My entry to the HAPPIEST MOMENT IN THEIR LIFE! competition over on HPFC. I hope you enjoy it :)
Also, for those curious, Adele is the daughter of Neville Longbottom and Pansy Parkinson from my story just stay strong.
spread your wings and help me fly
"Sparkle, shimmer, glitter," Rose intones, a quill between her teeth as she attempts to tame her hair.
"Writing another love poem?" I ask with a wry grin. She grins back with a nod, wrapping her tie around her mass of chestnut curls.
"I have an idea about comparing the purity of our love to the night sky," she says enthusiastically, pulling pieces of parchment from her pockets like streamers to find the specific sheet she wants.
"Good luck with that," I laugh, neatly tying a piece of blue ribbon around my ponytail. "I don't suppose you want to come for a run?"
"No way!" she exclaims, shaking her head fervently. "It's going to rain." I just grin and waggle my fingers in an approximation of a wave. She waves back, already glassy-eyed and absorbed in her poetry as I jog out of the common room.
First thing you should know about me: I'm a Ravenclaw, but that doesn't stop me from being as brave and impulsive as a Gryffindor or as cunning and arrogant as a Slytherin. Second thing to know: I am a lesbian and I don't appreciate being judged for it. Third thing: despite my good looks and my magnetic personality - not to mention my Veela powers of attraction - I've never had a steady girlfriend. I've never even been asked out.
I have kissed someone though. Don't be thinking I'm the true definition of Loser's Lurgy or some sad girl who's never been kissed. I kissed a cousin or two, Scorpius and two Slytherin girls during a game of Spin the Bottle and it was very enjoyable, thank you every much.
Rose was right; it's already clouding over by the time I reach the front doors. I don't care. The best thing about running in the rain is the smell that seeps through the trees and plants and even the air. The calm air with no breeze is overflowing with that glorious smell, the scent of emptiness, expectancy, life, promises and that makes absolutely no sense because a smell just can't contain those things.
If I were to describe it as a real scent, I'd call it kind of earthy, sweet, salty…it's hard to explain. Of course, Albus, curt as he is, would call it earthy, while Rose, resident poet in our family, would describe it the way I do.
Thunder crashes, resounding in my breastbone and, as a flash of lightning illuminates the grey sky, I've never felt so alive. I raise my eyes up and open my mouth to taste the cool, inexplicably sweet drops on the tip of my tongue. It's similar to the way I run through snowstorms with Vic, catching snowflakes on my tongue.
I reach the lake and settle onto the only slightly wet grass, leaning against the solid form of my favourite tree. Having lost my ribbon somewhere in the pine trees, my hair is soaking wet, hanging lank around my face. Rose always says rain makes our eyes brighter, our skin softer and our smiles wider. I don't see how. Usually, when I see people walking through the rain, they look miserable, with rain running down their noses and turning them a delicate shade of purple.
I see a shadowy form running through the silvery curtains and sit up straight, interest perked. It's not often anyone else is out as early as this, especially not on a Sunday and especially not to go for a run in the middle of a thunderstorm.
I recognise her when she's still a good few feet away and smile and wave to her. She smiles and waves back, two childish bunches bobbing on either side of her round face.
"Morning, Nikka," she says between long gulps of air, collapsing onto the grass beside me and mopping at her forehead.
"Morning, Della," I say cheerfully, eyeing the shabby trainers she's wearing. "What are you doing out here?"
"I need to get fit," she pants, laying back on the grass with the heavy rise and fall of her chest her only movement.
"Let me guess…Anthony Thomas?" I ask. She nods wordlessly. "Della, he's an idiot. A prat of the highest order."
"He asked me out, you know," she confides. I whistle softly, wondering why she never told me this. "I said no because I didn't think."
"He's a git, you're better off without him," I reassure her, carefully putting an arm around her to avoid damaging the long acrylic nails glued to my fingertips, painted in stripes of blue and bronze. Roxanne will bloody murder me if I break them; she's already had to stick them on again twice this month.
"But I went to him today to say sorry and he was there, snogging Delia Kelvin right in front of me," she says sadly. "He told me I was a fat prude and no boy would ever want me. He said that snogging me would be like snogging a pillar and I'm an ugly…female dog." I resist the giggle that bubbles up inside me - I just can't believe that, at fifteen, she still won't use swearwords - and instead pull her closer, giving her a comforting squeeze.
