There was something wrong with this picture.

It was two days before Christmas. He was sitting in his friend Johanna's living room. Her Christmas tree showed exactly why his godfather considered her the Aurors' most promising recruit in years: a dusting of snow swirled around the tree, coating the branches with a light layer of snow before slipping off and disappearing into the branches. There were two figurines prowling the branches in an eternal duel, and she'd even bewitched the owl, hippogriff, and dragon ornaments to swoop around the top.

It was a seriously impressive piece of magic. He could have done without the emphasis on green everywhere else - the couch, the walls, and even the throw pillows - but it was no good arguing with her. Johanna Greengrass was a very proud Slytherin.

And, regardless, it was good to finally catch up with his friends after their very frenetic first six months out in the adult world of jobs and paychecks and too-many bills. The wine was good, and and the fire crackling along the far wall kept the room comfortably wrong.

But somehow, he was still distracted.

"Knut for your thoughts, Teddy?"

He jumped and looked up. Johanna, who was sprawled on the other end of her couch, was studying him closely. It made him shift uncomfortably - there was no one better than his best friend at making him feel like he was under a microscope, and with her black hair pulled back, she looked ever sharper.

"Sorry. I think I'm still adjusting to English time." He had only returned from his most recent overseas assignment from Gringotts a few days before. She seemed to accept that, though the way her eyes narrowed before she turned away made him squirm. He wasn't really sure what was arousing her suspicions, but it was clear that something was, which meant that there was bound to be trouble somewhere, probably in a direction he didn't see coming.

"Anyone else have exciting plans for Christmas?" she asked, and he let out a deep breath. If she was refocusing, that was a good thing.

David Arenas ran a hand through his close-cropped dark hair. "So I asked Shane Donnelly out when I bumped into him the other day," he said. His voice was casual, and there was a small smirk on his lips. David had never been humble, and he'd tended to coast on his strong jawline and high cheekbones when it came to dating. That apparently hadn't changed. "He said yes, of course."

"Of course." Teasing aside, Teddy remembered absolutely nothing about Shane Donnelly other than that he'd been a Slytherin in the year ahead of them. From the polite look on Gillian Dedworth's face, she was in the same position.

Johanna, however, looked as though she were trying very hard to mask her disgust. Despite her best efforts, she was clearly losing that battle. "Why?" she asked incredulously. "He's so boring."

David shrugged. He knew better than to take Johanna seriously. "Have you seen his eyes?"

"Yes," Johanna said irritably, picking at a loose thread on the sleeve of her green jumper. Teddy wondered idly how much clothing she wore out every year because picking at it was a nervous tic that tended to surface every time she was trying to keep herself from saying something offensive. It usually wasn't effective, but Johanna had never been one to admit defeat. "They're grey. Who cares? There are plenty of blokes out their with grey eyes." Teddy nudged her, and she stopped herself. "Sorry," she said in a more measured voice. "Go on."

David poured himself another glass of wine and began to talk about Shane Donnelly. Teddy put an honest effort into paying attention, but he quickly lost interest. He did not care about Shane Donnelly.

And besides, he had better things to think about. He'd made plans to go ice skating with Victoire and Fred Weasley the day after Christmas when he'd bumped into them at Diagon Alley a few hours prior to meeting up with his friends tonight, and he was looking forward to seeing them tomorrow night at the Weasleys' annual Christmas Eve get-together as well. He hadn't anticipated how much he'd miss them - they moved in very different circles, partially because Fred and Victoire were both three years younger than he was and partially because they were perpetually looking for trouble. He'd chatted with Fred often enough in the Common Room, but Victoire hadn't even been in their house.

Despite that, he probably missed her more than anyone else. Her expressions - and her excuses - never ceased to make him laugh.

"Do you have any exciting plans?" Gillian asked him, and he shook himself. She and David didn't appear to realize he'd been lost in his own thoughts; Johanna, as always, almost certainly had.

"Not much," he said. "There's the Weasley party tomorrow evening, and then my grandmother and I are doing dinner with my godfather's family on Christmas. I think I'm going ice skating with Victoire and Fred the day after."

"Unless they get grounded because they blow something up," David pointed out. That got Gillian to giggle; as a fellow Gryffindor, she'd seen more than enough of Fred's destruction very close up.

