When Are We?

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Chapter 4

Jealousy

Six days later...

"I am bored," James announced at the dinner table.

Victoire's age widened in alarm. "You are not bored," she said. A bored James meant a trouble in the house. TROUBLE, in capital letters.

"But I am!"

"No, you are not," she insisted, this time more firmly.

"I am! We've been stuck in this house without leaving for days!"

"Do tell," Sirius said, and Victoire threw him an annoyed glance.

"You're not helping, Sirius," Teddy said calmly. "Now, James, would you mind suggesting a way to save you from your boredom?"

James considerably brightened. "Of course!" he said. "You can just let me out of the house."

"Oh yes!" Fred enthusiastically supported him. "A little exploring can be a great idea..."

"You won't do any such thing!" Molly Weasley shrieked, the fact that she barely knew these children hardly mattering anymore. She was used to dealing with impulsive, hot-headed, unruly children who wanted to do something dangerous. She took a deep breath and tried to look as authoritative as possible. "While your parents aren't here, we are due to take care of you It is dangerous and I absolutely forbid."

"But why?" Rose asked plaintively. "If we are careful enough..."

Victoire couldn't believe her ears. Rose was supporting James' stupidity? Their nice, level-headed, sensible Rose?

"Ha!" James exclaimed triumphantly, his voice and face unimaginably smug. "You see? It isn't only me!"

Teddy looked pensive. "Well, I suppose if we are careful enough..." he said, and then his vision was obscured by the sight of red hair. Lots of red hair: Lily had thrown herself at him, hugging him and repeating, "Thank you, thank you, thank you!"

"Hey, I didn't say anything about you!" Teddy protested, but she pretended not to have heard him.

"Thank you, thank you, thank you!"

"Well, that's enough!" Victoire said firmly and stood up, resolved to deal with the situation immediately, before more of the kids or worse - she herself - would be infected with James' whim. Truth be told, she was sick of sitting in the house like a prisoner, she was sick of the malicious house-elf and even more of his mistress. But she could not imagine how they would go back to their own time and tell the family that they've lost one - or more - of the kids. And they would surely lose them, because two of them out in the wild together - no matter which two - meant calling for trouble. Even one of them meant just that, if the one in question was James or Fred Weasley - or sometimes even Louis.

She turned to the source of the problem. "You know, you aren't bored," she said. "You think you are, but you aren't, really..."

The source of the problem was not to be dissuaded, though. Victoire knew too well what this petulant expression meant.

"Leave him be, Vickie," Teddy sighed, "there is no use of that."

"I guess you're right," she sighed. "Very well. Someone else wants to go out?"

"Victoire!" Molly gasped.

"Leave her alone, Mum," Charlie, who had had more than enough experience with younger siblings who were just as stubborn as those kids, advised her wisely. "There is a smart girl." He winked at Victoire.

Teddy growled. Charlie, who had arrived only two days earlier, still tended to forget that all these young newcomers were his nieces and nephews and Teddy had never had much patience for guys who tried to flirt with Victoire. Especially when these guys were roguishly handsome, as Dominique often described them.

As it turned out, Victoire did not need anyone's help to deal with the situation. "You are a dear, Uncle Charlie," she said sweetly, and Bill and Sirius laughed.

"Oh Merlin, that was good!" Tonks choked. "Quick, someone give me a camera, I must save this expression of his for the end of time!"

Finally, Charlie laughed too. "You really are a smart girl, you know?" He smiled at Victoire. "Did you hear that? That was the sound of the crack of my ego."

"I am sorry," she said contritely.

"Oh that was good!" Tonks said. "Charlie, you really should have seen your face."

"You've spent too much time with your Aunt Ginny," Charlie told Victoire and she found it hard to keep her face straight.

Anyway, Fred would not let them move the conversation to another topic. "I want out," he said, answering to Victoire's earlier question.

"I want out," James added hastily.

"I want out," Lily echoed.

One by one, all the children declared that they wanted out and despite Mrs Weasley's many protests, Teddy and Victoire said that they would see to it.

