rapidly. "Tori, none of us have any idea what this must be like for you, okay? We just want to help. But Nessa's right. You can't blame yourself for something you never did. Whatever you need, we're here for you, but you can't keep avoiding us."
"And not just because we live together and it would be horribly awkward," said Fred, only half-joking. "We don't care about who your father is or what he did. We love you."
Tori was clearly listening to him because she made a choked sound in the back of her throat, but she refused to look at him, choosing instead to continue staring at George. Nessa looked between her and Fred in interest and then let go of his arm and pushed him toward her best friend. When Fred looked back at her in confusion, she gave him a hard look and made a motion that told him to talk to her.
Tori refused to look at Fred as he came toward her, but she clearly knew he was there because she tensed the closer he got to her until she looked like she would shatter the instant someone touched her. He reached forward anyway and tried to tilt her face to look at him, but she didn't budge, taking a shuddering breath in and biting down on her lip.
"Tori, look at me."
Tori shook her head hastily and blinked rapidly. Instead of repeating himself, Fred stepped in front of her so that she had only the option to look at him.
"Victoria, this is not your fault," he said so quietly Nessa almost couldn't hear him. Truthfully, she almost felt like she and George were intruding now, except what was she supposed to do? She couldn't very well leave when the entire point of the conversation was to get Tori to understand that none of them were leaving her. "You can't punish yourself for something he did. You're nothing like him —"
"I look like him."
"Hardly," said Fred with a snort. "He's a real ugly bloke. Personally, I think you should count your blessings that you wound up looking as pretty as you do. It could have been much worse."
Nessa shot an incredulous look at George, who was looking up at the ceiling and trying to smother a grin.
"Is that supposed to be a compliment?" she whispered to him. He looked down at her with a playful roll of his eyes.
"Who knows with the two of them."
If Fred and Tori heard them, they didn't show it.
" — doesn't mean you're anything like him. You might be a little psychopathic —"
"I hate you right now," Tori said, but she was laughing a little wetly, so Nessa just rolled her eyes and refrained from telling Fred to behave himself.
" — but you're loyal and passionate and sweet when you want to be. You've never been a coward like him. He doesn't deserve to take even an ounce of your spark, baby girl."
Nessa wanted to express that she agreed, but she was a little afraid to break whatever bubble the two of them were in at the moment for fear that it would cause Tori to retreat back to her panicky denial.
"How am I supposed to look at your parents and pretend that I —" Nessa shared a pained look with George at the shuddering breath that Tori took instead of finishing the sentence. She really did not envy the set of complicated emotions that Tori must be feeling at the moment. "I know that they — I mean, I'm sure they had good intentions in not saying anything, but I'm just angry that they chose not to. And then I feel guilty for being angry because they took me in when they didn't have to and I — I don't think I can look at them right now and not lose it, Fred, I can't."
Fred sighed heavily.
"Look, you can be mad at Mum and Dad if you want to and you don't have to feel guilty about that. It's how you feel and none of us are in the position to tell you how to handle this," He tucked a wayward curl behind her ear and tilted her face up to look at him with a finger under her chin. "But I can't stand the thought of you being here hating yourself and convincing yourself that this changes anything about how we think about you. We can figure it all out, I promise. But please come home for Christmas."
There was a beat of hesitant silence and Nessa could tell by the pained expression on Tori's face that she didn't really want to say no to Fred. Truthfully, this was the most emotional conversation she'd ever witnessed from both Tori and Fred. They were both so good at hiding how they felt most of the time and covering it all up with jokes that it was oddly uncomfortable to see such emotion now.
And there was no way that Tori really wanted to stay for Christmas. She was likely serious about not wanting to have the impending confrontation with Mr. and Mrs. Weasley, but she'd been excited to go back to the Burrow for nearly a month. She loved Christmas and it wouldn't be nearly the same at the castle with no one around to celebrate with.
But Tori still looked like she might say no anyway and Nessa was trying desperately to think of something to convince her to go home and let herself be around the people who loved her, but it was George who spoke first.
"Sirius Black might be your father, Tori," he said softly, causing Fred and Tori to jump a little at the reminder that there were other people in the room with them. "But that doesn't make him your family. We are your family."
