A/N: Hello! So, I've been obsessing over the Next Gen lately for some reason so I decided to try my hand at writing about them! I've been toying with this plot line for a while and finally decided to write it. This is going to be a two-shot. Enjoy! And please review :)
Wedding Day Woes
Victoire Weasley considered herself to be a very levelheaded, reasonable, and laid back person. No situation was too much for her to handle accordingly, she had naturally acquired an ability to think on her feet, and she was impervious, for the most part, to random bouts of insanity.
Without getting a chance to bid them farewell, she watched these aspects of her personality fly out of the window on the day she was set to marry Teddy Lupin.
In Victoire's silver haired head, positively everything was going wrong. The daisy that Roxanne had entwined in her hair had fallen out, only to be trampled by Fred and James as they thundered past before she had a chance to save it; Uncle Ron had caused quite the scene when Rose arrived with Scorpius Malfoy as her date (a row of chairs and an ice sculpture had been destroyed in his fury); and her younger sister and maid-of-honor, Dominique, had been missing in action ever since Victoire's bachelorette party the night before. On top of that, her bridesmaids had scarpered off as soon as the waiters for the event made their appearance, leaving her in Aunt Ginny's old room by herself.
Victoire had been aware that holding her wedding ceremony and reception in the backyard of the Burrow would be tough, if not a bit hectic, but she wanted to be in the place she loved dearly while marrying the man she loved dearly. It all sounded quite lovely in her head, but at the present moment she was resisting the urge to punch herself in the face.
She could feel her dress gathering every crumb and speck of dust on the Burrow floor as she trotted around the house in search of her still missing sister. She knew the house to be spotless after her gran employed half of the family to assist her in cleaning it, but the pessimistic side of Victoire kept insisting that she was going to look like a rundown, silver chicken by the time she walked down the aisle.
"Dominique, where the bloody hell are you?" she yelled in frustration before rushing into the kitchen.
"You alright there, Vic?"
Victoire started at the voice behind her, only to see her younger cousin Albus leaning casually against the kitchen counter, his dress robes lopsided and his hair flattened by about a millimeter. In her haste to search the kitchen, she had failed to realize Albus' presence.
"I'm – I'm fine, Al," breathed Victoire faintly, a hand running through her slightly disheveled hair.
"You look like you just ran a marathon. Do you want me to find Aunt Fleur for you?" he supplied helpfully, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose.
"No, it's fine, Al. I'm fine. It's all fine," she said tiredly, attempting to clear her head by shaking it.
"Are you talking to me or yourself?" he asked.
"Mys – I mean, you. Shouldn't you be doing something right now, Al? Like, I don't know, seating people?" questioned Victoire, her eyes widening suddenly as she jabbed an angry finger at her cousin. "You're just faffing about here when you should be doing your job!"
Paling with trepidation at his cousin's sudden agitation, Albus stammered unintelligibly before racing from the kitchen. Brushing aside the fact that her cousin probably believed her to be a lunatic, Victoire followed him from the kitchen. What Albus thought about her sanity was an issue for another day. What really mattered to her was making it through the day without strangling herself or someone around her.
Victoire was unsure if she should have been elated that her search was unhindered by random members of her family milling around, or if she should have been outraged, seeing as she desperately needed someone's help; at that moment, even her Uncle Ron, who knew next to nothing on how to deal with angry women, would have sufficed. However, every single person was where she was explicitly not allowed to be: outside.
Regretting her rebuke of Albus' offer, Victoire felt close to losing it when her two younger cousins, Lily and Hugo, ran into the Burrow, a string of white and blue flowers clutched in their hands.
"Hello, Vicki!" exclaimed Lily joyfully, her formfitting turquoise bridesmaid dress rumpled and her red hair bouncing.
"What are you and Hugo doing? And where's the rest of my wedding congregation?" asked Victoire in a strained voice.
"Lily Lu wants me to help her string this around the door. Don't know exactly why, of course, but it's either that or face her wrath," answered Hugo glumly.
"Aunt Luna gave it to Dad and he just tossed it in his office, so I took it upon myself to stream it around the Burrow!" chirped the youngest Potter before turning her attention to the doorframe. With a heavy sigh, Hugo wordlessly picked up the waiting Lily, who carefully began weaving the flowers around the door.