"Right. Unless that happens." He looked at Johanna. "What about you?"

She went back to picking at the loose thread. "My dad's taking me out to eat tomorrow evening - my brother and sister are doing Christmas Eve with our mother, but I'm obviously not going to that.They'll come back to my dad's place afterwards, though, and the four of us will have Christmas day together. My aunt Astoria's dragging her family over the day after. Gillian?"

Both Gillian and David knew better than to push Johanna past that, and Teddy knew better than to do so in front of them. There were things Johanna didn't like to go into detail about in mixed company, and her screwed up family dynamics topped the list.

"Home, of course," Gillian said after a minute. "My parents would flip and send my brother Van to get me if I didn't. Not looking forward to it, though - Gallagher's been writing me about how freaked out he is about his OWLs, and I'm not sure I'll be able to stop myself from snapping at him. After what we went through in June, I've got no sympathy for him."

Gillian had spent a solid month before they took their NEWTs getting three or four hours of sleep a day - often split between her free periods and short 15-minute naps on a couch in the Gryffindor Common Room at 3 in the morning. Apparently, she was still recovering from the experience.

"Yeah, Vic's been stressing about her OWLs, too," Teddy said. "I keep telling her that she'll be fine, but she won't believe me."

He glanced at Johanna. She met his gaze squarely. "Vic's been stressing, huh?"

He felt another twinge of discomfort in his stomach. "Yeah. She just - she's mentioned it in a few letters."

"How many letters have you exchanged with her?" David asked. He didn't look as suspicious as Johanna did, but he was clearly curious.

Teddy shrugged. "Not many. Maybe a couple a week, if that. Why?"

"A couple a week?" Gillian had clearly moved on from her memories of their NEWTs. Now she was staring at him, too. "A week?"

"I just…" The room was beginning to feel uncomfortably warm. "I mean, she's like - she's like family to me, I have to look out for her."

"As someone who was in Ravenclaw with her for four years, Victoire Weasley is more than capable of looking out for herself." David shook his head. "Teddy, as your friend - you're being weird. Stop being weird."

Teddy shut his mouth, let them steer the conversation to safer waters, and didn't mention Victoire again until after David and Gillian had departed for the night. He was about to shrug on his coat and follow them out when Johanna grabbed his arm. "Not you," she told him.

"But -"

"Sit."

He made a face. Hers remained resolute, and after a moment, he tossed his jacket onto the chair Gillian had been sitting on and collapsed back onto her couch. "What?" he snapped.

"You know what." She threw herself onto the opposite end of the same couch and swung her legs up to lean against the back of it. "What the fuck is up with you and Victoire Weasley?"

"That depends," he shot back. "Why the hell won't you talk to your mother?"

She grabbed a pillow off the floor and smacked him with it. He shielded his face just in time; being a metamorphmagus didn't make a damned bit of difference when you broke your nose, and Johanna sometimes had more strength than she thought she did. "Don't be an asshole," she snapped.

"Then stop pushing me when I clearly don't want to talk about it!"

"Well, talk about it so I don't have to push you!"

He glared at her. She glared back at him, and he looked away.

"Oh, for fuck's sake, Teddy, I'm not going to read your mind. They haven't covered that in Auror training yet anyway, and if they had, I still wouldn't do it."

He briefly considered trying to pretend that that wasn't where his mind had gone, but thought the better of it. "Fine," he muttered, slumping down in the couch. "Push away. I don't have anything to say, anyway - she's just a family friend."

"No, she isn't. You have mentionitis."

"I don't even know what that is."

"You keep bringing her up. And I've seen your living room, you've got as many pictures of her in there as you do of me. I've been your best friend for seven years."

Teddy felt his heart skip a beat. He'd realized that after he'd finished decorating, but he'd hoped no one else would. "I just - she's just a friend. I don't - I mean - She's fifteen, Jo, I'm way too old for her."

"So she's not too young for you."

"It's the same thing!"

"No, 'too young' is about attraction and 'too old' is about guilt." Johanna shook her head. "For fuck's sake, Teddy. You can't find any girls our age to fixate on?"

"I'm not attracted to Victoire! I don't want to date her, I just - she's just a friend. I went out on a date just last week, would I do that if I - and I'm not!"

"That date was shit, and you know it," she said. "You showed up at my door at 8:30 asking if I wanted to get a drink."