"But not everyone at the same time, right?" Remus asked.

"Why not?" Sirius wondered.

"Because they will make a chaos that would make a hundred Hippogriphs proud, Padfoot," Remus explained patiently.

Sirius gave him a puzzled look. "That's what I mean," he said. "Merlin knows that this world needs a little cheering up..."

"Yes!" James piped in, excitedly.

Teddy shot Sirius an irritated glance. "Now look what you've done," he said. The man was certainly starting to spite the hell out of him, first with his obvious liking of Victoire and second, with the way he treated James. For God's sake, Sirius was an adult there and James was the kid. They were not schoolmates! James certainly did not need Sirius' encouraging him for further mischief - he was good enough at it on his own and he was hard enough to control as it was.

"No," Teddy said firmly, looking at James. "Sorry for disappointing you, but everyone going out at the same time is out of question. It simply isn't acceptable. End of the story. Understood?"

Silence. "Understood?" Teddy asked in his most authoritative voice, the horrible perspective of all Weasley and Potter kids running around in a frenzy of excitement giving an extra stern edge of it.

"Understood. Tyrant," James answered and turned aside to sulk over the situation.

Bill whistled and gave Teddy an apprehensive look. "How do you do that?" he asked in an undertone, not meant for James' ears.

"I've got years of practice," Teddy said, grinning.

"So," Victoire said, "that's the plan: we'll be leaving the house in groups. Bill, you will come and take Louis and me tomorrow morning."

"Will I?" Bill asked.

"Yes, will he?" Louis joined him. "Why - "

"Because I am not leaving the house with you without some extra help," Victoire explained. What she didn't say was that no matter how young Bill was now, he was still their father and she relied on his unconscious authority over Louis. They both were better off without knowing that this authority existed.

"What!" Al and James, who had temporarily forgotten that he was sulking, exclaimed. "Why you should be the first ones?"

"Because I say so," Victoire answered smoothly. The truth was, she was not sure that she could bear another day in the house with the mad portrait without going mad herself.

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The next day...

"It looks so boring," Louis whispered.

Bill looked at him, surprised. "What does?"

"Diagon-Alley."

The elder Weasley looked even more surprised. "I never noticed it." Well, he might have not, given the fact that the street was full of people, running up and down on errands in their bright robes in all colours. Owls were hooting, sellers were trying to attract their potential customers to their shops and so on. On the other hand, Victoire could easily sympathize with her brother's feelings - Diagon-Alley looked really boring and dull without the Weasley jokeshop - all flashily decorated window display and buzz. Yeah, that was a shop that didn't need any human efforts to attract customers - if anything, the problem with it was that it did not have enough room to accommodate its customers. Yeah, Diagon-Alley could really go with it.

"I want ice-cream," she announced.

Louis and Bill turned their heads simultaneously to look at her with identical disbelieving looks. "Ice-cream?" Louis repeated. "You want ice-cream in November?"

She met his gaze with a stubborn one of her own. "Yes," she said. "Is there a problem with that?"

Bill and Louis looked at each other and shook their heads. "No," Bill said, a bit weakly, "not at all."

They led her to Florian Fortesque's, where they met the owner's surprised look with resign shrugs, and then watched horrified, while Victoire was making her order: a vanilla ice-cream with a dressing of chocolate, caramel, orange and strawberry jam...

"Are you really going to eat this stuff?" Louis wanted to know.

Victoire barely spared the time to look at him, before attacking the softening mess. "Do you want some?" she asked.

Louis shook his head. Just looking at her eating that mix made his stomach turn.

"Stupid," his sister said and pushed another spoon into her mouth, before suddenly pressing both her hands to her mouth in a desperate effort to control the nausea that had gripped her stomach. Her face turned completely white and she concentrated so hard in keeping her breakfast - and the ice-cream - where they were that she barely registered the panicked voices of Bill and Louis who were asking what was wrong with her.

"Nothing is wrong with me," she said, when she had regained at least some semblance of control over her body. "I'm fine."

"That's what you've got, when you eat stuff like that," Louis said.