"Hey! You didn't tell me where the rest of my bloody bridesmaids are! And my mum!" pointed out Victoire, patience running frighteningly low.
Briefly pausing in her actions, Lily gave the panicking bride a sympathetic look. "Last time I saw them, Rose was receiving a letter from an owl; Roxanne, Molly, Lucy, and Lia were flirting with those waiters; and Aunt Fleur was making sure everything was in place."
"They didn't make sure I was safe and sound, did they?" Victoire grumbled to herself. At that moment, Rose and Roxanne chose to make their appearance, a bewildered Scorpius Malfoy in tow.
"There you two are!" huffed Victoire, her eyes flashing. "Where are the other three? Still flirting with the waiters, I expect? Oh if Uncle Percy, Aunt Audrey, Hannah, and Neville could see their innocent daughters."
Both Rose and Roxanne shot her what they believed to be calming smiles. In reality, they just incensed the already irate woman even more. Scorpius simply sat on the patchwork sofa silently; after Uncle Ron's temper tantrum, he'd had enough anger directed at him for the day.
"Calm down, Vicki," crooned Rose, gently guiding her to the couch by the arm. Roxanne summoned the makeup and hair supplies that she knew to be sitting on the vanity in Aunt Ginny's childhood room. "We're sorry we left you, but we're here now. No need to flip your lid."
"I wasn't flipping anything," mumbled Victoire, wincing as Roxanne attacked her billowy locks with a brush.
"What did you do while we were gone, stick your head out of a moving car window? Or did you try to attack it with one of those Muggle blow dryers that Granddad has in his shed?" asked Roxanne dryly, a disgruntled expression on her face.
"No, I was just going mad with nerves, and then I was searching for you lot like a hippogriff with its head cut off," snarled Victoire in response.
"Victoire, we were gone for all of five minutes," pointed out Roxanne, a dark eyebrow raised. At this, Rose started shaking her head in warning, a hand shooting back and forth in front of her neck in a 'cut-it-out-or-Victoire-will-blow-fire' motion.
Scorpius viewed this all with a fearful look on his face. If Victoire, a girl who he knew to be amiable and collected during a normal situation, was in this bad a state on her wedding day, he could only imagine the fuss the temperamental Rose would cause. Lily and Hugo, however, were putting the finishing touches on their adornment of the door, paying no mind to Victoire's psychological breakdown.
Victoire, however, had pointedly ignored Roxanne's statement as her cousin twisted her wavy hair into an elegant knot.
"Now I need to touch up your make up, and you're ready to roll," announced Roxanne.
This proclamation sparked Victoire's hazy, angry thoughts. "But where's my darling, reliable sister? I need my maid of honor!" she ground out, eyes widening in panic.
Roxanne paid no mind to her older cousin's outburst, while Rose had the right mind to blush. "I was actually just reading an owl from her. She should be here in a minute," she answered in a casual tone.
"WHAT? YOU TELL ME THAT NOW?" screeched Victoire, startling Roxanne as she shot off the sofa, her ears glowing crimson. If there was one thing she inherited from the Weasley side of her, it was that visible show of anger. "I am going to throttle her and enjoy every minute of it!"
"Vic!" shouted Rose as Victoire bounded over to the exit as quickly as her bulky dress would permit her. At the door, Hugo and Lily had just completed their decoration with the odd blue and white flowers. With the reflexes of a seeker, Lily yanked the oblivious Hugo from the doorway just as Victoire barreled past, jetted out the door and, to the utter perplexity and panic of the others, disappeared.
When Victoire, or any Weasley for that matter, is upset or just plain pissed off, the significance of their surroundings seem to fade. This fact came into play when Victoire stormed out of the house in a bit of a rampage, eyes wild as she scoured the confused wedding guests for her all too elusive younger sister.