"Della, you're not fat, you're not a prude, you're not ugly, boys will want you and you are most certainly not a bitch," I tell her firmly. "Anthony's an ugly wanker who only likes the slutty girls, like Delia." She blinks up at me, her gorgeous green eyes clouded by tears.
"You really believe that, Nikka?" she asks, her face full of hope. "Really and truly?"
"I pinky promise," I say solemnly and she giggles as this remnant of childhood, from the endless days of summer when we made each other daisy chains and held out our checked cotton skirts, prancing through the gardens, pretending to be fairies. We vowed to be friends forever, curled up like puppies in the treehouse at night, had tea parties with plastic food and tiny teacups filled with orange juice watered down to look like tea.
I remember when we were ten and cried together when the boy who said he'd marry her took back the ring he gave Della. It turned her finger green and Louis told her it would fall off, but she loved that ring. We were eleven and squealed all the way to Hogwarts, disappointed when I went to Ravenclaw and her to Gryffindor.
"We were really cute when we were kids," she says, her eye sparkling with the happy memories of times past, a smile curving her dimpled cheeks. Two smooth spots of colour, like the petals of some flower I couldn't name - you'd have to ask Vic about that sort of thing - are spread across her cheekbones.
"You're still cute," I giggle, tugging gently and affectionately on one of her dark bunches. "Me, on the other hand…well, I've just gone downhill since six years old." I grin and tug on my lank hair.
"I think you're beautiful, Nikka," she says softly, her smile as graceful as a swan in majestic flight. "I think you're the prettiest girl in the school. Even prettier than Victoire."
I'm flattered by this, because Vic has always been the 'big sister' to our twinship. I remember her plucking roses from her garden and charming them our favourite colours - deep purple for me, mint green for Della - and sliding them behind our ears. She used to style our hair every morning, tie our hair up in pretty patterned rags when we wanted to have ringlets and sometime even let us near her make-up and heels. We'd strut around in her heels, holding up our skirts, with red lipstick smudged precisely around our lips. Victoire has a special place in both our hearts.
"Remember these?" Della asks, and she holds up her wrist. Jingling on her wrist is a bracelet made of silver links, with three charms hanging from it. One is a smiling little sun, a reminder of those long days of our childhood. One is a music note, to commemorate the occasion we brought the entire audience to their feet in a performance of an old Muggle song at the Annual Tinworth Talent Show. The final is a pair of linked hands, to signify our bond of sisterhood.
"Definitely, I would never forget," I say with conviction, holding my wrist to show the matching bracelet. We shake our wrists together, creating a symphony of jingling that echoes on the bitter wind.
"We should probably go inside," she says with a slight tremor of fear in her voice, though she tries hard to hide it. Another crash of thunder reinforces her fears, with the cymbal clash of lightning following the drum roll.
"Okay, but you have to promise to come running with me tomorrow," I tell her with my trademark grin. She smiles and nods and we jog slowly back up to the school, laughing and slipping all over the place on the churned-up earth.
"I just love the rain, don't you?" she asks. "That gorgeous smell just before the heavens open." I turn to her, freezing in shock, wavering slightly as my trainers (which proclaim to have 'grip superior to all other brands') slide on the mud.
"You smell it too?" I ask when I've finally forced my vocal cords to stop being shocked and make noise.
"Of course I do," she says with a smile. "It's more magic than all of us Hogwarts students put together."
"I know!" I exclaim, gripping her hand at this new revelation to bring us closer together. "It's the same sort of magic that's in a first kiss, a baby's laugh, sunsets and sunrises, autumn leaves cartwheeling on the breeze and snowflakes drifting down in winter." Bloody hell, there goes my poetic side - otherwise known as my 'Rose side'.
"It is," she says with a smile, squeezing my hand tightly, not even wincing when the stiff acrylic glued to my fingers digs into her palm. She darts up to hug me tightly and I hold her tightly, breathing in the scent of her that seem to embody the true kind of magic.
And I can't help thinking that this moment, this moment right here, hugging my best friend in the world and bonding over a love of the beautiful scent right before it rains, is the happiest of my life.
…
"I don't suppose you two are going to help me?" Victoire asks, pausing in her gardening to smile over at us. Della is lounging on her stomach, absorbed in one of those ridiculous Harlequin romances her mum keeps buying her and I'm trying to hold my toes apart with marshmallows while I paint little gold stars onto the deep purple varnish.
