starfishstar

WAITING FOR THE SNOW

Summary: Four days. Victoire will be back from France in four days. Teddy can survive that...right?

Characters: Teddy, Victoire, Andromeda, Molly, Harry, one OC

Words: ~3,300

Notes: Here's the first one of the fics I wrote for this year's

rt_morelove... It's Teddy/Victoire (and Teddy + all his wonderful extended family), with mentions of Remus and Tonks. FYI, I use my own headcanons for Teddy, so my stories don't necessarily align with JKR's latter-day Pottermore and/or Twitter revelations. I've also left the context here vague enough that it can be compatible with my Andromeda story "Saying Yes" (in which Teddy of course features prominently) if you want it to be!

This year at

rt_morelove I found myself on this odd kick of trying to use as many of the prompts as I could (I got in 10 out of 30!), so this was written for:

21, Write a fic with 'If you are reading this' as your opening line
and also:
16, Teddy finds his parents' friends have very different tales to tell about them
26, the first snow
20 [picture of tranquil winter woods with sun setting through the trees]

I really wanted to take that sad sounding "If you are reading this" and turn it into something happy. :-)

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

WAITING FOR THE SNOW

If you're reading this, Teddy… Stop reading it. Go, I don't know, run around in the snow or something (is there snow yet? I hope there's snow!) Or visit Gran and bake me some Christmas biscuits! I want there to be piles of biscuits by the time I get back. Heaps and mounds and mountains of every possible kind of Christmas thing. The pâtisserie over here is all very well, but (DON'T TELL MAMAN I SAID THIS, I WILL HEX YOUR HAIR OFF IF YOU EVER EVEN MENTION I SAID THIS AND ALSO I WILL DENY IT TO MY LAST BREATH) after a couple weeks en France, I start to miss stuff from home. Just simple things like, I don't know, gingerbread. Or Gran's apple cake. Call me hopelessly English (Maman certainly does!) but, well, who could grow up on Gran Molly's cooking and not get nostalgic for it after even just a few days away?

ANYway. Point is, Teddy, stopping re-reading my letters! I know you are. And I'll be back really soon, hardly any days at all (four days!) so stop moping around, okay? Trés conceited of me to assume you're pining over me, says Dominique (reading over my shoulder, that irritating pest, go AWAY, Dominique!) but I know you, you silly, frequently blue-haired boy of mine, and I feel confident that you're – at least a little bit, in private, not admitting it to anyone – pining. Tell me I'm wrong?

So I'm charming this letter to go temporarily blank if it's read more than two times in a row. GO OUTSIDE, TEDDY, GO RUN AROUND AND BUILD ME A SNOWMAN! BYE, TEDDY! SEE YOU IN FOUR DAYS, OKAY?

xxx,

(P.S. I'm pining too, just a little bit. Ugh, there, I said it! Even with the World's Nosiest Sister lurking at my elbow, in danger of seeing this at any moment!)

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Teddy Lupin laughed, then frowned, then yelled, "Gran!"

"Teddy, you needn't bellow as if you were raised by ruffians," Andromeda's voice answered placidly from below. "If you took the extra moment to pick up your wand and use a Voice-Projection Charm – or simply to walk downstairs – I would be able to hear you perfectly well."

Teddy dropped Victoire's letter gently down on top of the desk in his old childhood bedroom, carefully not looking at the words lest Victoire really had made good on her promise to make them disappear, and pounded downstairs to find his Gran, in the sitting room and deeply engrossed in one of her massive historical tomes. With her reading glasses perched delicately on the end of her nose, she looked very much the scholar.

"Gran," he repeated, slightly less loudly.

"Yes, Teddy?" she said, looking up with a hint of a smile.

Teddy sighed, with feeling. "Victoire's started charming her letters to go blank if I read them too many times. She claims I'm pining."

Now Andromeda did smile, though she attempted valiantly to suppress it. "Are you saying that you're not?"

Teddy groaned. "Not you too."

Andromeda closed her book gently, keeping her place marked with one finger, and looked up at him. "Dear child, I know a pining Lupin when I see one. Likewise a pining Tonks, for that matter. I've years of experience with both."

Honestly, Teddy found it pretty hilarious that his Gran hadn't started calling him "child" until now, when he was 19 and a Trainee Auror with his own little flat in London, and about half a foot taller than her, too. It was a sort of a quiet joke between them, an acknowledgement of their roles. Whatever else he was, Teddy would always be his Gran's little boy, too. These days, he was okay with that.

And one benefit of that role was that Teddy got to whinge to his grandmother when his girlfriend had been in France for what felt like approximately the entire recorded history of the universe.

