You mightn't believe me, but this little (ha!) fic here is all sorts of interesting.

Firstly, it's an AU. I'll just be up front about that. Basically the only thing AU is that Teddy and Victoire don't know each other, so it's not crazy AU, but it certainly is not canon compliant. If you read it, I promise everything will be explained.

Secondly, this is also just a bit out of character for me because it is so effing long! Again, if you read it, I don't think you'll be disappointed. But yeah. This fic is a marathon, not a sprint.

Thirdly, it's one of my (annual?) Christmas fics! The second Teddy/Victoire one of mine I do believe.

Anyway, I hope that, in spite of all the interesting, you manage to enjoy this.

Basic Fundamental Problems

by padfoot

...

The basic fundamental problem is that Victoire is a witch and her neighbour is not.

He is handsome, yes. Tall, and perfectly proportioned as well. He has strong, wide shoulders and a slim waist, wildly beautiful hair that seems to be a different colour every other week, an absolutely unequalled arse and… well, Victoire's eyes always have trouble taking in much more after they settle on that.

But for all that Victoire's neighbour is, he is not a wizard.

In fact, in all her time of being his neighbour, Victoire has not once seen him do anything even remotely magical.

She remembers the day he moved in with perfect clarity. The thumping, crashing sound of him falling down the stairs with his first armful of boxes. His sweet, bright eyes as he looked up at her from beneath a pile of bed linen and said, "I'm sorry for all the noise."

As if he'd thought she was just going to walk past and leave an attractive man to his gory fate.

She remembers their first cup of tea together, sipping some bitter, cheap stuff from chipped mugs. He hadn't had a chance to get milk so they'd drunk the tea black. Victoire had been so engrossed with his adorably mumbled apologies and divine backside that she'd completely forgotten to offer to get them a bottle of milk from her fridge next door.

Lots of blushing and nervous eye contact had followed. But not even one single spark of magic.

She remembers his knock on her door during a black out. She'd swiftly extinguished the glowing orb that she'd set up on her table, the floating, flickering tongues of fire she'd charmed onto the walls, the warm draught of air that she'd cast a spell to make heat her room – and then she'd answered the door. She'd ushered his shivering form inside, pleased for an excuse to wrap a blanket around his lovely square shoulders and guide him into her bedroom.

She'd laughed off his surprised exclamations at how warm her place was, and insisted he take her bed. She wouldn't mind curling up on the couch. She barely felt the cold anyway.

Only he had insisted that they share the bed and she didn't have any of the self-restraint needed to refuse such an offer. So she'd slipped under the sheets beside him, felt the warmth radiating off his body, and carefully, painfully, forced herself not to reach out and touch him.

Because the truth was, he wasn't even a little bit magic.

But Victoire knows her control will really only last for so long.

She is, after all, a young woman in her prime. And for all the convenience that would be offered by dating an eligible, magical bachelor, this Muggle man does live right next door. And has she mentioned his arse yet? It is truly a gift.

So when she encounters him at the letter boxes, all bundled up in a beanie and scarf, pulling off his gloves with his teeth, of course she stops to say hello. It is only polite, after all.

"Teddy, I don't know your mother personally, but I can't think what she would say if she saw you treating a pair of nice leather gloves that way," she scolds gently, eyeing the place where his teeth grip the soft brown material.

He succeeds in pulling the glove off, and uses his now glove-less hand to tug off the other, shoving them both in the pockets of his big, puffy coat. Victoire sees that his shoulders are damp with snow, and mentally reminds herself to go back upstairs before heading out – her hippogriff-down coat would be much more appropriate for this kind of weather.

"I'd be worried if you did know my mother personally," Teddy replies, his expression distracted as he fishes a key out of his pocket. "She died not long after I was born."

"Oh," Victoire gasps, outraged at herself for being so daft. She'll probably have to move out of the country now. Or take up fishing and live on an island surrounded by sea where she can never say something so awfully awful to any kind, handsome Muggles ever again. "I'm so sorry!"

"Oh, gee, don't be sorry," Teddy quickly replies, forgetting his key entirely and looking at Victoire as if he's the one who should be apologising, "It was a long time ago. I didn't mean to- uh… I was more trying to make conversation than, you know, blame you for bringing up my dead mother. You were just being friendly. I was being an arse. I'm sorry."

"No, I'm sorry," Victoire hastily repeats, "I shouldn't have…"

But she's not quite sure what she shouldn't have done.

"It's no problem, really," Teddy insists. "You weren't to know."