"Dream on, Vic," I say, my tongue poking out the side of my mouth as I try to paint smooth stars onto my toes.
Victoire grins and reaches out her foot, giving me a hard shove in the side. I fall sideways, smudging the star I was trying to paint and letting out an indignant roar.
Victoire giggles and smirks down at me, swiping a hand across her cheek and leaving a smudge of dirt across her skin. A smile stretches her cheek at the sight of Teddy, standing next to the house and waving frantically. She runs off, leaving her shovel abandoned in the dirt, her hair escaping from the wide tartan ribbon she tried to hold it back with.
Tartan is actually a theme between our little group today. There's Vic's ribbon, the shirt draped around Della's pasty shoulders and held up by one button and my favourite skirt (it sounds so strange, but I like the way it smells).
Della smiles, rolling onto her back and shading her eyes from the blazing sun. "Is it any cooler inside?" she asks, fanning herself with the worn pages of her book.
"Probably not," I say sadly. "Mum and Dad have never quite mastered air-conditioning charms and Dad's too worried that Grandpa would take everything apart to see how it works if they installed Muggle air-conditioning."
"Should we go down to the beach, or would we be disturbing the lovebirds?" she asks and we both look down at the golden curve of the sandy beach, a blonde head and a mousey head picked out against the sea.
"Half the fun of Louis having a girlfriend is annoying him," I tell her, winking and reaching for my flip-flops. She grins wickedly and shakes the grass blades from her flip-flops, sliding her feet neatly into them. I look down at her nails, mint-green with neat spots of gold, and I'm proud.
We run down to the beach, laughing loud and slipping on the powdery sand. We both fall over a tangle of seaside plants as we near the bottom of the hill, unable to slam on the brakes in time. We arrive on the beach in an unruly tangle of limbs and laughter, entirely disturbing Louis and Emily's romantic moment.
"Dom, Adele," Emily greets brightly, brushing her hair out of her eyes and embracing both of us. She looks tired, but the full moon was only a few nights ago, so she's a little livelier than she was last week. Louis somehow manages to smile tenderly at her and glare at the pair of us simultaneously. I tell you, everything the say about women being credited with incredible powers of multi-tasking is complete bullshit. It's the men you have to watch out for - particularly melodramatic ones with Veela powers.
"Well, Emily and I are going back up to the house," he says, his glare still very much directed at me as he slides an arm neatly around Emily's waist and flips his hair out of his eyes.
"Have fun, lovebirds!" I yell after them, grinning at Della's giggles.
"Let's go paddling!" she shrieks in a high, childish voice, kicking off her flip-flops and running down the sand towards the water, sending up clouds of fragmented gold every time a foot hits the sand. I follow her, losing one flip-flop near the rock I used to pretend was a horse at age five and another near Louis' once favourite place to hunt for crabs.
The waves are freezing cold, pooling around our feet and I know that this is how to feel alive, the wind peeling off the sea blowing my hair back and salt spraying across my skin. It's beautiful and I watch Della dance into deeper waters with a smile stretching my cheeks wide, the sunlight picking out particular features of hers, like the aristocratic tilt of her nose - inherited from her pureblood mum - and the gold flashes in her eyes, sliding down the length of her waist-length dark hair, so much longer than my own cherry-red waves.
"It's really warm when you get used to it!" she shouts, waving to me with her skirt whipping around her legs and a smile on her pink cheeks. I smile back and follow her into the water, wincing slightly at the freezing temperature of the water around my ankles.
We paddle for hours, splashing each other until my white T-shirt is entirely see-through and her hair is damp and drooping. We're running back to the beach, plumes of spray flying up on either side of us, when she grins wickedly and tackles me, knocking us both over and into the water with an enormous splash that sends two seagulls flying for their lives, cawing loudly in alarm.
"I hate you," I tell her, squeezing water out of my skirt and trying to dry my hair with my wand.
"Hate you too," she giggles, spread out on the sand with sunlight slanting across her body, drying her faster than my hopelessly incompetent charms could ever hope to. She stands up, bending over to squeeze water out of her hair and onto the sand.
She looks over at me and flicks her wand once. Instantly my clothes and hair are completely dry. I smile gratefully and she smiles a little shyly back.
