#Bald Dora Remus

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Endeavor

Chapter Update! FFN and AO3

This chapter is going to be fun my friends! We're meeting the families today! Next week's chapter is going to go up probably Tuesday, October 13th. Then we'll go back to Saturday updates. Have an amazing day! See you next week =)

Chapter 14

Victoire was unconsciously wringing her hands as she sat in Ted's car that Friday and he drove them to his flat.

"Vicky," Ted moved a hand from the steering wheel to her hands, gripping them in his gentle but firm grip that he always used when she was rubbing her skin raw. "What's wrong?"

Vic stilled her hands, turning one of them over to hold Ted's hand.

You are brave. Her mum's words echoed quietly in her mind. She took a deep breath and ripped off the metaphorical bandage.

"I, er, I was thinking, maybe, maybe we should meet each other's families." She spoke quickly trying to keep her voice from trembling.

Ted squeezed her hand, interlacing their fingers. "I would like nothing better than to get to know your family and to bring you home to mine."

Vic looked over at him to see him smiling. She really liked seeing him smile.

"Yeah?"

"Of course, would tonight be too soon?" He smirked at her and she knew he was teasing.

But even though she knew he was teasing, Vic suddenly wanted to get it done and over with. She wanted to take the fear out of it, to stop worrying over it.

"Let's do it."

Ted blinked as he chanced a glance back over at her.

"Really? Because we could. It's my parents' turn tonight to host the monthly dinner the Marauders hold; it would be my parents and my aunts and uncles; you'd meet the whole lot of Dad's side."

Vic swallowed. What he was describing was mildly terrifying if she was honest. But it also gave her an opportunity to meet nearly everyone in his family at once. It would be like ripping off the bandage in one go, instead of bit by bit, and that was just the slightest bit appealing.

Vic squared her shoulders and nodded.

"Yes, let's go introduce me to your family."

Ted glanced back at her again, and then drove past the turn he would have taken to get to his flat.

"Alright, let's go show my family that I'm not blowing smoke about how amazing you are."

Vic squeezed his hand and hoped she had made the right call. Maybe this is what her mum meant when she called her brave. Vic personally would have called this insane, but maybe her mum had the meanings of the words confused.

Ted seemed to be just a bit nervous as well, at least Vic assumed the way he'd gone quiet meant he was nervous. He kept his fingers intertwined with hers though, and that seemed to help reassure both of them. It certainly reassured her.

After twenty minutes or so, Ted pulled into the driveway of a beautiful old home.

"Last chance to back out," Ted pulled his hand from hers and put the car in park.

Vic bit her lip. Heaven knew how much a part of her wanted to turn back, but she was realizing that she did, in fact, love Ted, and she wanted to show him. She wanted him to have some substantial evidence of it when she finally mustered up the courage to say it out loud to him. So she took a deep breath and nodded.

"Let's go in, I want to meet your family."

Ted leant over and kissed her slowly, reassuringly.

"I love you." He whispered against her.

Vic smiled at him. She was going to say it back, not right now, but soon, she was going to tell him how she was head over heels for him too.

Ted held her hand firmly in his as he pushed open the door to his parents' home.

"Mum? Dad?" He called out as he led her into the small entryway.

"Teddy?" A woman an inch or so taller than Vic came around the corner with bubblegum pink hair and she nearly knocked over a hall lamp when her eyes landed on Vic, but a man with brown hair and a soft smile reached out and caught it just before it hit the floor.

"Hi Mum," Teddy pulled Vic closer to him. "Surprise."

Vic gave Ted's parents a nervous smile while his mum looked shocked and his dad had an amused twinkle in his eye.

It was Ted's dad who broke the silence.

"Teddy, the family is here you know?"

Ted nodded. "I warned her, she said she was brave enough to face them all at once."

Ted's mum seemed to get over her shock and moved to the door, her hand outstretched.

"It's so nice to meet you, Victoire, I'm Dora."

"She's Nymphadora if you want to tease her," Ted smirked as Vic shook his mum's hand.

"You may be taller than me but I can still smack you upside the head Edward Remus Lupin." Dora's hair seemed to almost glow with more intense color as she glared at her son.

"And I'm Remus," Ted's dad smoothly stepped between his son and wife to shake Vic's hand. "I have to say Victoire, I'm impressed with your willingness to meet all of us at once."

Vic gave a nervous laugh as she answered. "Ted talks about how wonderful all of you are. I didn't see the point of spreading it out if I could meet all of you at the same time."

"Why won't our nephew come in and say hello?" A man with black hair graying at the temples and rectangle framed glasses stuck his head around the corner. Vic could have sworn it was Uncle Harry for the brief glance she caught of him.

"Ted's on his way, James," Remus stepped in front of Vic and she didn't miss the mischief in his eyes. "Gives us a moment."

Vic couldn't see James' reaction but Ted grinned down at her and winked.

"I'm afraid we're surrounded by a bunch of boys who think they have a flair for the dramatic." Dora smiled at her. "But if you're ready, why don't we go say hello to our little family?"