"Oh shut your trap!" Victoire snapped and reached to shake him, which resulted only in the world spinning around her. "No, I'm fine!"

"The hell you are!" Bill said roughly. "Come on, my flat is nearby."

"No need, I'll be fine in a few minutes..."

Victoire's 'being fine in a few minutes' turned out in a way that forced Bill and Louis almost to carry her upstairs and into Bill's flat. Her head was lolling lethargically and she felt like a dozen dragons had decided to have a dance in her head.

"The kitchen is this way," Bill told Louis. "Give her some water and a towel; I will take her to bed."

And he did just that - swept her in his arms, propping her head against his shoulder, and carried her to his bedroom. He did not know what was wrong with her, but she looked like she would die any minute now, closed eyes and everything. He placed her on his bed and smoothed a lock of silver hair away from her face.

"WHAT"S GOING ON HERE?"

Victoire's eyes fluttered open at the sound of the familiar voice. The last time she had heard such fury in it had been when she had decided that the two-year old Dominique was too loud for her to bear and she had used her father's wand to make her mute. How had she achieved it, she still didn't know.

Bill stood up and looked at the fierce lady who was standing on the door leading to his bathroom: her hair was still dripping with water and she wore a pair of jeans that Bill recognized as his own. She had obviously decided to surprise him with an unexpected visit and Merlin, hadn't she succeeded!

"Fleur, I - " he started, unsure of what he was going to say next. It turned out that it did not matter anyway, because his mouth was suddenly full of the towel that she had thrown right in his face.

"Howe dare you!" she screeched and Bill shuddered, suddenly realizing how it would look to everyone who was not acquainted with the real situation: he was bent over a stunning blonde who he had laid in his bed, his hand still on her head.

"It isn't what it looks like!" he said hurriedly.

"Oh, isn't it?"

Blue eyes can tear a man apart like no others, Bill thought. In this moment, Fleur looked ready to kill. "I can explain!"

But Fleur was in no mood for explanations. "Fine! You can explain afterwards."

"After what?" Bill asked, feeling that he was definitely losing the thread.

"After I kill you!"

"Who are you going to kill?" Victoire was getting definitely curious. Their parents' fights had always fascinated the three Weasley kids - their mother losing her temper was a rarity, but it was always spectacular. Lost in her curiosity, Victoire had not realized the real danger that she was in.

"You! And you!"

Victoire blinked. "What?" she asked.

"Yes, what?" Bill seconded.

Without offering verbal explanation, Fleur made her point clear by running to the bed, grabbing Victoire's hair in her fist and pulling at it hard. Victoire screamed and Fleur slapped her face. "You," she shrieked, "how dare you! Next time, you go and find a man who is single! This one is mine!"

She emphasized her words by a malicious pinch and then sat on Victoire to prevent any sort of resistance. "You slut!" she screamed. "I'll kill you! How dare you put your paws on him! I will - "

Bill grabbed her and pulled her aside. Alas, his hand turned out to be dangerously close to Fleur's mouth and she sank her teeth in his flesh without the slightest hesitation. Bill yelled and yanked his hand off. "I'll kill you!" Fleur screamed. "How dare you bringing her here! I'll pull all her hair up by the roots! I'll gouge your eyes out! You're mine! I will kill you!"

Bill groaned, because her polished nails made a painful connection with his cheek, missing the eye merely by inches. "For God's sake, woman, calm down!"

"I don't want to calm down!" she said shrilly and turned to Victoire, who was feebly trying to stand up, beaten by both her indisposition and the feeling that everything was so surreal and so ridiculous... no, scratch that. Yes, it was ridiculous, but her mother's nails digging into her face and the blood that started dripping beneath them were very real. "Damn you!" Fleur screeched, while trying to squirm around Bill and reach her wand that was lying on the table. "I won't give you the man I love. Oh, you're both dead!"

Bill caught her again, Louis appeared from the kitchen, attracted by the shouting, and stood still at the sight, and Victoire suddenly leapt from the bed, but she could not reach the bathroom in time. Instead, she just doubled over and threw up all over her still wrestling parents.

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