"Seriously, how long does Christmas last in France, three weeks? What can possibly need doing in France for three weeks?"

Andromeda laughed. "The Weasley clan get to enjoy Victoire and her sister and brother almost all the year. Don't you think it's fair that the Delacours get a few weeks as well?"

Of course Teddy knew it was fair, but that didn't make him miss Victoire any less. Uncle Bill and Aunt Fleur had swept her off to visit the relatives in France almost from the moment the Hogwarts term ended. And so Teddy had come to stay at his Gran's for Christmas, and then kept hanging around even once Christmas was over, because he so desperately needed to be distracted from the fact that Victoire could be here, but wasn't.

"I only get to see her in the school holidays, too," he grumbled. (Not strictly true – he'd gone up to Hogsmeade so he could "run into" Victoire during her most recent Hogsmeade weekend, but he hadn't admitted that to his grandmother. It seemed pretty desperately smitten.)

Andromeda smiled indulgently up at him, and flipped open her book again. "Four days, Teddy. I know you'll survive."

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

"Apple cake," Teddy repeated staunchly.

"Are you sure, dear?" Molly asked. "Wouldn't you rather make something a little more seasonal?"

Teddy shuffled his feet against the floor of the Burrow's kitchen. Being around Gran Molly always made him feel like a little kid again, even now that he towered over her by a good foot. "Victoire's been writing me from France… And she mentioned she'd been missing stuff like that, traditional stuff you've been making for us since we were small…"

Molly's eyes went soft and fond. "And you want to bake something for when she gets back. Of course. Just fetch the apples up from the cellar, would you, dear? Six or so should do it."

Teddy ducked down to the little cellar beneath the kitchen to bring up the apples, and when he returned, Molly had the rest of the ingredients arrayed on the worktop in front of her, humming happily to herself.

Molly had been trying to marry Teddy off to one or another of her grandchildren for about as long as Teddy could remember – definitely at least since the days when Teddy had thought girls were weird and Victoire had considered Teddy a big pest – and she'd been predictably overjoyed to find out Teddy and Victoire were now dating. Another reason they'd been trying to keep the whole thing quiet over the summer, until James of course stumbled across them at King's Cross in September and told the whole world. As wonderful as the Weasley family was, Weasley family expectation could be a lot to live up to.

"Victoire's back in three days, isn't she?" Molly asked, as she handed Teddy the flour to sift.

"Yup."

"I know three days can feel like an age," she said. "And I'm sure it doesn't help to tell you that the time will fly by, or anything of that sort. When I think of your parents, and the year they spent apart while your father was living with the werewolf pack…"

"I suppose my mum did a whole lot of pining," Teddy sighed, handing the bowl of sifted flour back to Molly.

"No," Molly said firmly, and Teddy looked over at her in surprise.

"No? But everybody always says…"

Molly shook her head, her hands deftly adding salt and cinnamon and a dash of nutmeg as she spoke. "She was sad, certainly. But she was tough. She worked hard all that year, up in Hogsmeade. It wasn't an easy time for anyone, and she had it worst than most, being uprooted to Hogsmeade, away from everyone. But she pushed through, and came out the other side of it stronger, I think. And she brought your dad around to seeing sense eventually, too."

Teddy snorted. "The legendary scene of Mum shaking sense into Dad."

Molly smiled, and handed him the eggs to beat. "They were very happy, you know," she said softly.

Teddy nodded. "Yeah, I know."

"They didn't have long together, but what time they had, they enjoyed fully. I hope you know that, Teddy."

Teddy nodded again, smiling a little as he started to beat the eggs for the batter. "Yeah. I do."

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

"Two days, huh, Ted?" Harry asked. Teddy was helping him do the washing up, after dinner with him and Ginny and the kids.

"Augh!" Teddy said, waving a dishtowel in the air. "Why is everyone counting down at me? I already know exactly how long it is until Victoire gets back, thank you very much."

Harry's eyes twinkled at him mischievously, as he handed Teddy another plate to dry. "Oh, is Victoire coming back from France so soon? I had no idea. I was just talking about the weather report – I hear this winter's finally going to see some snow in a couple days."

"Right," Teddy said, rolling his eyes, because Harry was such a bad liar. "Like the whole family's not talking about me and Victoire and how very, very adorable it all is."

"Certainly not," Harry said, clearly trying very hard (but failing) to look serious. "Not everyone thinks you and Victoire are adorable – James, for one. 'Horrifying,' I believe was the word he used."

Teddy rolled his eyes again, but this time fondly. "James is thirteen. He'll grow out of it."

