&&. gonna make it s o m e d a y

[Liberty Martin]

h u g o ,

.hugo weasley
.year 2022
.hugo's fifth year
.the burrow, christmas holidays
.open to one of the weasley/potter family only
.at least three paragraphs

no matter what test comes my way...[/color]

Being the youngest was not fun. This was something that Hugo had worked out over time, and an opinion that probably would not change for the rest of his life, or at least not until such time as he was an adult himself and therefore it was no longer relevant. It wasn't just the fact that he was the younger sibling; he could have coped with Rose being older than him if it was just her who did everything first. But no, in the large Potter-Weasley family - and it was the largest family Hugo had ever heard of that actually got on well with each other - he was the youngest. Not only Rose, but Victoire, Albus, James...even Lily was older than he was, if only by a few months. And he hated it. Who would like being the baby, when you lived in a household that had already had the greatest achievements of them all, before you were even old enough to be able to consider getting there yourself? Prefects, Quidditch Captains, even Head Boy...it had all been done in their family at some point or another, and it left Hugo nothing to work with. He loved his family dearly, even those of his cousins who always irritated him when they were sitting through the long Christmas meal, but he couldn't help but wishing he'd been left with something that he could achieve that hadn't already been done before. Instead, he was following in the footsteps of everyone else, not doing anything particularly special or that deserved any recognition.

Hugo hated it; he truly did. Sometimes, he wondered why he bothered attempting to get O's in his OWLs, or practising Quidditch in the hope that he might make the team. It was a terribly depressing feeling, to know that everything had already been achieved, and you had nothing else that was out there to let you feel good about yourself. All of his cousins bar Lily had done their OWLs and were now onto NEWTs, which deserved so much more encouragement from their parents because they were so much harder, or, in the case of Victoire and James, had even graduated from Hogwarts and were out in the Wide World, doing all sorts of amazing things. Maybe things would be better when he'd left Hogwarts, Hugo reasoned. Then, he'd be able to feel like he was doing something that no-one else in the family had done, because he could choose his own career path. He didn't have a clue what he wanted to do, though being an Auror would be cool, even if both his parents had done that, but whatever it was, it would be an achievement. It wasn't that Hugo didn't love his family, because he loved them dearly, it was just he was sick of feeling like a failure simply because he'd been born later than everyone else. There were times when he didn't think that he was worthy of the Weasley family name.

However, the thing that Hugo loved most about his family was that it was so large, and that there was always someone to talk to. Even his grandparents were pretty cool, if Gran did always make him peel potatoes and try and cut his hair, and there weren't many people who could say that they thought their grandparents were cool. And then there were all his cousins; he didn't think that there was really one he disliked, although his sister could be utterly annoying at times. The Burrow, where they had had Christmas dinner for as long as Hugo could remember, was already filled with noise and festivities, and Christmas wasn't for a few days yet. As soon as the holidays had begun at Hogwarts, everyone had squished themselves into the not overly large rooms of the house, sometimes three or four of them to a bedroom just to get everyone in. Hugo was staying in rather close quarters to James and Albus, but he liked it. His cousins were far more fun than his sister was, and they seemed to spend half the night talking, at least until Mum came along and told them to shut up. Their room was decorated to the hilt, with tinsel and flashing lights covering almost every available surface, until it was more like midnight on Oxford Street than Christmas at home.

Downstairs, decorations had been put up too, but they were far neater than those in the boys' bedroom. Instead of looking as though they had just been thrown around, and stayed where they'd landed (which was pretty much the truth, if Hugo was honest), they hung almost symmetrically along the walls of the dining room, reds and greens of the baubles being offset by the shimmering gold of the tinsel behind them...and this was just the walls. As was usual, they only had a small tree inside, because with upwards of twenty people inside, there wasn't much room for manoeuvre if they had to cope with a large pine tree as well. But outside...outside was the most amazing tree Hugo had ever seen; it even topped the ones that decorated Hogwarts, and that was saying something, as they were pretty magnificent trees in themselves. Not that Hugo was biased or anything...he just happened to be immensely proud of his family, and anything that belonged to them was automatically the best thing around. In fact, insults to his family were usually the only thing that got Hugo riled, as he was a generally mild-mannered boy and was far more content to let life go on around him than to create fights purely for amusement. Of course, some Slytherins were obnoxious gits that he couldn't allow just to walk past without doing anything, but even they didn't seem to be as bad as some of the Slytherins his father had spoken about. No, it was just his family that he was protective over, and he would easily pick a fight with anyone who said something against them. He couldn't help it; he was just so close to everyone and they meant so much to him that he was almost over-protective of the Potter and Weasley names.

