don't be someone's "sometimes"
Monday morning and Victoria found herself sitting in charms putting out her stuff and checking her homework, that they had to hand in after the lesson, the fourth time that morning. Charms signified one of her favorite subjects along with Care of magical creatures and potions.
A few Hufflepuffs were already sitting among her in that classroom, but Lily and Victoria remained the only Gryffindors there yet. Lily sat on the row in front of her, sharing her table with a Hufflepuff and currently watching her friend.
"There is no need to check your essay, Vi. It's perfect. ," Lily said, making her look up and with a quick nod of her head, she then turned again to her parchment. The girl gazing at her exhaled, being used to it, and took the text from her. Victoria was about to protest, but even that thought disappeared in under 3 seconds, as she knew Lily was right. She had checked it often enough.
But soon after the girl started talking, the laugh of James Potter was heard. He and the rest of the Marauders were laughing at something, all striding into the class with him and Remus at the front. Both girls only shoot a glance in their direction, with one becoming red as her hair as her green eyes meet his. Victoria smiled knowingly at her friend, adding a wink and grinning afterward. She knew that neither Lily or Remus were particular forward with anything and because of that, the blond best friend knew that when something would happen between them, it would take time.
As Victoria restarted her conversation with Lily, she didn't notice the hazel eyes, who were hoping to meet the ones of her. His unnoticed gaze was fixed on her, not leaving her once while going in the direction of his seat. After plopping himself onto his stool, Victoria greeted him with a small smile in his direction, not bothering to pause her current conversation. But seeing as he was James Potter, a small smile was not enough. So he leaned himself backward, pretending to yawn, just with the use to look all so innocent while dropping his left arm around her shoulder. And as if something wanted James to have this sort of physical contact with her which made a pleasant feeling go through his spine, Lilys smiling partner arrived, distracting Victoria shortly.
But as soon as she had greeted him and watched as the mob of fierce red hair turns away from her, Victoria shrugged James's arm off her shoulder, before facing him.
He looked just like every other day jet-black messy hair, hazel eyes and a grin that never seemed to leave his face. She still lied to herself, claiming James Potter wasn't that attractive, but one thing that was held out from that statement was his eyes. She always loved hazel eyes, seeing as the transition between the inner brown to green seemed so beautiful. And his eyes were no expectation and right now they were looking down at her, matching his sly smirk.
"Good morning," he said, stretching the o. His original plan was eating breakfast with her, but as she sat along with Lily and Snape at the Slytherin table, he now spoke to her the first time this day. "Not so good anymore. ," she replied, knowing based on his facial expression that there was more than him just wishing her a good morning. He had some kind of mischief in his eyes, that never seem to fade in addition to curiosity. " So Friday. It happens that there is a party at the Ravenclaw common room. Maybe I could be so generous by being your date for the night."
She knew what this talk was going to go to from the moment the word Friday left his lips.
"I'm sorry but I already have a date. " And while James took everything to not let his smirk fall, he hoped so dearly that there was one person was not Ethan Riviere. He had noticed the glances the boy gave Victoria and being honest he didn't like it. Since Saturday he hadn't seen them talk again.
"With Chris. ," she added after a pause. James didn't know much about the boy. But there were other facts that he knew about the boy, other than that he made a small, relieved feeling erupted. He knew that he was one of Victoria's friends. They weren't so close like her and Lily or her and some kind Severus, but still close. He was aware that he was the Hufflepuff seeker and also one of the best students in Herbology, but for him, the more important fact was that Chris played for the other team as he heard one 5th year Hufflepuff girl say to her infatuated friend.
Neither one could say anything after that as the part-goblin brought the intention of the class to the front. James gaze lingered for a short while longer on her before he leaned back in his chair, barely listening as he watched Victoria listen intensely. His eyes were about to drop close when Professor Flitwick called out Victoria. The girl herself wasn't even tired and despite having charm as one of her favorite subjects, she was barely listening. Not because she had already read her school book in summer, but more as they revisioned the summoning charm. A charm she excelled in.
"Yes? " " Would you like to demonstrate the spell? ," he asked a fond smile on his face as he called out one of his favorite students. It was not like she was every teacher's favorite or a teachers' pet, but as she was fascinated with a subject, the teachers who teach such subject build a liking towards the interested student. Professor Flitwick had already said that she reminded him a little of him when he was younger.
Doing as said she choose a random item from the room -which ended up being a random book from the front- and made it made it's way to her. Clutching the black leather in her hand she smiled a little brighter than for anyone's understanding other than James. He was the only one who managed to see the small difference between using her wand and wandless magic.
