...
Because in all honesty, it's time to bring back the real love, honey.
what is love?
what's to come, still unsure
shakespeare twelfth night
There's something that ties them together. . The most famous kids of their generation.
In the same way the stars are strung together in the sky, shining brilliantly on their own, but still close enough to reach one beside them. They become a pandemonium of accolades. Still, they try to separate, each shining as bright as they can, but they're still a maze. There's still something that bonds them.
And Lucy Weasley, being the girl that she is, is determined to find out what.
After all, when Molly cut her hair, she was the first one to notice it was because people kept mixing her up with Rose, or when Louis decided to become a player, because that was expected from the part-Veela boy. Each and every one of them, one by one, found something that made them different, and clung to it.
Even if it wasn't really them, because, well, how does one know what's them and what's not?
So try, try as they may to be different, to put distance between them, there's still something that ties them together in an anarchy of brilliance.
..
Some say, that love has disappeared. It has vanished, and been replaced by artificial love. Love that, on the outside, looks real, feels real. But lacks the depth that makes it genuine. Sometimes, Lucy agrees, because, well, it's the twenty-first century, and it's just what people do.
But there's other times when she completely disagrees. Because she sees it, alive, in every family gathering they have at the Burrow. Every look her parents share. She sees it in the smiles and hugs her aunt and uncles give. She sees it when James and Fred go into over-protective cousin mode over the younger ones, and the fights Molly and Lysander have. She sees it in the happy sunshine days that Hugo and Lily take, and in the kisses Teddy and Victoire share.
In those moments, she knows they're wrong.
That sort of love clings to every corner, fills every space, lingers in the nooks and crannies. It's the reason Grandma Weasley keeps the back door open; there's too much love to be contained in a crooked house.
Said crooked house, today, is filled with pretty girls in dresses and handsome boys in tuxes, getting ready for the event that has been perfectly planned for months. Everyone's smiling and happy, and, nope, wait, she's describing the wrong family. Lucy picks a piece of lint off her dress and settles more comfortably in the kitchen chair, continuing to watch the chaos that is the preparation for Victoire's wedding.
"James!" Dominique cries, jumping on his back, still in old jeans that belong to Molly.
"Give me back my shoes! I have to get ready, or my mum will shoot me!"
James holds the glittery heels in front of him, Nic still squirming from her place on his back. He leans back quickly, and she falls onto the couch.
"Catch me if you can!" He runs, and Dominique sprints after him, barefoot and blonde hair flying everywhere.
Lucy scans the room again, watching her family silently. Nobody watches her, because that would be another person to care for, admist the confusion of many people. She doesn't mind. She swings her right leg over the chair, and rocks it back and forth like a metronome.
Her eyes land on Roxanne, stomping her foot and shaking her head. "I am not forcing my feet into those shoes. I'm going to die in them!" Victoire floats over, just about to step into her wedding gown.
"Please, Roxie? For me?" She gives her one of her sweetest smiles.
Roxanne sighs. "Promise I never have to wear them again?"
Victoire grins. "Promise."
"Only because I love you," says Roxanne, slipping on the heels.
Lucy shifts her gaze to Albus and Rose. "Please, Rosie, get your nose out of the book and help me out, here!" Albus whines. Lucy wonders why he's the only person in the family who gets away with calling her that. She watches as Rose slams the book shut and stands up.
"Merlin, Al, when did you get so tall?" she exclaims, reaching up to fix his bowtie.
Al grins and lifts his chin. "Same time the voice got lower, I s'pose," he responds, lowering his chin after she's finished. The two link arms and make their way out to the garden.
Following Al and Rose's lead, she makes her way into the garden, where the Easter flowers are in bloom, and the sky's the most brilliant shade of blue. The guests are arriving for the backyard wedding, and she makes her way over to where her cousins are standing, the girls in identical royal blue dresses, and the guys in black tuxes. She rushes to take her place beside Lorcan, and slipping her arm through his. Rose and Albus, followed by Dominique and Scorpius walk out.
After a few seconds, Lucy and Lorcan walk out, followed by the rest of her cousins, all paired up.
Lucy and Lorcan separate, but he gives her a wink before he lets her arm go. Lucy feels a blush stain her cheeks.
..
The wedding is lovely, and there isn't a dry eye in sight. Teddy is positively glowing, and Lucy has never seen Victoire look as beautiful as she does right now, with eyes like stars and dreams of the future in her pocket.
There's food and dancing, and laughter and family, and it's not all perfect, but they're the Weasley/Potters, and they never did follow the expectations people place on them.
"For the love of Merlin, Ly!" Molly half-stands from her place at the round table. "They don't exist because it's physically impossible for them to exist!"
Lysander snorts. "Please, Molly, you sound like such a child. This is coming from a witch. Every time you wave your wand you're defying all the laws of science! Everything magic has nothing to do with logic!"