"I'm sorry," Victoire says again, utterly miserable at how dumb she is. Maybe moving to an island won't be necessary, but never speaking to anyone ever again definitely will be.

She turns to leave before she can be any more of an idiot – perhaps remind Teddy about a beloved childhood pet that was recently run over by a truck? – and keeps her eyes on the floor and she slips past him, heading for the door.

A blast of snowy air hits Victoire in the face when she starts outside, the cold goes straight through her stupid non-hippogriff-down jacket. It's not like she can go back now though, so she pushes onwards, hoping that she'll somehow manage not to end the day as an ice sculpture.

"Wait, Victoire!"

She turns at the sound of Teddy's voice, looking up to see him framed in the doorway of their apartment building.

"I'm having a Christmas party at my house tonight. Just a few people, a really casual thing. I'd love it if you could come along."

"Really?" she asks. "What should I bring?"

"Nothing," he says, "just your wonderful self."

The warmth of those words is definitely the only reason Victoire doesn't get turned into an ice sculpture by the cold. She cannot fathom any other logical explanation for it.

…

Seven o'clock rolls around and Victoire stands up from the couch to press her ear against her front door again.

Teddy forgot to tell her what time his party would start, probably because he assumed that she, like any other normal human being, would be generally busy throughout the evening and would come by his place when she could. But because she is not any other normal human being (and is in fact a witch who, in hoping to become an Auror, spends her days being called up out of the blue and asked to apparate to undisclosed locations in order to observe her superiors as they go about their job) Victoire got back home shortly after four-thirty this afternoon and, after a very thorough shower (don't even ask), had nothing to do other than settle down on her couch and wait.

There is no sound in the hallway, but Victoire cracks open her door nonetheless to peer around to Teddy's door. His silly 'Nice Underwear' doormat does not look any more scuffed than usual, and nothing about his doorways bears evidence of it having been used by party-goers yet.

Victoire closes her door again and heads back to the couch.

The clock ticks on. Time passes, Victoire can only assume. She fills in the minutes twiddling her thumbs.

It gets to seven-fifteen and Victoire decides that she doesn't want to be late to Teddy's party. That would be rude. She also decides that there would really be no harm in checking her hair one more time, and undoing just one more button on her blouse. It looks stupid to have all but one button done up. All but two makes much more sense.

She spends an extra thirty seconds searching her kitchen cupboards for something to bring, even though Teddy told her not to worry. Well, actually, he told her not to bring anything but 'her wonderful self', but she doesn't want to get all flustered before she even arrives.

Victoire leaves her apartment, takes a deep, calming breath, and knocks three times on Teddy's door. She can hear him shuffling around inside, imagines that she's early and he's still setting up, or that she's late and he's already packing up, or that she's got the day wrong altogether and he's about to be very surprised to see her here at all. His footsteps get closer and she hastily does up that second button again. Merlin, she has to stop being dumb. It's a casual get together. She doesn't want to look too risqué.

Teddy opens the door with a soft, friendly smile.

"Victoire," he greets, and her name has been yelled at her by her parents, whispered to her in the night by her siblings, pronounced proudly by professors, but never before has it sounded so nice.

He opens his arms and they hug, which has happened before but still feels just amazing.

"Merry Christmas," he says, his breath warm on her neck.

"I'm early," she replies, staring over his shoulder at the deserted room behind him.

Teddy's living room is covered with half-hung decorations, streamers and tinsel littering the floor and furniture rather than the ceiling. The smell of a roasting turkey fills the apartment, as well as the sizzle of something cooking on the stove.

Laughing at her comment, Teddy lets Victoire go, stepping away from the door and motioning for her to come in.

"You're not that early," he promises, "I'm just finishing with the food."

Victoire eyes the streamers and tinsel.

"And the decorations," Teddy belatedly adds.

"Right. Well, it's a good thing I'm here then. What can I do to help?"

"You can get yourself a glass of champagne and relax."

"No, I cannot. I barged in here early, so to make up for it, I'm going to help. And also to make up for other things that I might have said to you earlier today. Ill-thought-out things, that I'm very sorry for mentioning."

Teddy understands the implication but waves off her apologies, insisting again that there's nothing to be sorry for. He does take up her offer to help though, delegating her to the streamers and tinsel while he rushes back into the kitchen, suddenly remembering whatever he'd left on the stove.

"So who else is meant to be coming?" Victoire asks as she untangles a long string of gold tinsel.