"He will," Harry agreed, with the sort of look that said he was probably remembering what it had been like to be thirteen himself, and what a weird time that must have been. Thirteen was weird for everybody, but Harry had also been saving the world at the time, which surely made everything more complicated.

Harry's thoughts must have been running along the same lines, because his face went serious. "You have no idea how happy it's made me to see you having a normal childhood, Teddy," he said, his hands stilling in the basin of soapy dishes. "You, and James and Al and Lily, and all the kids. All the adults in your life – your parents, your grandparents, Molly and Arthur, me and Gin – we fell in love in the middle of war, when we could only ever give half our attention to each other, because the rest was taken up with surviving. It was madness. Looking back, I don't know how we did it. But we made it through. Well –" he amended hastily, realising what he'd said, "we made it together, even if not everybody made it out. Your parents remain one of my greatest examples that love can win out over anything. You know that, Ted."

Teddy nodded, his throat suddenly tight. Harry had done a good job of that, all through Teddy's life, of making sure he knew just how much his parents had loved each other and loved him.

"Which is all to say – don't think about any of that. Don't worry about the terrible history your parents lived through. Just – enjoy your life, and be excited that your girlfriend is coming back from France in two days. Those are wonderful things." Harry grinned suddenly. "Hey, and I hear it might snow in a couple days, too."

Teddy laughed. "You better watch out, then, for all the strange snow creatures your three little terrors are going to make this year."

Last year, little Lily had directed her brothers in the construction of a massive snow spider, eight scary lump-of-coal eyes and all. Uncle Ron had actually screamed when he saw it.

Harry shook his head, but he was smiling. "My lot in life is to live in terror of my children's wild imaginations."

Victoire, too, had a pretty wicked imagination. Teddy pictured making crazy snow sculptures with her in just two days' time, maybe in the woods outside his Gran's house, and grinned.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

"Uh-uh," Teddy said. "No way."

"Yes. Uh-huh," Ariadne said. Ariadne was one of his mum's oldest friends, who'd gone to Hogwarts with her. Teddy liked that she still dropped by to see him and his Gran sometimes, even all these years later. Everybody else who'd known Teddy's mum told serious, tense stories of wartime; Ariadne told him about the stupid hijinks his mum had got up to as a student.

"On a broom?" Teddy demanded incredulously.

"Yes. And then she stood up on it – only once she was about fifty feet up in the air, mind you – and shouted, 'I'm the queen of the universe!'"

"Go, Mum!" Teddy crowed, before could stop himself, then grinned sheepishly at Ariadne. She smiled back at him. She'd come by to drop off for Teddy's Gran some leftover desserts from the New Year's Eve party she and her husband and kids had hosted, but Gran happened to be out and Teddy in, so Teddy was getting rather wilder tales than usual.

"Did I ever tell you about the time she snuck into the Forbidden Forest because she was convinced she would be able to catch a Thestral?" Ariadne asked, pushing another slice of chocolate cake at Teddy. "And got caught on the way back into the castle, chicken blood all over her that she'd begged off the elves in the kitchens for trying to attract the Thestrals, and landed herself detention for like two weeks?"

Teddy snickered. "Yeah. Not her brightest move."

"Well. All I can say is, your mother didn't let anything stop her, once she got an idea in her head. She was hard-headed, that one."

Teddy thought about all the last year that he'd spent mooning over Victoire but not knowing how to tell her. And the fights he'd had with his Gran because he wanted to be an Auror and she was terrified to let him. Teddy didn't think of himself as particularly "hard-headed," not like his mum had been, or his dad, too. And yet, both the things Teddy had wanted so desperately – a chance with Victoire, and a chance to try his skill at Auror Training – they'd both come true, hadn't they?

Teddy smiled.

Ariadne gave him a fond look, like she wanted to lean across the table and ruffle his hair (lemon yellow today), but knew that he was too big for that. "What's the smile for?"

Teddy went with the simplest answer. "My girlfriend's coming back from France tomorrow."

"Victoire, right?"

"Uh-huh."

"She's one of the Weasley clan?"

"Yeah," Teddy said. "My Uncle Bill's daughter. Well – I call him uncle, but he's not, really. That would be weird, seeing as he's Victoire's dad."

"Bill Weasley!" Ariadne exclaimed. "Oh, I had the most enormous crush on him in school. He was two years ahead of us, and so clever, and gorgeous."

"Aunt Ariadne! Ugh!" Teddy moaned. "Stop it, stop it! That's disgusting." That was his almost-uncle she was talking about, who'd been married to Aunt Fleur for approximately a bazillion years. Well, okay, twenty years. But still.