Nessa blinked rapidly to keep herself from crying at these words. They were somehow the exact right thing to say to someone who felt like they had no one, but still somehow gut-wrenching in the most bittersweet way. As an orphan herself, it was the sort of sentiment she'd always wanted to hear from someone who wasn't her brother. From her aunt and uncle when she'd been younger and more naive.
She tried not to be too obvious about how much the words affected her when Tori met her gaze. Based on the grimace she received, she expected she hadn't been very successful, but she cleared her throat and refused to look away.
"Nessa, I —"
"If you say you're sorry again, I'm going to hex you," she said firmly. She was half-joking. It was a defense mechanism, mostly, to avoid talking about her own complicated emotions surrounding the news they'd gotten yesterday. Tori scoffed and gave her a piercing look that made her want to fidget. "I don't want to talk about my parents, so unless you've got some other reason for avoiding me, then can we go back to the common room before you leave because this is getting a little too uncomfortably close to a therapy session."
Tori snorted and rolled her eyes.
"You could use a therapy session."
"Not from someone who threw Bubotuber pus on Matthew Campbell because he told people he'd never snog her."
"That was because he did snog me! He's a lying piece of shite!"
"He was in the hospital wing for a week with boils, Victoria."
"Okay, well, I apologize. Next time I'll throw less pus at him so he's only there for the weekend. Happy?"
Nessa rolled her eyes so hard she was nearly surprised they didn't fall out.
"Yes, Victoria. Because that changes everything."
"You're very judgemental for someone who's been keeping secrets from her friends, you know."
Nessa gaped at her in incredulity. Fred and George were looking between the two of them curiously.
"What secrets?" said Fred slowly when neither one of them spoke.
Nessa wasn't keeping any secrets, she was sure of that, but the smirk on Tori's face was really freaking her out, even if their return to their usual banter was a bit of a relief after the awkwardness of the last day.
"Are you going to tell them or should I?" said Tori with a grin. "Because, personally, I'm very hurt you haven't said anything to us about the whole thing."
"Have you been drinking, Victoria?" she responded. "I haven't been keeping any secrets."
Tori raised an eyebrow and crossed her arms across her chest.
"Really?" she said slowly, her voice dripping with disbelief. "Because I heard that someone was caught snogging Cedric Diggory on the Quidditch Pitch a few weeks ago. You wouldn't happen to know anything about that….would you?"
Nessa froze completely, mouth half-open, as Tori's grin widened.
Okay, so apparently, she had been keeping a secret. Although, she had sort of forgotten the entire thing after everything that had happened. And she'd not said anything before everything happened because…
Well, she didn't really know why she hadn't. Because the twins would get upset. Because she didn't want to get into the complicated mess of emotions she had about the incident. Because she wasn't entirely sure that Cedric had given up his interest in her completely, given the way he still looked and talked to her. Because she still enjoyed the fact that he hadn't totally given up on her even though she'd told him she just wanted to be friends.
Because Tori would get way too terribly excited about the whole thing.
Why was nothing a secret at this bloody school?
"You snogged Diggory?" George said angrily. "What the fu —"
"Tell me this is Tori's idea of a joke," said Fred hotly. "Because I don't think I can pretend to like Diggory if he starts hanging about. I've already got to do that with Alicia, and I don't think I have the energy to do it with him."
Nessa looked at George in interest to see how he'd respond to this sentiment, but he was glaring at her and didn't seem to care at all about his twin's opinion on his girlfriend. Nessa supposed that was a true testament to how quickly the relationship was devolving.
"He's not hanging about," said Nessa finally with a roll of her eyes. "And no one said it was me, did they?"
"Well, was it?" said Tori. Nessa hesitated because she hadn't really decided if lying was her best option here — she hated lying and she wasn't particularly good at it anyway — but Tori sensed the hesitation and grinned wider. "How could you not have said anything?"
Nessa rolled her eyes.
"When was I supposed to have said something? When you were gallivanting through the castle like a delusional ninny?"
"Don't try to insult me to change the subject," said Tori, rolling her eyes.
"So you are snogging him then?" said George angrily. "You've got to be joking."