However, at the moment, Hugo had escaped from his Gran's potato peeler (why did he need to peel potatos by hand when there were people in the house who could use magic and do it in about three seconds flat) and was sitting on his own in his room, legs stretched out on the floor in front of him and back leaning against the side of his bed. In his hand, he held the prefect badges of both his parents; he was turning them over and over, wondering if he would ever get to wear one too. Fifth year was the year that prefects were first chosen, and he hadn't recieved a badge this year. Of course, there was still next year, and even his seventh year, but he was beginning to doubt that he'd ever get one. Something else that would make him a failure; both his parents had been prefects, his sister was a prefect...was he destined to be the black sheep in the family, the one that never did anything good with his life? He didn't want that; he wanted to do something good. If it wasn't prefect, it had to be something darn good to compensate for not having a badge on his cloak.

...i'm going to make it someday

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[daphne greengrass]

Enter Victoire
[because you know you love my Vikki, Libby]

This was it. Victoire swore it. This was going to be the last year she wasn't going to be a married woman. The last Christmas she would spend with the Weasley named. She planned, oh so much, to be married upon and receive the Lupin last name. She'd only been in love with the boy, oh, nine years. Could have been longer, in fact she was sure it was longer than that. However, Victoire wasn't even engaged yet. So she figured that this time she would be, once again, let down. But, considering the fact she happened to be holding in a secret this time was factor in moving Teddy along. After all, the boy wasn't dense. He would notice when a baby came along in seven months. And, more than that, he would notice her stomach in a matter of two. Her entire family would. Oh, surprise parents of lovely little Vikki! She got herself pregnant before she even got engaged. But, hey, she lived with Teddy. Were he parents really expecting anything else?

Softly, she sighed, pushing herself off the bed she claimed as hers the day before. Her family was always crazy during Christmas, and she lived rather far away. Plus, she didn't quite love the idea of traveling all over Europe over Christmas, she might as well stay here until everything died down. But, honestly, this house was insane. However, Christmas at the Burrow was always insane, wasn't it? Just once, for once in her life, she wished to have a quiet Christmas. With her family, of course. Which seemed to be impossible due to the fact it was her family that caused the insane boast of noise and various other problems throughout the entire home. But Vikki shouldn't say everything was a problem, really. Because it wasn't. None of it was. She loved her family, without a doubt. They were perfect in her eyes. She let her eyes drift around the room. Everything was perfectly aligned. All the decorations. Everything. Perfectly aligned to the point it made downstairs look like someone had let things stay wherever they may land. Okay, so maybe Vikki had a problem with being a tad bit OCD most of the time.

She was always in this room. And Hugo was nearly always next to her room. Nearly always. Sometimes, however, he was down the hallway. She was, by far, the only one who could say one of two things in this house. One, was, by far, the most noticeable. She had long blonde hair given to her by her Veela mother. Second, she was the only one in this room. However, when Teddy came over, he was often pushed into her room. Her parents trusted the two of them wouldn't do something absurd. But, Teddy, somehow wasn't here yet. He was still working. Victoire rolled her eyes. He was always working it seemed. And, she would never admit it out loud, but she didn't like it all too much. In fact, she hated it. She was, after all, in love with him. Sighing, she walked to the door and pushed it open. She could already see the youngest of the family sitting in the room across from hers. So, naturally, she was looking for something to do. She figured she might as well make use for her cousin.

"You escaped Gran, already?" she asked, leaning against the door frame. Vikki laughed lightly. "I must say I'm impressed. I think it's a record." Her baby blue eyes fell lightly down to the badges in his hand and she sighed softly. "You're fretting over it, aren't you?" she asked very softly, her voice barely breaking a whisper as she moved closer and sat next to him on the floor. Her jeans protested this and hugged her legs tighter as she moved so her legs were off to the side as she tilted her head in question at Hugo.