"Just some friends," Teddy calls back, out of sight, "My godfather and his family. It's sort of a Christmas tradition. He brought me up see, since my parents were…"

Teddy goes quiet. Neither of them say 'dead'.

"And now he comes to visit you for the holidays," Victoire fills in the silence. "That's nice."

"Yeah, it's great to see everyone from time to time. His wife is great too, sort of like a, I don't know, a big sister to me. And their kids are adorable. Growing up faster than I can keep track of."

Victoire smiles, clambering up onto a chair so she can reach to dangle the tinsel over a light fitting on the ceiling. It's nice to hear Teddy talk about his family. They've been neighbours for ages, but they've never really talked about families before. She always makes a point to avoid talking about hers, worried she'll give something away about her non-Muggle lifestyle.

"How many kids do they have?"

"Three. Two boys and a girl."

"That's just like my family! Only we're two girls and a boy."

"You have siblings?" Teddy sounds genuinely interested, and Victoire tries not to be delighted.

"Yep. A younger brother and sister. And about a thousand cousins."

"Yeah, I come from a big family too. Or, I mean, my godfather does. But I haven't caught up with all of them for ages. Not since before I moved out."

"Why not?"

Teddy makes a non-committal noise, and Victoire pauses to consider how to disguise the end of her current string of tinsel. She ties it off rather messily and tries to stuff the end out of sight, frowning at the result. Magic would certainly make this whole decorating business much easier.

"I was just a weird age in the family, I think. I mean, I'm a year or so older than my – their – eldest cousin, and then she's more than a year older than her sister, and my godfather's kids are more than five years younger than me. And my godfather is less than twenty years older than me, so I got to being a teenager and I couldn't really work out who I related to more, the kids or the adults, you know? I'd almost finished school the year my godfather's eldest started, so I figured it would be a good time to move out, to do my own thing."

"Sounds complicated."

Teddy laughs.

"I think I make it sound worse than it is. It's just big families. They're a bit tiring sometimes."

"I know exactly what you mean."

Victoire glares at the pile of streamers on the floor. She can feel the hard shape of her wand in her pocket, and as long as Teddy doesn't come out of the kitchen she figures there would really be no harm in using it. Glancing towards the kitchen door, behind which Teddy is still concealed, Victoire quickly draws her wand. She waves it at the pile of streamers and they shoot up into the air, draping themselves artfully around the eaves. She grins to herself and puts her wand away again. Teddy will never find out.

"It's nice to talk to you about this stuff," Teddy says, and Victoire follows the sound of his voice into the kitchen.

The room is filled with delicious smells – turkey, honey-glazed vegetables, and a sweet, caramel something that Teddy is tending to at the stove.

Teddy apparently didn't hear Victoire enter the room, and he is still speaking up when he adds, "You never seem to talk about your family. Why is tha- oh!"

He catches sight of her standing by the fridge when he turns around to check something in the oven. His cheeks are red, maybe from the heat of the stove, maybe not, but it makes Victoire's insides squirm either way.

"I didn't know you were there."

"And I didn't mean to sneak up on you. Sorry." Victoire looks away, trying not to think about the startling regularity of her apologies today.

Teddy licks his lips and look away too, the silence stretching out awkwardly between them. Then he seems to remember what he was about to do, and turns away to open the oven, bending down to look at whatever's inside. Victoire tries not to swoon at the sight he presents her with.

"Everything here smells so good!" she quickly says, "I couldn't help coming into have a look. What's that on the stove?"

Teddy straightens and motions for Victoire to step closer. He moves over to make room for her beside him at the stove, and as she squeezes in beside him, she is suddenly very aware of how small the kitchen is. Her whole side form shoulder to knee is pressed against his, her skin tingling and heart pumping out a syncopated, fast beat.

Inside the pan, Teddy is cooking what look like pancakes in a pool of caramel sauce. Victoire's mouth is watering just at the sight of it, and the smell is heavenly.

"Do you want to try some?" Teddy asked, "I've already eaten too much myself. You can tell me if it's ready yet."

"I really shouldn't," Victoire said, "I'm an awful cook. I'll probably tell you the wrong thing entirely."

"I'm sure you won't," Teddy laughed.

He scoops up some of the sauce in a tea spoon and hold it out towards Victoire's mouth.

"Please help me," he says, tone teasingly desperate, "If I have one more spoonful I won't fit out the kitchen door."

Teddy's eyes are irresistible from this close, and Victoire's heart really can't handle it anymore.