He looked down and started picking at his jumper himself; he was starting to have a sinking feeling that she might be right.

"My mother confronted my dad about it this year. My not going to her stupid thing, I mean." He jerked his head up to stare at her. "Yeah - she went to his house and everything to tell her off for "keeping her away from her daughter." He told her that the time to try to get in his face about her 'custody rights' not being respected was before I came of age." A small smile spread across her face. "She wasn't too happy about that."

Teddy decided not to point out that Johanna's mother's custody rights had decidedly not been respected when it came to her. He'd bonded with his friend early on over their parents' heroism in the Battle of Hogwarts, and he could understand why she'd be squarely on her father's side. He also knew her well enough to recognize this as an olive branch, and she didn't hand those out lightly.

"He told you?"

"No, Alec did. I guess he was visiting at the time."

"He didn't try to convince you to go?"

Johanna shook her head. "He's my big brother - he knows me better than that. I don't have time for people who spend a decade attacking my dad for having principles." She inched over to put a hand on his arm. "Sorry," she said. "I don't want to be insensitive - I know you wish your mother was here. But she was a good person. Mine is a coward."

After a moment of touching silence, he made a face. "You totally said all of this to make me talk about Victoire, didn't you." She bounced backwards, looking pleased with herself. "I hate Slytherins."

"Now you have to talk about her. You're a Gryffindor, being manipulated is in your blood. Come on, Ted, just admit that you're into her."

He felt his face get hot again, and he fidgeted uncomfortably. "I - she's fifteen."

"You keep saying that."

He shifted uncomfortably in his seat. "Look, I - that's not how I feel. It would be wrong." She didn't say anything, and he added, "Look, even if I did - I wouldn't - wouldn't take advantage of her. I'm done with school, and she hasn't even started NEWTs yet. It's - it is creepy, Jo."

"So you're admitting it."

"No!" She raised her eyebrows, and he felt another unpleasant lurch in his stomach. "I - I don't know. Maybe. What does it matter? I can't do anything about it, anyway."

She considered that. "No, probably not. Not right now, anyway." She nudged him with her foot. "I'm going to be a really good friend right now. You get half an hour of free mentionitis. Make it count." She reached over to pour herself another very generous glass of wine. He shifted, not sure what to say, and she dropped the bottle of wine back on the table and snapped her fingers at him. "Time is ticking, Teddy."

"She's so funny," he heard himself saying in a rush. "Her letters always make me laugh. She's - she's just so quick with everything, and she always gets my jokes. Her eyes sparkle when she laughs, and she's so - I've never met anyone who fills up a room the way Vic does."

His heart was beginning to pound in his chest. Johanna was definitely right, and it was making him feel very, very uncomfortable. Seeing the expression on his face, she grabbed the bottle of wine and filled his glass up, too. "Keep going," she told him. "I bet you like the way she fills your arms up, too."

Teddy felt his face start to heat up again. When he'd met Victoire and Fred in Hogsmeade earlier that fall, he'd definitely been distracted by how close she sat to him and how she threw herself into his hug with the same unbridled enthusiasm with which she threw herself into everything. Then he'd put that very firmly out of his mind, because what else was he supposed to do?

For example, he was definitely should not supposed to have gone home and thought about how she would look in his bed, bright red hair cascading over her shoulders and breasts as he trailed his fingers up her thigh and lowered his lips to hers-

Johanna snapped her fingers in front of his face. "Your thoughts are getting super sexual right now, aren't they?"

"Er-"

"Yeah, I thought so. Ew. Don't do that in my flat, do it in yours. God, Teddy, you're so dodgy sometimes."

He felt his face start to get hot. "I wasn't-"

"You've been my best friend for seven years, and yes, you really were. I said I'd give you a free half hour of mentionitis, not that you start thinking about fucking her while you're sitting on my couch."

"I wasn't!" She rolled her eyes. "I mean, I hadn't gotten there yet."

"What a comfort." She poured herself more wine. Teddy hadn't noticed her finish her glass in the first place. "You are so dodgy," she repeated. "How did that-" she waved her hands vaguely and made a face - "happen and you still managed to insist with a semi-straight face that you weren't into her?"

"I - I didn't - it's just a thing that happened, I didn't think about it. What else was I supposed to do?"