"DOMINIQUE!" she shouted angrily, tempted to pull at her hair. Restraining herself, it was then that she took a more thorough look at her surroundings. The guests nearest Victoire were gazing at her as if she was an oddity at a circus, eyes widening as they eyed her carefully. But it wasn't the weird glances that were unhinging her; it was the people giving her the looks. At first, she figured that some of these people milling about were Weasleys she had never met... until she spotted three people that made her heart stop before flailing around in her chest like an spastic butterfly. Victoire saw her Uncle George (appearing more youthful and spry than ever) leading a middle aged woman to her seat. Seconds later, a man who looked exactly like Uncle George sauntered smoothly after him, a young woman on his arm. Less than a minute after that, two faint pops issued from the slightly overgrown flowerbeds. From the plants emerged two people she had only ever seen in pictures: Teddy's parents, Remus Lupin and Nymphadora Tonks.
By this point, Victoire was feeling the only two things a girl never wants to feel on any occasion, let alone her wedding day: nauseous and faint. She stared unblinkingly at the couple, her jaw slack and her mind so distracted that she failed to notice the appearance of a kindly, plump looking woman, two redheaded teenage boys (one who looked similar to Hugo and the other looking faintly disgruntled in his too tight dress robes) and a brunette girl.
Still entranced with a grim looking Remus and a glowing Tonks, she barely registered the fact that they were making their way over to her or the fact that Molly Weasley was tugging on her elbow.
"I'm sorry dear, but who are you? And why in Merlin's name are you wearing a wedding dress?" asked Molly, confusion etched in her brow.
"Is everything okay Molly?" Remus and Tonks had leveled with the altogether mutely bewildered knit of people, all of them staring at the anguished Victoire who couldn't seem to speak.
"G -Grandmum?" she finally stammered out before she was out cold.
"Who is she? She could be a Death Eater."
"Maybe she's under the Imperius curse and she's trying to fight it? That could explain her confusion."
"The poor girl looks a bit like Fleur though."
"Mrs. Weasley, she called you grandmum."
"Did she, Molly?"
"I'm so lost. And hungry."
"That should be your title: Ronald Weasley: the Lost and Hungry Baboon of the Burrow!"
Victoire heard a jumbled combination of voices as she came to after three minutes of dark unconsciousness. At least they didn't leave me to rot on the garden ground... Oh, I hope my dress didn't get ruined, she moaned inwardly. Groaning slightly, her dark cerulean blue eyes blinked open, only to see seven wands trained at her. Could this day get any worse? My elegant knot is probably laced with dirt now. Oh joy.
"There's no need to point all of your wands at me. I'm defenseless, seeing as there is no pocket in a wedding dress to even put my bloody wand. Plus I'm obviously not a Death Eater, seeing as I'm Dark Mark-less," she said, perhaps with a bit more bite than she meant. In a show of innocence, Victoire sat up slowly, raising her hands in the air. Feeling a jolt of success, she saw her grandmum and granddad hesitate slightly.
"Who are you?" asked Lupin, his aim at her unflinching.
"Victoire," she answered simply, projecting an attitude of nonchalance despite her stomach dancing the conga line. What if she couldn't get back, effectively abandoning Teddy and ruining both of their lives? It was obvious, judging by her current company, that she was not at the Burrow she had practically grew up in.
"You're going to have to give us more than a first name," said Tonks quietly, eyeing Victoire with a coaxing expression.
Having no time for games, Victoire decided to answer. "Weasley. Victoire Weasley."
After a moment in which all of them stared at her with gaping mouths and widening eyes, the shorter of the two redheads spoke up. "How do we know you're telling the truth?"
Victoire examined the boy briefly, and something that her father had once told her cropped up in her head: Your uncle Harry was disguised at your mum and I's wedding. Couldn't have Voldemort popping up, could we? Although Death Eaters did gatecrash the party in the end...
Glancing carefully at the two school aged teenagers, Victoire realized who they were and almost passed out again. Masking her alarm, she simply smirked at her seventeen year old uncle trying to act like an auror.
"Hello Harry Potter," she responded, her smirk twisting into a grin. "Or should I say Uncle Harry?"
"How do you -? Uncle?" he stuttered.
"Who are you?" This time, it was Molly who asked her, her brown eyes still huge with disbelief. She was, however, gazing at Harry lovingly, no doubt thinking that he was finally going to be an official member of the Weasley clan. Remus, Tonks, and Mr. Weasley were both scrutinizing Victoire in silence, while her Uncle Ron and Aunt Hermione looked at her in fear.