"Yeah, I think I'm ready," Vic smiled as Ted moved to drape his arm across her shoulders.

Remus winked at her and led the four of them from the entryway to the sitting room where the Marauders were gathered.

"We have a guest with us tonight," Remus announced blandly, still standing in front of Vic.

"We all know Teddy," a man spoke up.

"Oh, yes, I suppose you're right, we all know Teddy. I won't worry about introductions then." Vic blinked up at Ted, who winked at her as he worked to keep his laughter in check. Then Remus moved so that she was in full view of the room and its occupants.

"I told you I saw someone with them!" James looked triumphantly at a woman with long auburn hair sitting next to him. She rolled her eyes at him but smiled. Vic stared at the resemblance Uncle Harry had to his dad. It was strangely comforting to see James and Lily there. They weren't Uncle Harry and Aunt Ginny, but simply knowing who they were, that they weren't complete strangers like everyone else in the room, made her feel a bit less like she was the main act for the evening.

"I knew you were more like me," a man with black hair and the face of a model spoke up. The woman sitting on his lap had long blonde curls and she laughed at his comment, turning to give Vic a bright smile.

"Oh, for heaven's sake," a woman with short-cropped brown hair stood and moved to where Vic was standing with Ted.

"I'm Teddy's Aunt Bridget," she took Vic's hand. "My Marauder is Pete over there." She gestured to a portly balding man who smiled and lifted his glass to her. "Those two," she pointed to the man with the blonde in his lap, "are Sirius and Marlene. And the one who swore he saw you at the door is James and that's Lily."

Vic smiled and held up her hand in what she realized at the last moment was probably a rather pathetic wave. This was far more intimidating than she'd originally expected.

Ted, however, was already moving right along.

"Everyone, this is my girlfriend, Victoire. She felt brave enough to meet you all at once."

"Then she'll fit right in," Bridget put a hand on Vic's shoulder and gave her a warm smile.

Remus caught Vic's eye and winked at her. "Dora and I are rather happy to meet her as well. So why don't we move to the dining room and we can show her where Ted picks up all his annoying habits while we eat."

Ted's mum shook her head but laughed as she led everyone to the dining room, "Stop teasing her, Remus."

Vic spent the evening learning that Dora's assessment of their family was spot on. But what Vic also started to see was that the flair for the dramatic these men all seemed to have had a very specific purpose; it made their wives pay attention to them. And she realized that she was no different really than these ladies at the table with her. Every time Ted acted the way his dad or uncles were, she became his bated breath audience. Making her guess his name, never letting her pay for meals, all his teasing, it kept her eyes on him and her smile on her face. She suspected that if she watched Uncle Harry and Aunt Ginny the next time, she saw them, she'd see the same thing.

It was in the midst of that realization that another epiphany came. No one had pulled her or Ted away from each other. No one seemed to hate her for what she put Ted through. No one was trying to scrutinize her. On the contrary, they seemed to like her, a lot. And they seemed to think of her as a permanent fixture as they described what to expect for birthday celebrations and Christmas.

Vic turned to Ted as he laughed at his dad's story, and she smiled at him. He had been using that dramatic flair from the moment she met him. He'd claimed her heart with a silly comment about an antique time stamp machine. And Vic finally felt like she knew what Ted meant when he said that it wouldn't matter what anyone said, he'd stay with her. She understood why Harry's comment about a possible end to their relationship had bothered him so much. When Vic had been with Sean, she constantly felt like she needed to defend him or his decisions, and more specifically her staying with him. But what she felt with Ted was different. She didn't feel the need to explain away his actions. She didn't really care what other people thought of Ted, because she knew who he was. He was the man she wanted to be with, regardless of what others might have thought about the start of their relationship or about either of them individually. She wanted to be with Ted, because she loved him.

Ted seemed to notice her eyes on him and turned toward her, his smile bright but his amber eyes questioning. Vic didn't respond to the unspoken question; she simply rested her head against his shoulder. She certainly wasn't going to say those three words to him for the first time in front of his family, even if she might be dying with the effort to keep it inside.

It wasn't much later that Ted suggested they head out and leave his crazy family to gossip about them for the rest of the night. There were a few indignant protests that the two of them certainly didn't need to leave in order for the group to gossip about them, but after a round of hugs and goodbyes, the two youngest members of the family that night moved to Ted's car.

"Well," Ted chuckled as he buckled his seatbelt, "You survived meeting all of them."

Vic laughed, "They're wonderful, Ted, I can see why you love them all so much."

"What would you like to do now, love?" Ted asked as he pulled out of his parents' drive.

Vic summoned her courage to ask if he wanted to keep pulling off the metaphorical bandage.

"Do you want to round out the evening and meet my family?"

Ted turned to look at her for a moment before remembering to watch the road.

"Er, I, yeah, are, are you sure you're alright with that?"

Vic felt the nervous pit in her stomach start to creep back up, but she pushed it down. She loved Ted, and nothing her family did was going to change that.