The rest of the class just like the rest of the week flew by rather quick but for Victoria, the "normality" of the past days were something she quite enjoyed. And as for her time flew by rather fast, she found herself being on her way up to the Gryffindor tower after their last Quidditch practice for the week, seeing as it was Friday. The soft fabric of her pullover was a welcomed change from the Quidditch uniform she was dressed in shortly before. The training went on a little longer than it originally should, still, she had some time till Chris would meet her at the portrait of the fat lady. She had enjoyed the calm that was brought with her walk back to the tower but when she entered their dorm she was immediately greeted by her dormmates, all of them already starting to get ready for the night.
Marleen sat on the floor in front of a rather large mirror, doing her makeup while Lily searched for something through her trunk and Mary sitting on her bed and reading a muggle magazine. Victoria's eyes temporary searched through the room for the only other blond living in that room, but as she heard a voice coming out of the bathroom, she stopped.
"Do I have to shave my legs? ," the girl asked groaning, stepping out of the bathroom with only a towel on, making one of the 4 other girls in the room blush like mad. Marleen pipped up after applying her significant red lipstick on her lips and checking the legs that were on her eye level.
"Well seeing as you have a date with one of the hottest girls in our school who openly said she is one to get down on the first date, especially with you- no not at all chewbacca. ," she stated smirking at Dorca who through her head into her neck and marched off into the bathroom again. Lily must have noticed Victorias questioning look from the word Chubawka on as she explained to her than understanding friend that it was a very hairy character from a new muggle movie.
"Who Dorca has a date with? ," Victoria asked while opening her hair from the ponytail and plopping down next to Mary on the bed, who unnoticed seemed to scowl a little. "Penelope Martin. , "Lily answered this time after she raised her head again from inside her trunk. With the black shorts, she had searched for the last 5 minutes, in her hand, she stood up to her full height.
Victoria knew who Penelope Martin was even if it was only the fact that she was in Slytherin and had an immense crush on Dorca. Practically everyone in school knew, even Dorca, but the blond had never said anything related to Penelope, so Victoria was surprised for a moment to hear that the fifth year was Dorcas date for the night. "And who you are going with? ," Mary asked, trying to change the subject. She placed her magazine down and faced Victoria even as the question isn't directed at her. The Asian girl awkwardly smiled to Victoria and then glanced to the makeup bag she had on top of her trunk. The girl swiftly started to apply makeup onto her face.
"Well If you ask me with whom I'm going with some Hufflepuff. But don't bother remembering the name. When everything works out, I will not even know it anymore after tonight. " With a sheepish wink into Mary's direction, Marleen packed away her make up. The girls chuckled, being used to such phrases from Marleen.
As said, she changed her boys like she changed her clothes.
After finishing Mary's makeup and half an hour afterward, Victoria found herself changing into dark blue skinny jeans and a white of shoulder top. She wasn't all dressed up as the other girls who seemed more excited than the perfect. Still, looking the most normal from all of them, Marleen couldn't help but wink at her before speaking.
"If Mr.Croissant will not lose his mind there, he definitely has no taste." In response Victoria only chuckled from her nickname for Ethan, not bothering to repeat again that Ethan and she are just friends like she had done so for the past week. She really liked him but for now, she couldn't imagine more. But the problem was that even if there was some sort of feelings which she guessed from the tiny thing in the pit of her stomach, there was something other, shutting it out or more mask it.
After all, tonight was a party and parties are for forgetting your feelings, not for thinking about them.
≡
Victoria wasn't really a party type. She liked routines, order and not exactly the chaos the Ravenclower held now. Letting her gaze fly over the crowd she saw some familiar faces but none that directly caught her eye other than Remus whom Lily made her way to. She and the redhead were the last ones of their dormmates to arrive, seeing as Marleens date was there earlier and Mary and Dorca just finished fast.
But despite not being that much of a party type she still smiled bright, turning her gaze again to Chris. The boy had his hands stuffed into the front pockets of his jeans, a rather uncomfortable facial expression on his face, and an arm around his own. Feeling a gaze on him, he turned to the girl next to him. Victoria knew that he was still affected by the breakup. She wouldn't force him tonight to directly fall in love again or never, but she wanted to make him feel a little better, so she forced her smile to stay as bright and turning to stand in front of him, but as she was about to open her mouth she saw that his face fell a little more as he spotted something behind her.