"Victoire Weasley," she answered again, slightly impatient.
'She means 'who' as in how are you related to us," said Mr. Weasley, brow furrowed.
Victoire knew that during times of war, any unknown person was a Death Eater unless proven otherwise, so it was with a sigh that she made the oddest decision of her life: tell her family, who knew her better than many of her friends, who she was. "I'm Bill and Fleur's oldest daughter, and today is my wedding day, only in the year 2023. When I left, I had about thirty minutes until go time and now Teddy is going to think I abandoned him at the altar and he already has abandonment issues as it is, but no. I'm here in bloody 1997 at what seems to be my bloody parents' wedding with no way home!" Her dispassionate confession had turned into a sob fest midway through, and now her grandmum, Tonks, and Hermione were comforting her, Ron and Harry shifting awkwardly, Mr. Weasley looking sympathetic, and Remus still faintly distrustful.
"Do you believe me now, Remus Lupin?" asked Victoire thickly, her large blue eyes tearful.
"How do you know my name?" he asked, visibly astonished.
She shot him a watery, yet dazzling smile. "How couldn't I know your name? After all, if everything goes to plan, I'm going to become Victoire Lupin."
At this, Tonks froze in her patting of Victoire's back. "You mean... Teddy is our son?" asked Tonks in a small, hopeful voice.
"Your son?" asked Ron loudly, but his question went ignored as Victoire nodded, smiling. Tears of happiness sprang to Mrs. Weasley's eyes on their own accord, while Lupin appeared to be frozen in his position by the fireplace.
"Oh my God, you're going to be my daughter-in-law?" questioned Tonks excitedly. With another nod from Victoire, Tonks punched the air and, if possible, glowed even brighter before hugging Victoire. "I told you he wouldn't be a werewolf," she said fiercely, bounding off the sofa to hug Remus, who seemed to have regained movement in his arms as he numbly returned the gesture.
"Don't look so confused, Uncle Ron, Uncle Harry," laughed Victoire.
"I didn't know Tonks was... having a baby," said Ron blankly.
"I don't think any of us knew," agreed Harry, patting Ron on the back.
"Sweetie, we have to find a way to get you back," said her grandmum kindly, an arm around Victoire's thin shoulders.
"Do you know how you got here? I've never read anything on time travel; I only know about time turners but it's impossible to use it to go forward at all, let alone 26 years! It can only go back 24 hours, but that would be useless for you because you need to go forward in time rather than backwards. Can you -"
"You believe her?" asked Ron, effectively stopping her incessant word flow. "I didn't think you'd be so easy to convince, to be honest."
Hermione sighed and rolled her eyes. "Honestly, Ron. I know time travel exists and is possible. Sure, I've never traveled back more than three hours, but Victoire is from a time that's probably more magically advanced that we are! Vic, do you remember anything odd in the Burrow before you came here? Any unfamiliar source of magic, or anything suspicious or -"
"Aunt Hermione, I honestly don't know how I got here," interrupted an exasperated Victoire. "I'm just as clueless as you lot."
"'Aunt' Hermione?" questioned Hermione, her voice oddly high pitched.
Victoire merely laughed. "Yes, 'Aunt'."
Both Hermione and Ron blushed a brilliant red, Ron's mouth gaping like a fish while Harry gave the two of them a bemused, close-lipped smile, giving Victoire the sense that he was trying not to laugh.
"Don't look too pleased, Uncle Ron. I didn't exactly specify what Weasley brother she marries," said Victoire slyly. Although her smirk told Ron she was only joking, he bypassed red and turned purple. Turning her attention back to Mrs. Weasley, she asked, "When does my mum and dad's wedding start?"
"Thirty minutes. Gabrielle, Ginny, and Madame Delacour are up there helping her get ready," answered Mrs. Weasley anxiously, although her face was spread in a proud grin as she looked at the flushed Ron and Hermione.
"Okay, so I have thirty minutes to pray that one of my cousins will save me," cried Victoire, sounding a bit desperate.