Molly rolls her eyes. "But I can see magic. Gertle Gum Bees cannot possibly exist, or be the cure to Spattergroit, because no one's ever seen them!"
"Muggles say that about magic everyday, Moll! And last time I checked, there was a wand in your back pocket!"
By now the two of them are standing, leaning across the table, and beet red in the face. They have caught the attention of the entire party.
Lily rolls her eyes and claps her hands. "All right, everyone, shows over! C'mon, Al, let's go dance." She drags her brother out onto the dance floor, her eyes sparkling, and his pleading nonono.
Lucy smiles quietly to herself, tugging on a strand of her newly straight hair.
Uncle Bill clinks his fork to his glass, signaling for everyone's attention. "Erm-hello. Thanks so much everyone for being here." He stands up.
"I'd like to make a toast to the bride and groom."
He stumbles some, for sure, but he's the father of the bride, and that's to be expected. Victoire looks up at her daddy with tears in her eyes, and mouths a thank you. Everyone claps at the end, smiling and nodding, the picture of a wedding to perfection.
She rises from the table she's seated at, and goes to sit where some of her cousins are clustered, around a small round table. Lily scoots over on her chair to make room for her.
"The fact is, is that Louis would last longer because of his hair colour," James says.
Lily sticks her tongue out at her brother. "He would not. Blonde hair is as easy to recognize as red."
"What're they debating?" Lucy asks Roxanne. Dominique answers for her. "Who can last on the roof of the Burrow longer without getting caught." Lucy sighs, wondering how such topics come about. She twirls one of Lily's curls around her finger. "Personally, I'm betting on Lily. She'd be quieter than you, Louis."
Stella Nott, his girlfriend, agrees. "Nice to see where your loyalties like, Stell," grumbles Louis.
"Fine," Fred says, "now that we've all cast out votes, let's test it out."
"You can't honestly think about going up on the roof in the middle of a wedding," Lucy says. "Just wait til later!"
Lily scampers off the chair. "No way! I want my five Galleons." She slips into the house, and Lucy sees her figure in the window, lifting the latch and climbing up onto the roof. She sits there, high up in the sky, legs dangling, and red hair blowing. James and Dominique silently count, getting all the way up to six minutes before they hear the telltale screech of Aunt Ginny, calling her daughter 'to get off the roof this instant'. Lily climbs back into the window, and emerges through the front door, laughing. "How'd I do?"
"Six minutes," Fred says. "Got get 'em, Louis."
Apparating up onto the roof, Louis sits there, kicking his legs against the house. They all watch with bated breath as he approaches five minutes, then six minutes, and finally, eight minutes before Aunt Fleur catches him and calls him out on it. By now, they're all laughing, and Louis Apparates back down, and triumphant smile on his face. "Sorry, Lils," he says, holding out his hand. "Blonde hair's the charm."
Lily grumbles as she pulls the money from James' pocket and hands it to him. She bolts off in the other direction, when James notices what she has just done. She weaves through guests, her loss forgotten.
"Well," says Dominique, "that was entertaining, but I must be going."
"Going where, exactly?" Fred asks, sarcastically.
"Oh, you know. Places to go, people to see." She slaps the air with her hand, and drags Roxie off with her. And just like that, they all vanish.
..
"Hey, Luce?" She looks up from her half-eaten cake, and stares up at Lorcan. "Wanna dance?"
This shouldn't work, 'cause Lorcan doesn't know the first think about dreaming, or wishing, and he's just a guy who shrugs and goes through life, but somehow, Cupid fires his arrow straight to her heart, anyways. She spends the afternoon dancing until the sun sets. The two of them laugh and joke, dance and eat Lucy's heart light and her head full.
The stars have come out to play, and a slow song begins, the last dance of the evening. Lorcan draws her close, and she tries to control the butterflies.
She watches over his shoulder; Lysander with his head buried in his Molly's curls, Dominique and Scorpius smiling and whispering. She's glad they're all outside, or else the windows would shatter, and the door would burst.
..
Later, after the lightning bugs come out, and the moon has risen, the sun setting from it's brilliant shine, and Lucy changing into jeans and an old shirt of Fred's, she sits in the grass. Listening, as always, to her family.
Her favourite sound.
Lorcan sits beside her, brushing his thumb against hers, and she breathes in love. The lake is near, and she can faintly see reflections of themselves in it, pieces, fragments. Lacking depth, like mirrors, because everything's locked up beneath a sheet of glass.
Lucy turns around to watch her cousins, bound by the eccentricities of real love, hanging high for the world to see, because stars that were tied together were never meant to be locked up behind mirrors that lacked depth.
They were meant to be seen high in the sky for world to view them, whole and sometimes tainted, but never the less real.
a/n: please leave a review to let me know what you thought, I'm really nervous about this one!
No favouriting without leaving a review, please and thank you! :)
Disclaimer: I own.. the plot, but that doesn't get me superrich and famous, so I guess it's not that big of a deal.