"Race you back up to the house!" I shout, already taking off towards the hill. She follows behind me, shrieking at me for cheating and passing me in a tartan streak a minute later.
Clearly our runs around the lake every morning have been paying off. No one's ever beaten me in a race before. It's a strange feeling.
She calls me a snail when I reach the top. I stick my tongue out at her and she grins, throwing her arms around me. We waltz giddily around the garden, collapsing into the toothpaste-striped hammock that's Vic's favourite place to read her gardening books.
And I'm thinking that this might be the happiest moment of my life, both of us laughing with the sunlight bathing her in golden light.
…
It's winter and flakes as big as saucers are drifting down from the grey clouds. That doesn't sound too impressive, but when you've been staring out of the window in a state of catatonic boredom for three hours, it looks pretty enormous. Trust me on this one.
"Are you actually going to do anything today?" Louis asks, grumpy because he's been unable to see Emily for three days due to the heavy snowfall. "Or are you just planning on staring aimlessly at the snow?"
"Oh, staring aimlessly at the snow, definitely," I tease. "Actually, Adele and I were going to build a snowman and Vic's ventured out to find lunch."
"Godric, you two are such lesbians!" he exclaims. "I'm serious here!"
"I don't recall Sirius being a sulky teenage boy with long blonde hair," I say in complete solemnity, holding back on giggling. He just sighs in weariness and watches me leave the room to find Adele, letting out a cough that, oddly enough, sounds just as if he's trying to disguise the word lesbians as a cough. And failing miserably.
"Hey, are we going to build that snowman now?" I ask as I push open the door to my and - for the length of this Christmas holiday - Della's room.
The sight that greets me shocks me. Instead of her waist-length hair that I had always been inordinately jealous of, cursing my hair's inability to grow any longer than just above my boobs, she wore her hair just below her ears and a pile of it rested on the cream carpet.
"Merlin, Della, why?" I ask hoarsely. She smiles nervously and runs a hand self-consciously through her newly short hair.
"That bad, huh?" she asks. I shake my head wordlessly, unable to think of anything but how beautiful she looks, this short style drawing attention to her elderberry-dark eyes and sweet smile.
"No, you look…well, beautiful," I tell her. She smiles wider, showing off the dimples that remain despite her maturing and hugs me tightly. I inhale the scent of her, the tart sweetness of blackberries mixed with the comforting of cocoa.
We stand by the window together, her hand resting lightly on mine as we watch Vic and Teddy out in the garden, kissing sweetly in the snow.
"I hope they get married one day," Della remarks. "I'd love to see you and Vic arguing over a maid of honour dress."
"And who says I'd be maid of honour?" I ask. Della just smiles and grips my hand as Teddy and Vic's laughter filters through the glass.
"You're Vic's best friend and sister rolled into one amazing person," she says, squeezing my hand tightly. I turn and catch myself looking straight into her eye with the ghost of her sweet smile just in my line of vision.
And it kind of seems like a good moment to kiss her, so I do.
Far from pushing me away with an indignant shriek or backing away in tearful horror (been there, done that, bought the T-shirt) she kisses me back. Her hands tentatively take my own and we kiss for minutes and hours and days as the snow falls outside the window.
This, this is definitely the happiest moment of my life.
…
"Stay still, Dom!" Roxanne shouts, yanking on my hair painfully. "I can't style your fucking hair if you keep fucking moving!"
"Watch your language!" Vic scolds, moving to cover Cecily's ears. I look down at my niece and close and open my eye in an exaggerated wink.
"Fucking hair!" she declares brightly. Vic sighs loudly and bears her daughter away to tell her why that word is very bad and should never be spoken.
"I remember when Dad gave me that lecture," I say softly, remembering hearing Teddy and Vic shouting 'naughty words' at each other when they were fighting. "Who've thought Vic would be giving it to her daughter one day?"
"Well, I certainly wouldn't have thought that you'd be marrying Adele one day," Rose says, fanning herself with a wedding magazine. "I never had you pegged for a lesbian."
"Well, I've known since she was six years old." Dad walks into the room, a grin on his face and neat dress robes buttoned to the neck. This terrible stiff outfit is made informal by his ponytail and the ever-present dragon tooth earring (Granny still lecture him about that). "All she wanted for her birthday was a motorbike."