Nessa huffed and tried very hard not to throw something at his head.
"Watch your tone, George. You're on very thin ice with me as it is," she snapped. George flinched, but closed his mouth anyway, despite the spark of irritation she could still see in his eyes. "And I'm not snogging him. We're just friends."
Fred looked at her in confusion.
"So you did snog him or you didn't?"
"Is this really important right now?" exclaimed Nessa in irritation. "The three of you have to be on the train in half an hour —"
"The four of us," interrupted Tori. "If I'm going, then you're going. Case closed —"
"I haven't packed!"
"Then you should probably make the explanations quick because you don't have much longer to pack, do you?"
Nessa growled in irritation.
"You have a lot of anger for someone so small," Fred said matter-of-factly.
She chose to ignore the comment entirely.
"Yes, he kissed me —"
"Was it good?" said Tori with a grin.
Fred made a panicked noise and waved his hands around frantically as if warding off the answer.
"No, I don't want to know about that!" he said at the same time that Nessa said, "I — what? It was fine."
"Fine?" said Tori incredulously. "That's all I get. It was fine. What does that even mean?"
Nessa rolled her eyes.
"What do you want, a play-by-play?" she snapped. "It was fine. It's not like I have a reference point, do I?"
"No, but even so, you'd know if it was bad. Snogging Campbell was like snogging the Giant Squid. Though to be honest, I think even if I'd snogged the Giant Squid, it wouldn't have been nearly as wet —"
Nessa scrunched her nose at the thought alone.
"That's disgusting," she said truthfully. "It wasn't wet —-"
"Bloody hell, can we not get into the specifics of the snogging —" said Fred in irritation, sending a pleading look at George, who seemed to be sulking and was paying him absolutely no mind at all.
" — I mean, it didn't really last that long anyway, you know, because I sort of stopped it —"
"What?" said Tori, gaping at her. "Why?"
Now did not really seem like the time to get into that, so she just rolled her eyes and stared at Tori pointedly. Tori huffed and crossed her her chest, raising an eyebrow at her. Nessa rolled her eyes because she could practically hear Tori's disapproval of the reason from across the room.
"Don't even look at me like that," she said huffily.
"So, what, you're just friends now?" Tori said skeptically. "No more snogging? Because I caught him staring at you in the Great Hall last week, so I don't think he's totally convinced."
Nessa shifted uncomfortably because she'd been thinking the same thing, and clearly she had a problem because it didn't bother her as much as it should have. Although to be fair, she had told him that she was interested in someone else, so any choices Cedric made at this point were his own.
"Well, I don't know. I'm not in control of how he feels, am I?" Nessa said instead to avoid the larger implications of the question. "I told him I wanted to be friends and he said it was fine and that's the last time we spoke about it."
"Well, maybe you should talk about it again because you've clearly gone barmy. I mean, look at the man. He's got to be Merlin's gift to women."
Nessa snorted in an attempt to contain her giggling.
"Why don't you snog him then?"
"Absolutely not," said Fred immediately, eyes sparking in irritation at the thought.
Nessa smirked and barely restrained herself from asking why he cared who Tori was snogging.
"I would except he's a bit too soft for me," Tori said vaguely. Fred blew out a breath of relief at this response and Nessa bit the inside of her cheek to keep from grinning at him. "He looks like the sort of bloke that gets attached too soon. Committed. Wants the white picket fence, marriage, and babies thing. Brings you flowers and tells you you're beautiful every ten seconds. Really turns me off, honestly."
Nessa stared at her a moment.
"At least you're honest about your commitment issues, Victoria."
"That I am," she said happily, as if Nessa had given her a compliment. "You're not done snogging him though. He's way too hot. No one can be within such close proximity to him for so long and not snog him."
"She certainly is done snogging him," said the twins in unison.
Nessa rolled her eyes and ignored them both.
"I have more self-control than you're really giving me credit for, Victoria."
"Self-control is a bore, Vanessa," said Tori. "Now, come on, because we've got five minutes before we need to get to the train station and you still haven't packed yet."
-o0o-
Up next: Cedric/Nessa, back at the Burrow, Tori angst