Turning around she saw that it was Liam, looking intensely at Chris. He had his arm slung over the shoulder of some girl Victoria didn't know, seeming not to listen to what she talked about to him. Victoria didn't like the look the boys shared, so with a swift move she grabbed the nearest red cup and shoved it into Chris' chest before turning him about 180 degrees. With a changing serious to surprised expression, he eyed the cup in his hand and then the girl who gave it to him. But before he could say or question anything Victoria had spoken up a determinate expression on her face yet a softness in her eyes.
"It is not wrong to have fun tonight, even if it's just for tonight but it is wrong to get back to him when he doesn't change. And based on his idiotical actions towards you now and even the girl he is here with he isn't changing anytime soon. And honestly, even then I wouldn't want you 2 to be back together. You are one of the nicest persons I had ever the luck to meet, even if it was through the words 'fucking bastard' but I know what you are doing now. You only remember the good moments between you two, not the times when he had practically ignored you for days, just to say he had to deal with some stuff and all the moments in which he was a complete dick."
Chris sighed, knowing he would lose that discussion, seeing as it was exactly that what he did. Even if he only mentally promised himself that he will not get back together with the brown-haired boy who hadn't taken his gaze of the Hufflepuff boy, his eyes told Victoria everything she needed to know.
He looked back down at the drink he raised a little to sniff at it before quirking an eyebrow at his best friend. Chris didn't even need to say anything in return to what her face clearly meant, so he raised the cup to his lips and chucked the liquid away. Victoria couldn't hold back the triumphing smile and as he threw the cup away, she took his hand in hers, dragging him towards the dancefloor. Soon enough you could see them in the middle of the crowd with Victoria starting to do weird dance moves and getting Chris to somehow forget the bad thing sitting in the corner and even made the green-eyed boy in front of her tag along with her doing silly stuff and laughing along.
While Chris was a little tipsy after some, Victoria was fully sober and planned to stay like that for the rest of the night. But the redhead who made her way to the pair couldn't be said the same thing about. Lily had a giddy smile on her face as she arrived at them, holding onto Chris as if her life depended based on her almost falling in her heels. Regaining herself and fixing her black skirt, the redhead started to dance again alongside her friends.
•••
James Potter was sure that if he had food in his mouth it would have dropped out when he spotted Victoria Atkinson.
Moments before he had talked to Sirius asking his best friend on how he managed to get 9 boxes of Firewhisky passed the Ravenclaw portrait and every other when he had seen out of the corner of his eyes Ethan being somehow slapped at the chest by his friend. James watched as the other pointed out something for his friend to see with a smirk and out of curiosity he looked where Ethan was said to look at.
Standing with a not that pleasing curiosity in her wandering brown eyes a smile on her lips, the half-French made James hold his breath for a second as his jaw dropped a little. She wasn't dressed as costly as the girls around her but the skinny jeans that seemed to fit her perfectly, the white top, her hair in a bun and a little makeup on her face seemed to do their job. His eyes stayed on her, hoping that her still wandering eyes would meet his, even if it was just for a second in which he would feel the warmth of her eyes. But before it didn't happen, she rather glared at something near him. He followed her gaze but failed to see what or who she was glaring at.
His gaze on the now talking girl got unnoticed by her but not by the shaggy-haired boy next to him who teasingly smirked and took a napkin from the table nearby and acted as if he wiped something out of the corner of James' mouth. The Quidditch player turned with questioning scrunched together eyebrows at his best friend.
"What? I only wiped away the droll. ," Sirius said with his hands raised innocently. In respond, James placed a hand on his best mates cheek and shoved him away.
"Funny." He chuckled sarcastically before he turned his gaze again to the place where Victoria had stood only minutes ago but was now gone. Only minutes after talking with Sirius and Peter while drinking some of the drinks on the table he spotted her making her way directly towards them. She hadn't even noticed him while she approached the table full of drinks. "Hey, Pete. ," she shortly greeted the blond boy who smiled at her, before looking questioningly at the alcohol in front of her.
The one throwing that party was a Muggle-born so most of the liquids there were from the not magical world rather than the one Victoria was raised in. Finally finding something non alcoholic she brought the orange juice to her lips, the paper cup in her hand slightly spilling the liquid over her hand. She was about to return to the dancefloor when she spotted Liam again having some muggle liquid in his hand, which looked like water.
Only that did James knew who she had glared earlier. He didn't know who the brown haired boy was, only that he had seen him a couple of times with Chris, but what he saw next was the visibly drunken boy who seemed to ignore the girl next to him, suddenly have liquid spilled all over him.
Victoria smirked satisfied with her work and was about to turn when she caught the wondering eyes of James Potter watching her. Not being in the mood to talk to him she brought the liquid back to her lips and gulped down the rest of it.