She stretched her arms over her head. "It will never cease to amaze me how good Gryffindors - who are supposed to be brave - are at denial. You turn it into a fucking art form." He opened his mouth to object, and then closed it again. When she put it that way, she wasn't really wrong. "Yeah," she said. "I thought so."

"I do like her," he muttered. "As a person, I mean."

"Yeah, I know. The first things you said about her were that she's funny, smart, her eyes sparkle when she laughs, and she fills up a room."

"How did you-"

"I forget nothing. I'll give this to you - you don't just want to take her into your bedroom, lock the door, and give her the best night of her life. You also want to make her dinner afterwards."

"The best night of her life?"

"I said that you wanted that, not that you're capable of it. I don't know how you are in bed, and I don't want to know. No offense," she added as an afterthought.

"None taken." They'd kissed once after they'd both had far too much to drink at the end of their sixth year, and had immediately agreed to never repeat the experience. "Does that make me less creepy?"

She considered that for a moment. "Marginally. You still really shouldn't do anything about it yet, though." He made a face, and she grinned. "Oh, calm down. She's too busy creating havoc to start really dating anyone, and besides, she had an adorable little crush on you at school. I doubt it's changed."

He jerked back. "No she didn't!"

Johanna snorted. "Oh, please. Fit family friend who's just older enough to not be a peer but not too old to have no common ground? Who's nice, supportive, never remotely pushy, and always has time for her? Of course she did."

"That's actually not very comforting."

"Well, maybe her adorable little crush will evolve into wanting you to put your hands all over her naked body and you can find out exactly how your name would sound on her breath as she realized just how much she really wanted you."

In his mind, Teddy threw up a very solid mental wall between his thoughts and any visualization of his friend's words. It was mostly effective, but not entirely. "Jo, please stop," he said through gritted teeth. "Really."

Something on his face actually made her listen to him. "Sorry," she said.

"Yeah. I just- if I tried, I probably could convince her to at least give it a chance, because - I mean, I'm more exciting than anyone in her year. Being a Curse-Breaker is apparently very glamorous, and Vic's a sucker for excitement. But I'm not going to manipulate her - that's just… wrong." He sighed. "I really don't have any business feeling this way. I know I don't."

She bit her lip as she mulled that over. "I think you've subconsciously built this up to be a bigger deal that is," she said. "I mean, look, let's be real - if you tried to date her right now, her father would probably kill you and even if he didn't, you'd never work out because - you know."

He did know.

"It'll get less dodgy as she gets older, so just… do your patience thing and don't be creepy. You're really patient, so I bet that by the time you lose patience, it won't be dodgy at all, and if she says yes you can go ahead without feeling guilty. Go back to innocent mentionitis now." He hesitated. "It'll make you feel better, I promise."

"She's one of my favorite friends," he said after a minute. "She always had been, even before - you know. She - she carves out time, when it matters, you know? When I went into heavy research mode on werewolves when we were fifth years, she didn't really understand what was bothering me, but she kept wandering into the library with a chessboard or my favorite biscuits or she'd just sit there and keep me company." He glanced at Johanna, who had a small smile on her face and had finally stopped refilling her wine glass. "I didn't - you know, feel like this then," he said sharply. "It was just… it was nice of her."

"I know what you mean."

"And nothing scares her. She was going into the Forbidden Forest when she was a first year. A first year. She'll casually mention doing it in letters now - just things like 'Fred and I found an ashwinder in the forest last night! We couldn't get its eggs, though.' Things that would scare the shit out of me are just… they don't even phase her. They should phase her, and she'll probably get herself into trouble one day because they don't, but… I still like that about her." He made a face. "I really do like her, you know. As a person. I'm not just writing to her because I - yeah." He glanced at the clock. "I think my mentionitis ended ten minutes ago."

"Is it making you feel better?"

"Yes, actually."

"Then keep going. I'll give you another fifteen."

A/N: If you'd like to read more of Teddy and Victoire's story, you might enjoy my story Shenanigans, Capers, and Hi-Jinks, which starts about eight months after this. If you like Teddy and Johanna's friendship, you might enjoy Cursebreaking in Barcelona, which features Johanna-the-Auror helping Teddy recover some treasure in Barcelona.

Thank you so much reading. Reviews and favorites are appreciated!