Ariadne laughed, unrepentant. "You just wait, young man. Someday you'll be old, too, and you'll see what it's like when the youth of the day find the very thought of your young romances 'disgusting.'"

Teddy remembered James saying "Gross!" at the sight of him and Victoire kissing, and blushed.

One more day. He would be kissing Victoire hello in just one more day.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

If you're reading this, Victoire… Then you're FINALLY home! So put this note down and come find me –follow the tracks in the snow.

Victoire laughed – Teddy, where he was watching from around the corner of the house, felt his heart race at the sound – then she dropped the note in an elegant white flutter from her hand towards the ground, and ran to him.

It had snowed the night before, finally the first real snow of the season, and Teddy had left deliberate, big, clomping tracks from the front door of his Gran's house (where Victoire had promised to meet him the moment her family's Portkey arrived in England) around to the side of the house where he was waiting now. It was nearly evening, the sun slanting low between the trees behind the house, and everywhere was a blanket of white. The whole world was crisp and fresh and bright with possibility.

"Teddy!" Victoire yelled, and then she was in his arms, laughing and swinging around him, her breath warm on his cheeks, her dancing eyes occupying the whole of his vision.

Teddy, breathless with joy, lifted Victoire high, so her feet swung in a circle above the snowy ground. Only once he'd placed her back down on her feet did he set about snogging her until she was as breathless as he was.

Victoire laughed and stumbled and pulled away for a moment so she could catch her breath, but her hands stayed tightly around his waist. "Oh, Merlin, you can't even imagine how boring France was without you!" she exclaimed.

She was gazing up at Teddy like he was something amazing, and Teddy knew seeing that look from her would never, never get old.

He grinned. "I know for sure I've never heard you call France boring before, Ms I am bilingual and thus automatically superior to the rest of you mere mortals."

Victoire rolled her eyes. "Look, if you keep bringing up things I said when I was like twelve –"

Teddy laughed, and Victoire's gaze softened again, her eyes going all warm as she looked at him. Teddy tugged her closer.

"Anyway," she said, tossing her head to flick a long strand of hair out of her eyes. "I missed you."

"You too," Teddy said softly. "Just ask any of the family, I've been driving them bonkers."

Victoire giggled. "Oh no. What have you been doing?"

"Baking, mostly," Teddy told her very seriously. "You should see the kitchen at your gran's."

Victoire sighed happily and butted her forehead against Teddy's shoulder. "Oh, good. Maman keeps telling me I'm the worst French person ever, but I can't help it, I was so excited to get back home."

Her gaze flicked upwards, then she reached up a hand to card through Teddy's hair.

"Turquoise," she murmured with a smile.

"Oh," Teddy said, a little self-consciously. His appearance rarely changed spontaneously anymore, not like it had done when he was small. But sometimes, when he was deeply happy, his hair still slipped into the turquoise shade Gran said was the first colour it had ever settled into for any length of time when he was a baby.

"I love it," Victoire whispered against Teddy's lips. "I missed you and your tell-tale hair." She kissed him again, and Teddy melted happily into the warmth of her lips against his.

"I can't decide," he mumbled after a bit.

"Hmmm?" Victoire asked dreamily, her eyes closed and her head cocked to one side, floating a bit above Teddy's shoulder.

"I want to stand here and snog you forever, but I also want to feed you apple cake, but I also want to take you out and show you how beautiful the woods here are in the snow, and I've got this mad idea that we should build snow sculptures before it all melts again, and I think Gran's got it into her head to make us dinner since you're here, and also –"

Victoire laughed, her eyes fluttering open to meet his. "Pick one to start with."

"The woods," Teddy decided. "Before the sun sets, let's run around in the snow in the woods, just for a bit. And then we can go in for dinner. And then I'm going to snog you forever."

Victoire grinned. "Into the woods? I'll race you!" But her hand reached down and grasped his, and they ran together between the bare winter trunks of the trees, into the orange light of the setting sun, through a world crisp and fresh and bright with snow.

THE END

End notes:

Here we are again with JKR maths… In the Epilogue, Teddy is 19, presumably already a year and a bit out of Hogwarts, while Victoire is still in school. If they started dating while both still at school (not that they necessarily did) then that means they managed to date for over a year in secret, with Victoire still at school but Teddy not, before being discovered by the family via James Sirius when Teddy came to see Victoire off at King's Cross for her final year? Seems unlikely… So here I've conflated things, and imagined that they started dating while at school, dated in secret only for the one summer, got discovered by James at King's Cross and so now the family knows, and now it's winter, still only their first winter together, with Teddy pretty newly out of school.

Oh, and Ariadne is a friend of Tonks' from my "Be the Light in My Lantern" series!