She knew that she needed a lot more to get drunk but not did James. "Why the sudden need to get drunk? ," he asked alongside his so infamous smirk.
"Why the constant need to be a pain in the ass? ," she retorted before continuing. " And there is no alcohol in there." James firstly didn't believe her but indeed, when he decided to reach forward, grabbing the cup from her and gulping down the rest, which turned out to be orange juice.
He was about to say something when Victoria sighted annoyed and what seemed like a blink of an eye, he watched her move back to the dancefloor, but not to dance but to rather help a drunk Lily out of the crowd who had a new bottle clutched in her small hands. Yet not before saying her goodbye to Chris who was talking to some of his teammates. She knew that it was time for her best friend to go, having reached her limit. Maybe James would have followed her, helped her getting Lily back to the tower but he had an own drunken best friend to care about who practically threw himself on James in an attempt to tell him how much he loved him and that he couldn't wait to become an uncle when Prongsellet was born.
•••
With Lily's arm supporting wrapped around her shoulder and her own around the redhead's waist, they made their way back to the Gryffindor tower. "You know, I loooooove you and- wow you look killer in that top, I mean...," Lily said, making a chuckle escape Victoria's lips because of her drunk best friend. The girl was one of those who only needed what felt like one shot to get drunk.
"And I love you, but I would love you, even more, when you would help me a little here." Lily just seemed to ignore the girl who was struggling with getting her to the tower, where they were still not far away from the Ravenclaw tower.
"I mean if I would like girls you would totally be the first. I once had a dream about it though - there was you and soap, no bubbles, and- and- you know what I asked myself? Why didn't Monsieur Croissant talk to you tonight? I mean you look-," she let out a low whistle, making Victoria chuckle from the phrase with the dream on.
"Well, I wanted to." Victoria turned similar with Lily around just to see a smiling Ethan making his way towards them with a smile on his face. He wore a simple dark blue v-neck sweater along with the most simple black jeans. Still, in something that simple, he was still one of the most attractive males she had ever meet.
"Monsieur Croissant! ," Lily exclaimed happily and as she tried to take a step forward to greet him, Victoria was caught off guard. Before Lily could fall, Ethan had stepped forward and caught her.
"Do you maybe need some help her? ," he asked, amused glancing down to the redhead who swayed in the arms of her best friend without a care in the world.
Victoria sighted relievedand nodded her head before she watched Ethan carrying Lily piggyback. And as if all the drunk talk left Lily exhausted to the bone, she directly feels asleep on Ethan's back.
"Thank you."
"Oh, no problem. She is way to light to be hard to carry and I see it as another excuse to talk to you. ," he explained, smiling a little bigger as Victorias checks started slightly to get red. But soon she could playfully return something.
"Are you stalking me or something? France, and now here in Hogwarts and now?" Victoria watched with amused raised eyebrows as Ethan at first stumbled over his words with him now turning red. When her melodic giggle filled his ear he eased a little, the thought of her thinking of his as some sort of stalker vanishing again.
"No I didn't mean that but I practically don't know anything about you." He just smiled in response, asking her what she then would like to know. "Well If it is not too much for the start, why did you transfer?"
"I told you that I live with my uncle and aunt, right?. So, midsummer my uncle got a job offer from St.Mungos which was that good that my aunt wouldn't even have to work anymore. So we moved to Scotland and technical it would have 100% worked if I still attended Beauxbatons but my aunt is one of those people who would have a heart attack if I would be too far away. Even if I would still go to a boarding school nonetheless - I must say she is not crazy but really lovingly. - And so I transferred. ," he explained, making her nod shortly.
"And what about you? Well, you told me you live in Scotland and have a younger brother. And that your parents work a lot."
"True. I always had lived in Scotland and so always attended Hogwarts. My brother actually is here too. In his first year. Slytherin. ," she explained, keeping it short as carrying a drunk redhead after a party back to their tower wasn't the best situation to tell her the tradagy of a legacy that was her family. And it seemed that just that redhead seemed to think this conversation didn't need to finish then just as Victoria finished her very short explanation and they had arrived before the fat lady, she jumped from Ethan's back and sprinted inside, clutching one hand over her mouth while the other was held over her stomach.
A surprised chuckle escaped both of them as they again fixed their gaze on each other. "Thank you again, for the help." He nodded smiling, still looking down at her, noticing how her eyes now seemed green and not brown. And just as he explained that it was no problem, both heard a crashing sound coming from inside.
"I should go., " she said, but before her figure disappeared behind the portrait, she turned her face back to him, before lightly kissing his check and hurrying afterward inside.