"How many cousins do you have?" asked Mr. Weasley interestedly. He had taken a seat on his usual armchair and was examining Victoire as if she was a particularly interesting specimen. When he looked carefully at what he guessed to be his oldest grandchild, he was pleasantly surprised to see that she looked mostly like Bill: same nose, same dark blue eyes (although she had inherited the shape of Fleur's), and same face shape. Fleur was slightly visible when she smiled or laughed and, of course, in her blonde hair with its silvery sheen.
Victoire hummed lightly as she rounded her cousins up in her head, counting them as they meandered past in her brain. "Nine. And a younger sister," she grumbled slightly at the thought of Dominique, "and brother."
All of her younger relatives seemed to glow at this prospect; the prospect of new life, marriages, and happiness. Victoire knew and always appreciated the lengths that her parents and all of her family had gone to provide a brighter future for their children, but it was in this moment that she really realized how dark times had truly been. The future looked bleak and grim from their war time prospective, but Victoire had just provided them with a beacon of hope.
"How old are you, Victoire?" asked Remus, a hint of a smile in his eye. Tonks had only just relinquished the iron grip of a hug she had given him, but was still clutching his hand fervently.
"Most people call me Vic," she said sweetly, smiling at their reactions to the information she was giving. "And I just turned 23 in May. Teddy's 25," she supplied, her assumptions that they desired to know more about Teddy proved correct as the couple's smiles grew.
"He's a Metamorphmagus like you, Mrs. Lupin, although his hair usually stays turquoise," continued Victoire, her face brightening immensely at the thought of Teddy.
"Don't call me Mrs. Lupin, Vic. I'm only two years older than you, after all! I'm surprised my future self hasn't reprimanded you about that!"
Victoire thanked Merlin for her adequate acting skills as she brushed aside Tonks' answer with a tinkling laugh, although she feared that Hermione, Harry, and Remus might have spotted the saddened look that briefly flitted across her face.
"How did you two get together?" asked Mrs. Weasley gleefully. Nothing excited her more than marriages in the family, even if it was a wedding that she wouldn't attend for 26 years.
Victoire grinned; this was an anecdote she never tired of telling, even though her family all knew it because they were there to see it for themselves. "We've been best friends since I was born, pretty much. I was the only child closest to his age until Dominique came along -"
"Who's Dominique?" interrupted Ron.
Ignoring Hermione's "Ronald!", Victoire answered, "My younger sister. She's 21 now. Anyway, like I was saying until I was rudely interrupted," she playfully glared at her uncle, who harrumphed, "we were always the oldest. It wasn't until I was about four that the baby boom really started so all we had was each other. When he went off to Hogwarts, I thought my life was over, seeing as I was stuck with an annoying Dominique and a toddling Louis. But he wrote me everyday." She said this last part dreamily, causing Mrs. Weasley and Tonks to smile.
"I was obviously already enamored with him... since I was about seven I think," she mused. "But it wasn't until I was fifteen and he was seventeen that he asked me out. He didn't want to mess up our friendship or get beaten to a pulp by Dad, but he took the risk, and here we are today! Or should I say, where I should be today." Victoire frowned, hoping that things weren't getting too hectic in the future.
Ron had dozed off during her story, a hand on his flat stomach (most likely he was hungry), Harry looked as if he had a question he was suppressing, Remus was deep in thought, Hermione's eyes were out of focus as if she was thinking too hard, Mr. Weasley and Mrs. Weasley were exchanging ecstatic looks, and Tonks had rushed over to Victoire and gave her a rib-cracking hug.
"I don't know if I've told you in the future, but you are fantastic!" she exclaimed when she finally pulled away. "Teddy is a lucky man."
Victoire wrangled in the tears threatening to escape; Teddy should be here in this moment, not her, but she was still grateful to have been able to hear something like that from his mother. "Actually, I'm the lucky one," responded Victoire, sighing resignedly. Time was ticking past and her cousins didn't seem to have figured out how or what she was doing in the wrong time. Were they even making an effort? she wondered in vain, seeing as she had no way of receiving a bloody answer.
A/N: Any thoughts? Review! The next and last part should be out tomorrow or maybe even today! :)