[/size]

[Liberty Martin]

h u g o ,

Even up here, Hugo could hear the sounds of the family filtering through the floor and disturbing what would have been the peace of solitude. Not that there was ever any peace in the Weasley household; it was an impossible thing to ask, and Hugo had never expected any different. He liked the fact that even though he was alone on this floor, he could hear Lily and Albus shouting at each other in the kitchen, and Gran shouting even louder and telling them to get on with the potatoes, or beans, or whatever it was she was making them prepare at the moment. Uncle George and Uncle Charlie were having what the grown-ups always called a ‘debate’, but what Hugo knew to be an argument, over some dragon thing, and he could hear more than one voice laughing loudly, making all the shouting (although it was more affectionate than anything else) seem irrelevant. If there was one thing that he could guarantee about being at the Burrow for Christmas (apart from being forced to prepare vegetables and being threatened with a haircut), it was that there would always be laughter. This was a happy house, and hopefully would be for years to come; that was what Hugo liked the most. Most people would have become sick of the noise, but Hugo could hold his own; he wasn’t the noisiest of his cousins, but he wasn’t exactly shy, either.

The only problem Hugo could think of, with a family this large, was the hellish task he always had of buying presents at Christmas, and remembering everyone’s birthday. His own family were alright, and he always knew what to get Albus and James, but with the adults and the girls, he had much more of a job. He didn’t know what sort of perfume was fashionable, if it was fashionable at all, and frankly, he didn’t care. Girls were strange creatures, and he always had to enlist the help of Lily to buy for the females in the family, herself excluded. Being in the same year, they often went to Hogsmeade together, especially if their other friends were busy or had decided that they didn’t fancy being in the middle of the raucous caused by the youngest Potter, with the help of the youngest Weasley. Hugo wasn’t a mischievous boy, and much preferred to get things done with a bit of moaning than to mess them up completely, but his cousin was a trouble maker and a half, and he always found himself dragged along into her plans. It perhaps wasn’t the best thing to happen to him, but he couldn’t help it. He didn’t want Lily to think he was boring and stuffy, just like he didn’t want mum and dad to be disappointed in him, or Rose to think he was stupid, or Victoire to stop liking him the best (aside from Teddy, who didn’t quite count as they were going to get married at some point, or so Victoire kept saying).

It seemed that Victoire appeared out of nowhere just as he was thinking about her, and made Hugo jump about a foot off the ground. A smile spread across his face; he loved to spend time with his oldest cousin, especially when no-one else was around, because it made him feel special, Victoire was so much older and cleverer, and beautiful and all these things that he wasn’t. Besides, he really liked her, and if he’d been forced to say, he would have admitted that she was his favourite cousin every time. Maybe she was too old to want to run around playing practical jokes like he did with Lily (and Uncle George, come to that, and he was far older than Victoire was…), but she could help him with work, and he was really the only person he trusted enough to tell her of his worries that his parents would be disappointed in him. Because it was a huge worry of his, and part of the reason that he was sitting here now with two prefect badges in his hand. The last thing he wanted was for his parents to feel like he was a failure and not worthy to be a son of theirs, because he wished so badly to be able to make them proud. He just wasn’t sure he was capable of it.

“I hate peeling vegetables,” Hugo replied, “’specially when she could do it in a few seconds.” He’d never seen the point of it, but his father had told him that he’d had to peel the vegetables at Christmas when he’d been a kid, just as all his brothers before him had, and now it was the same for Hugo’s generation. It was like some strange family ritual that Hugo didn’t understand at all, and did his best to get out of. “I’m surprised she’s not come and hunted me down yet, though,” he added, looking through the door into the hallway as if expecting to see the rather formidable figure of his grandmother standing at the top of the stairs, beckoning him towards her. He shrugged, and looked down to the badges in his hands. “No,” he lied, although Victoire’s scarily accurate comment made the word sound not quite truthful. He closed his fingers over the badges, as if shielding them from view would erase Vikki’s memory of seeing them, and stop her asking one of the awkward questions that was bound to follow, as it inevitably did whenever she caught him like this.

[daphne greengrass]

-victoire-

Victoire would admit to any of her cousin that she favoured the youngest. True, she shouldn't be playing favouritisms with her family. And true, she shouldn't openly admit to playing such a game, but it was how she was. Favour the baby. Besides, he was honestly the only one she could stand to be around for a long period of time. All the others wanted to go off and do something stupid, or want her assistance in something she deemed moronic. However, this wasn't to say she didn't love her family, because she did.