"Well," she concedes, not at all reluctantly, "if you insist."

He slips the spoon of delicious, sweet sauce into her mouth, and Victoire thinks there' no way that this isn't the most thrilling, intimate thing for two people who are definitely not dating to do. She closes her eyes and hums in delight around the metal of the spoon and Teddy laughs.

"Is it that good?" he asks, sounding a little bit flustered.

Victoire nods, eyes still closed, and reaches up to take the spoon out of Teddy's hand. Only Teddy hols on, and Victoire's hand ends up closing around his.

She opens her eyes.

Teddy is right there in front of her, his cheeks still flushed and a gorgeous, soft smile on his lips. Victoire's face is suddenly hot and the kitchen suddenly seems four times smaller than it already was. Her body is so close to Teddy's, and their hands are touching and holding and not letting go, and Victorie is almost glad to still have that spoon in her mouth so that she can't blurt out something embarrassing.

"Don't say anything," Teddy warns, as if he's reading her mind. He tugs on the spoon to make her let go.

Together, their hands fall down onto the bench. The spoon clangs against the linoleum bench top. The noise makes Victoire jump and her hand holding Teddy's shifts, knocking the spoon down onto the floor. The sound of it hitting the tiles is deafening in the silence.

Teddy's eyes move away from Victoire's to look at their hands. She follows his gaze, watches as his thumb strokes over the back of her palm, tender, gentle and sweet. The sensation of its zings through her body, making her skin tingle and emptying her lungs. Victoire feels breathless. Charged.

"Teddy," she whispers.

He only hesitates for a moment, his eyes flicking up to meet hers, his hand shuddering a little where she holds it, before he leans in. Victoire's eyes close and she lets out one last short, desperate breath before his lips touch hers.

The caramel sauce is bubbling in the pan and the turkey is cooking in the oven and there is a spoon on the floor of Teddy's tiny kitchen and none of that matters at all because Victoire is kissing her neighbour like there's no tomorrow. Her free hand has found its way onto his arm, and she'd never even really noticed his arms before but oh she really, really should have. She feels his bicep tense as he reaches out for her waist, his hand settling on her hip and pulling her in closer. Without hesitation or grace she stumbles a step further forward and falls against his chest. Teddy lets out a sigh between their lips, and Victoire feels the warm air hanging there, trapped in the tiny space between their mouths.

They stop for a moment, foreheads pressed together before Teddy's lips move to brush against Victoire's nose, her cheeks. Between kisses he murmurs that she's beautiful, that he's wanted to do this forever, each wonderful word falling like a sheet over them, closing them off from the outside world. Their fingers are still tangled together on the bench and when Teddy lifts their clutching hands to press his lips against her wrist, Victoire smiles wide, her heart beating with so much happiness that she thinks it might make her pass out.

"You have no idea-" Teddy says without conclusion, as if his feelings defy the limitations of words.

"Oh, I do," Victoire promises, "I really, really do."

Teddy leans in kiss Victoire's smile, this time chastely and slowly: a tender, laughing peck that doesn't need to be anything more.

"I need to finish cooking," Teddy grins when he pulls away, shuffling back to put some distance between their bodies. "And you can't stay here while I do that. You're too distracting."

Victoire glows at the compliment. Then she sidles up closer, closing the cavern between her and Teddy again.

"What if I don't want you to cook anymore?" she asks, tone all innocence. "What if I want to distract you instead?"

To emphasise her point, Victoire runs her hands up Teddy's sides to curl around his shoulders. She pushes up onto her tiptoes so her eyes are level with his, then glances pointedly down at his perfect, pink lips.

"I've unleashed a monster."

Victoire laughs, but doesn't back down. She's too ecstatic to be shy, her veins filled with too much electricity to have any desire to stop this wonderful thing.

Teddy leans forward, his arm circling her waist to pull her in, and Victoire's eyes flutter shut. She is all prepared to revel in her victory, only Teddy's lips never make contact with hers. Opening her eyes again, Victoire seeds that he has leant over her shoulder instead, reaching behind her to turn the dials on the oven and stove, switching them off.

"That was rude," Victoire tells him.

"As rude as arriving early to a party and accosting the host midway through him cooking dinner?"

"What you did was much more rude than that," Victorie replies sagely, "It's practically illegal to delay pretty girls right when they're trying to accost handsome men."

Teddy raises his eyebrows at 'handsome men' as if to ask who, me? and it takes all Victoire's self-control not to go back to kissing him then.