Everyone laughs and Roxanne finally removes her taloned fingers from the vicinity of my face. She reaches for a tiara and slides it carefully into my elegantly crafted curls, smiling for the first time in several stressful months.
"Perfect!" she declares, carefully arranging my skirts around me as I stand up. "Now, don't you dare ruin that, or I will hunt you down!"
Suitably warned, I take Dad's arm and wait for my two bridesmaids to move into position behind me. I haven't seen Della for twenty-three hours (all of which has had Roxanne and Rose teasing me about withdrawal symptoms) but I do known that she's chosen Abigail Nott and Saorise Finnegan as her bridesmaids and we chose Victoire as maid of honour and Teddy as best man together.
I almost freeze in place when I see Della walking down the other aisle on her father's arm. She looks incredible, from the silky dress that flows like water around her curvy form to the short lace veil crowning her elegant short curls.
"Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to celebwate the mawwage of Adele Wosanna Longbottom and Dominique Mawi Weasley," the minister declares in his wheezy voice. Evidently when Victoire and Teddy recommended him to us it just slipped their minds to tell us that he can't pronounce the letter r.
"If anyone has any weason why this couple should not be wed, speak now or fowever hold your peace." There's complete silence, of course there is. How could anyone think Della and I are anything other than completely perfect for each other?
"Do you, Dominique Mawi Weasley, take Adele Wosanna Longbottom as your wife?" he asks.
"Of course I do!" I shout - perhaps a little too loud. I slide a ring onto Della's hand and she makes her vows.
"Wuv, twue wuv, will follow you fowever," he declares. "I hereby declare you wife and wife! You may kiss."
I kiss her and everyone cheers, a few spontaneous whoops and wolf whistles - that sound suspiciously like they come from James and Fred's corner of the church - strewn between.
I hold her hand tight and we run down the aisle together, our families following behind us in a happy mess.
This is definitely the happiest moment of my life.
…
Five years of beautiful summers and elegant winters pass, tangled autumns and springs strewn in-between. Rose officially became the beautiful Lady Malfoy seven months after I married and she's expecting their first child (it's hoped by all male Malfoys that it will be a boy, as they need an heir).
Albus, to Lily's disgust, married her best friend - the lovely Abigail Nott - and he's living in marital bliss deep in the English countryside. And you're asking about me?
Well, I'm married to the most amazing woman in the world, living in a beautiful house in the South of France, working as a photographer and about to have our first child. Did I mention I married Della? No, I'm not rubbing it in, just checking.
You know what's not at all fun? Eating pizza and watching tragic romances flit across the screen with your gorgeous wife one minute and being rushed to hospital in her car the next.
And labour is most certainly not fun. I can see why they call it labour (who are 'they' anyway?). Della is by my side for all of it, letting me nearly break her hand in half with every contraction until the Healer finally returns and performs a pain relief spell, leaving me to lie on the bed in complete comfort while Della gets coffee and croissants.
Everything goes so smoothly, I barely even notice anything until the lusty cry of a newborn baby fills the ward. The Healer smiles and wipes away a few tears, lifting my baby into her arms and wrapping it neatly in a blanket.
"It's a boy," she murmurs, handing him to me. I look down into the beautiful little face both Della and I (and our donor, if we want to get technical here) brought into the world.
He grabs my finger with his tiny hands and holds on tightly. I smile down at him and even shed a few tears. His eyes are very blue and the soft hair on his little head is the same shade of red as mine. He smells like babies and I'm just overwhelmed for so much love for this little guy.
Della sniffs and blows her nose, sitting down beside me and wrapping an arm around me. She looks down into our son's face and he flinches when one of her tears lands on his face, sneezing adorably.
We've got our whole life together, this little guy and I. I'm going to teach him to ride his broomstick, to bend the rules as much as he can without overstepping the line, to enjoy life while he has it. I'm going to comfort him the first time he has his heart broken, cheer until I'm hoarse over his Quidditch victories and cry at his wedding.
"William," Della whispers. "William Neville Weasley-Longbottom."
"Perfect," I whisper. "Though it's an awfully long name for such a tiny baby." I lean down and look into my son's eyes. "Hello, Will, do you like your name?" He seems to be nodding and squeezes my finger tightly.
This will forever and ever be remembered as the happiest moment of my life.
I hope you enjoyed this! :D
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