"Okay," she spoke, her voice clearly telling him that she didn't quite believe him. "Sure..." She'd let the subject drop. For now, after all, she had all of winter break. And besides, did she really want to weasel it out of him? No. She wanted him to tell her in his time. Whatever was bothering him, because it was clear that something was, he would tell on his time. Eventually. Granted, this may be several years from now, but still. She wasn't one to push him. Vikki already knew that she had his trust, well, she thought she did. It was never quite protested, but nevertheless. She had his trust, and she didn't plan on breaking it.

So, tell me," she said, crossing her legs and having interest shining bright in her blue eyes. "Tell me everything that you're aware of me getting for Christmas so I can pretend to be happy about it in several days time." Albus and James did tend on getting her.... odd things ( to put it nicely ) things for Christmas. This year, she needed all the help she could get. "I swear, next year I'm making a list for everyone, and a unbreakable, flame-retardant copy will be framed and hanging in this house. I swear. And everyone has to stick to the list." She nodded softly to confirm her idea. It would make everything easier.
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[Liberty Martin]

h u g o ,

Hugo knew that Victoire knew he was lying, and he hated knowing that; lying to his family wasn’t something that he upheld, especially not to his oldest cousin and the only one that he would have trusted with his secrets. Not that this was a secret or anything, he amended; it wasn’t like he’d got a girl pregnant, or had secretly become engaged, or anything dramatic like that. No, this was more of a…private feeling, and though he wished he could tell Victoire properly, he didn’t feel that she’d understand. It wasn’t that she’d laugh at him, because she never laughed at him when he told her something important to him, it was just that she’d always been clever, and pretty, and the first to do everything as she was the oldest, and she had never been in his position. Never would be, either. She didn’t know what it was like to feel as though you were retracing the steps of someone else, never making your own discoveries but always fearing that you were going to be a disappointment to both your parents and your family name. Hugo didn’t want to be a failure, but he didn’t think he could explain his feelings well enough to his cousin for her to be anything but confused. Hell, he was confused, and it was him that was feeling like this.

People always told him he’d do great things when he was older, but here he was, fifteen years of age, officially ‘older’, and what had he done? He’d survived school, and that was about it. He’d not been made prefect, passed any major exams yet (although that wasn’t entirely his fault; he was just too young), saved the whole world from Dark forces five times over like his parents…he’d got nothing to show for his life, it was no wonder he felt like a failure. Sure, anybody would say that he had all of adulthood to achieve something good, and besides, he didn’t have to achieve anything tremendous to be loved by all his family and all that mushy crap, but he didn’t believe it. Believing it was important, and Hugo knew that he’d feel like a failure and a disappointment to the whole family until he did something that equalled the accomplishments of his parents, or his cousins at the very least. He just wanted to do something better than anyone else, for once.

Sighing, Hugo ran a hand through the hair that was far too long by Gran’s judgement; he wanted to tell Victoire why he was holding these badges tightly in his hand and not looking particularly happy about it, and he certainly didn’t want her to think that he didn’t trust her, because she was the only one he’d even consider telling, but he didn’t want to ruin the festivities. “Maybe after Christmas,” he said without even realising he was speaking aloud (it was an annoying habit he had, and he hadn’t managed to work out how to stop doing it). He’d tell Victoire what was bothering him after Christmas, when everyone had had the happy time and wouldn’t mind if he brought a depressing air over the place. Not that most people would notice, since he’d make Vikki swear not to tell another soul. Yes, he’d enjoy Christmas, and all the food and laughter, and everything else that was part of the Weasley-Potter family yuletide celebrations, and then he’d think about this then. Until that time…he looked down at his closed fist, and decisively reached behind him and emptied the badges onto his bed. He’d put them away later, but for now, he had to think of Christmas. It was nearly upon them, after all.

“Why would I tell you what you’re getting?” Hugo asked, glad of the change of subject, because he suddenly sat more upright, and grinned at Victoire mischievously. “Surely it’d be better if I didn’t tell you what you were getting, because you’ll have to pretend to be happy whatever, and you might as well be genuinely surprised, right?” In all honesty, he wasn’t exactly sure what James and Albus had bought Victoire, although it was bound to be gross, explosive or foul-smelling, knowing where they got most of their gifts. Come to that, his gift from them was likely to be gross, explosive or foul-smelling too, and that wasn’t a particularly thrilling prospect. “Although that’s a good idea. I won’t be stuck between two pairs of oddly patterned socks for you if you do that.”