Instead she changes her grip on Teddy's shoulders, freeing one hand to run it over his collarbone. She lets her gaze follow her hand, tracing a deliberate, slow line down Teddy's chest as she says, "Besides, I much prefer to think of all this as a seduction rather than a case of accosting."

Then Teddy does something Victoire did not expect but is one percent on board with nonetheless.

With more force than she knew he was capable of, he pushes them both across the space of the kitchen, crowding her against the far bench. His arms wrap around her tighter, pulling her feet of the ground as his lips slam into hers. The kiss is searing, demanding, so scorching hot that Victoire sort of melts into Teddy's touch, his hands sliding down her body to hold her low on her hips and take her full weight.

Victoire decides she could very much grow to like this new, sexy Teddy.

They kiss for longer than is probably strictly healthy, Victoire learning about a million new things about Teddy in the space of a few minutes. She learns, for instance, that she really should have left that extra button of her blouse undone, and also that the state of the world in general could definitely be improved by her neighbour Teddy never, ever wearing a shirt. She also learns that the journey from Teddy's kitchen to his bedroom is a ridiculously long way, but that he is perfectly capable of carrying her the entire, insurmountable distance. And she learns that Teddy has a knack for neatly making his bed, but that his talent is completely negated by his ability to mess up his bed by falling onto it, pulling Victoire on top of him.

The two of them are missing some choice clothes by the next time they resurface. Teddy has just rolled Victoire over, and she has celebrated the freeing her hands by grabbing for the button of his jeans. Teddy's head falls into the spacer between Victoire's head a shoulder, his lips hard on her neck as he says, "Merlin, Victoire, why didn't we do this sooner?"

And everything sort of stops.

Victoire can literally hear her own heartbeat, and suspects Teddy can too. He is frozen in place, his breaths hot and fast on the skin of her neck.

The sound of a knock on Teddy's front door echoes through the silence.

"That would be your family," Victoire says.

Without a word, Teddy pushes himself up, rolling away to swing his legs over the side of the bed and onto the ground, where they hit the carpet with a muted thump. He buries his face in his hands for a long moment.

Behind him, Victoire sits up, picking up her top from the end of the bed and pulling it on. She is numb with confusion.

Victoire is aware of Teddy's standing up, bending over to pick up his shirt as well. He buttons is up quickly, checks that his pants are done up, then goes to the bedroom door.

"I can explain," he says, still facing away, "Victoire. I didn't mean to- to deceive you or anything…"

"We'll talk later," Victoire tells him. She wonders whether or not she is lying.

She watches Teddy leave the room. His arse is still as lovely as ever, but everything else seems to have changed now that she knows. It's as if the foundation stone of their relationships has been cracked in half. Or, you know, flipped upside down and turned inside out and transfigured into a hippo.

Because, as it turns out, Victoire's neighbour Teddy is not a Muggle.

She doesn't really know how to handle that revelation.

Victoire moves off Teddy's bed, creeping to the bedroom door to watch as Teddy shakes himself one more time before opening up the front door. Victoire's ears seeming to be blocked, her sense not working right because of how shaken she is, but she hears Teddy greeting his family and figures that she has to act normal, she just has to make it through dinner and then she and Teddy can talk. Or not talk. Depending on how she feels later.

Hoisting a friendly smile onto her face, Victoire approaches the front door, not quite meeting Teddy's eye as he catches sight of her. His gaze is, for a moment, uncertain and scared. He is as worried as she about the conversation they'll soon have to have. But then he smiles too-brightly as well and open the front door fully, stepping aside to let his family in.

Victoire starts moving forward, ready to shake hands, to make small talk, to get to know Teddy's family.

And then, for the second time in a matter of minutes, everything once again stops.

"Victoire?" Ginny says, "What are you doing here?"

Victoire's throat is bone dry, her voice will not work. She stares, paralysed, at Teddy.

His brow is furrowed, his eyes dark with confusion. He opens his mouth to ask Merlin-knows-what, and Victoire is grateful beyond measure that her voice chooses that moment to return.

"Aunt Ginny!" she greets, leaping forward to throw her arms around her auntie's neck in a much too enthusiastic hug.

She gives Teddy a pointed look over Ginny's shoulder, and is treated with a glance at the dawning expression of comprehension on his face.

Victoire bites her lip, forces her gaze to meet Teddy's, even and hard. With her eyes she tells him, the whole I'm a wizard revelation is practically microscopic. There is one basic fundamental problem right now, and it has nothing at all to do with magic.