"If, if you're alright with it, I'd like to take you home to my family tonight." Vic managed a shy smile.

Ted came to a stop sign and leant over capturing her lips in a slow kiss.

"Is your dad going to threaten to chop me into bits?" Ted smirked as he pulled away and began navigating back to Vic's home.

"No," she laughed, "he usually lets the scars from his motorcycle accident be his intimidation." Vic slipped out her phone and let her mum know they were on their way.

Ted laughed, "I'll keep that in mind and try to look suitably intimidated."

"You're ridiculous," Vic grinned as Ted worked his magic on her.

"No, I'm in love with you." Ted grabbed her hand and moved it to kiss her knuckles.

Vic smiled, the anticipation of saying it back was starting to make her giddy. She had originally intended to wait a bit longer to say it, but as Ted drove them to her home, she realized that she wasn't going to be able to wait all that long. So rather than risk blurting it out in front of her whole family, Vic decided to be a bit more flexible with her assumed timeframe.

"Ted," she grabbed his hand as it went to undo his seatbelt in front of her home.

Ted stopped and looked up at her, his eyes holding that same questioning look they'd had at his parents' home.

"Yeah?"

Vic hadn't realized how nervous she'd be. It felt so natural to think about saying she loved him for the first time, but doing it was a completely different beast. A nervous chuckle escaped her lips and she tried to breathe a bit deeper.

"Ted, I love you." The words seemed breathless and Vic kicked herself as she went to say it again, intending to say it with more substance behind it.

But she didn't get the chance as Ted's hands pulled her face to his and kissed her passionately. Vic couldn't stop the smile that claimed her lips, making kissing Ted just a bit difficult, but he didn't seem to mind as he moved to kiss her jawline and behind her ear and along her neck.

"I love you," Vic laughed, feeling the elation that saying those words out loud gave her.

Ted finally pulled back and looked at her, his warm eyes filled with a kind of awe.

"I love you too," he laughed as his hand caressed her cheek. "I love you so much."

Vic moved to kiss him this time, still smiling like the Cheshire Cat, causing them to knock teeth more than anything.

"There is absolutely no way I'll be able to pretend to be intimidated by your dad, now." Ted laughed as he ran his tongue over his teeth.

"That's alright," Vic's smile was so wide her face was starting to hurt. "But we should probably go in. It's getting late."

"Why don't we," Ted kissed her once more before undoing his seatbelt.

Vic pushed open the front door and called out as she let Ted into the entryway.

"Mum, Dad, we're here."

"The lover boy has entered the building," Louis taunted from the den and Vic rolled her eyes before casting an apologetic look at Ted. To her surprise, he was trying very hard not to laugh.

"It's not a bad line, Vic," he defended as he regained his composure.

Vic smiled and led him into the den where her family was gathered.

"Mum, Dad, Dom, Louis, this is my boyfriend, Ted Lupin. Ted, this is Fleur, Bill, Dominique, and Louis."

Ted moved from her side and shook everyone's hands.

"It's wonderful to finally meet all of you," Ted commented as he sat down with Vic. "Now what did you all plan to interrogate me on first?"

Dom laughed, "At least he isn't under any illusions."

Vic rolled her eyes and went to grab her purse when she realized she'd left it in Ted's car.

"Can I borrow your keys? I left my purse in your car."

"I can grab it for you, love," Ted moved to stand.

"I'll run, don't worry, I won't leave you alone with my family for more than a few seconds."

Ted smirked, "Actually, that might be just enough time to get them started on some embarrassing story that you'd try and head off." He handed her his keys. "Or I can go grab it, of course."

Vic laughed and took the keys. "You'd learn all those stories eventually anyway."

Ted held onto her hand for just a moment longer before letting it slide from his as she sprinted for his car. She probably didn't have to run, but there were some stories she'd rather wait for a while longer for them to crop up if she could manage it.

She unlocked the car and snagged her purse, but in her haste, she didn't realize that the strap had caught and wedged between the dash and the corner of the glove box compartment.

"Oh, come on!" Vic gave the strap an upward tug but it wouldn't budge. Rather than risking breaking her purse, she quickly slid the key into the lock and unlocked the glove box, opening it to release her purse.

She stopped short when the compartment fell open.

A small burgundy ring box sat on top of a few other assorted papers and items.

Vic was frozen for a moment before she quickly shut the glove box and locked it again.

Slowly she picked up her now free purse and locked the car. She couldn't take her eyes off of the glove box as the door shut. Her emotions were a storm of excitement and nervousness and overwhelmed, and the knowledge that she needed to stop freaking out because Ted could absolutely not know that she had seen that box. Assuming that it was what she thought it was. But what else could he possibly have that would need to be in a ring box locked in the glove box of his car?

Vic bit her lip and smiled so wide that the reflection she saw in the car window made her wonder if she might crack her face. If the box was what she hoped it was, she already knew her answer.

Then she skipped back into her childhood home and to the man she was madly in love with.