This is inspired by those '10 song shuffle challenges' things, but instead of using the length of the song to write it, I just used it to think up the idea… I tried to write it in 3 minutes but I got too attached to the idea.
So I think that I'm going to continue it with multiple drabbles and one shots.
The couple that I chose is Teddy and Victoire because I love them.
Teddy pushed through the back door of Shell Cottage, having just apparated into it's background, laden with the bags of groceries that he was sent out to get, clearly the only thing about wedding planning that he was useful for.
"Hell-… Oh." His face fell as his eyed the five heads that sat around the mountain of magazines and sample books that was the table. Fleur was flitting around, grabbing random papers and magazine cuttings and discussing them in rapid French with her sister beside her; she looked almost as young as she did when she was planning for her own wedding, the only evidence of age were light wrinkles around her eyes and the horn-rimmed glasses that were perched on her aristocratic nose. Her hair was swept into an elegant low bun and her posture and overall outward appearance of trim and tidy were oceans away from her daughter's appearance. Victoire's long golden waves were messy and somewhat shaggy ("she vill need a 'air cut before za vedding." Gabrielle had murmured to Fleur when she arrived), she sat in her chair with one leg bent up, her knee tucked under her chin and her other leg swinging idly below the table as she lazily flicked through a magazine, her thick lashes barely moving over the pages. Dominique was shaking her wand back and forth, – bored out of her mind - her kohl-lined eyes bouncing along with it. Every now and then she would poke Victoire in the side with it, but Victoire, who had apparently achieved the perfect place of Zen in which she had toned out her mother and aunt, barely noticed.
The only non-blonde at the table was Ginny who sat diplomatically between the daughters and their mother. Her copper hair was twisted back in a messy bun and though there was a different kind of chaos that littered the table, she seemed relieved for the afternoon away from the hectic atmosphere of her own home. Ginny was the only one who appeared to hear Teddy as she looked up and smiled at him, "Hey Ted, did you get everything?"
"Uh, yeah, I think." He looked over at Victoire, who seemed as though she had not heard him nor had she even realized that he had come in.
"I'll help you." Ginny grabbed one of the bags from him and lead him to the kitchen when Molly Weasley was set to work cooking dinner for the entire family chattering away to Audrey and Angelina as they assisted her. "Ted," Ginny began as the door swung behind them, "take Victoire somewhere."
"What?" his head turned to the woman who was practically his mother, confused, "she's not annoying anyone, is she?" he found it very difficult to believe that Victoire could be getting on anyone's nerves in the lackadaisical state she was in.
"No! Of course not… I just, I feel sorry for that girl. Her mother is a lovely woman whom I have grown to love, but honestly that sister makes Fleur revert back to… well. Victoire has had quite enough of this today."
His heart dipped for his poor fiancée in the other room, who, he could only assume had a lot less brain cells due to over-exposure to mindless wedding details. He suddenly felt bad, but slightly relieved, that he had had to work that day.
He pushed his way back to the other room where Dominique had escaped, but other than that, the three other women were left unchanged.
"Hello, Fleur, Gabrielle. How is everything going?" Teddy asked as he rounded the table,
"Oh, 'Zeodore: 'zis vedding vill be ah-mazing!" Fleur replied happily, and Gabrielle nodded vigorously. Teddy smiled,
"Great, then you won't mind if I steal Victoire from you guys for a bit?" Ted placed his hand gently on Victoire's shoulder. Gabrielle waved the notion away, clearly anticipating some time away from Victoire's baleful mood. "Vic?" he whispered shaking her gently, Victoire's head bobbed slightly until her eyes fluttered slightly and she looked up at him. Her navy eyes took a moment to focus before she truly recognized Teddy,
"Oh, hey babe." She said softly, reaching up and placing her palm on his cheek.
"Wanna take a walk with me… get some fresh air?" as soon as Teddy asked, he could feel Victoire come back to life as she practically hopped off her chair in delight.
*
"Oh, it's just awful. I'm involved in the most unintelligent conversations and all these details are so trivial. I mean its about the dress and no it can't be white, it must be ivory and why would we ever consider having a colour involved, no it must have aged lace and silk flown in from the highest mountains of Switzerland. And then it's the flowers, and no it cant be lilies - even though they're my favorite - it must be roses, traditional red and then it's the linens and the…" Victoire trailed off as she and Teddy walked further out towards the sea. There was no more to talk about, "you know… never mind. I don't want to spend anymore of my day talking about these insipid details."
Teddy laughed, and wrapped his arm around her shoulder. She sighed and wrapped her arm around his waist and resting her head on his shoulder. When they reached the place that they had both been subconsciously walking to – the thick and colourful garden that marked (what her father and uncle had claimed to be) a hero – they sat down in the spring grass.
"You know, this is where we had our first kiss." Teddy smirked. Victoire laughed and the noise made Teddy's heart beat ten times faster than it had been.
"I know." She grabbed his hand and held it in her own; a smile etched on her face as her fingers slowly traced all the lines and creases on his palm. "Do you ever think that we're too young?" she asked quietly, she kept her eyes focused on his hand so as to avoid eye contact.
"Hmm?" Teddy wasn't even sure that he had actually heard her. He was too enthralled by the soft pad of her pointer finger that was caressing his rough, auror-stretched skin.
"Mom and Dad got married at our age, but there was a war and all this darkness and anxiety."
"Yeah and thanks to me, that's all gone." He raised his eyebrows at her causing her to giggle.
"Yeah, I think Uncle Harry had a bit more to do about that than you." She told him with a roll of her eyes.
"Ah come on, I was born and a few weeks later the war was over." Teddy could barely get through the sentence without laughing.
"Well… I was born two years later on the anniversary of the final battle. So if anyone stopped the war… I'm thinking it was me."
"We're just made for each other." Teddy began and Victoire smiled, "You know, in our relationship, marriage was kind of the next appropriate step." Teddy picked up Victoire's left hand; his large tan hand dwarfed her delicate one. The diamond ring that once sat on Nymphadora Tonk's ring finger sparkled on Victoire's in the setting sun. He slid the band off and, with Victoire's confusion, held it out between his fingers. The ring captured both of their attention and for a moment neither spoke.
"It's like this big thing that everyone expects you to do and wants you to do. And with our family, it's as if everyone is counting on it – the first grandchild to get married – when really, it's completely absurd. I mean I've only been out of school for a year. I barely have a career… I'm still working for Uncle George!"
"Yeah, and I do a bunch of runt work 'cause I'm still technically in training so I work really weird hours." Teddy shrugged and as the sun was catching its last rays before setting for the night, realization dawned over the two.
"What the hell were we thinking?" Victoire asked, her voice light and conversational.
Teddy sighed. He reached over to Victoire's necklace, were a small golden 'W' hung off the thin gold chain. He unclipped it and grasped the whole thing in his hands, "We were thinking, Vic," he said as his strung the Lupin heirloom engagement ring onto the necklace where it hung beside her existing charm and reattached it around her neck, "That we love each other. And us, being the stupid kids that we are, thought that getting married was a good idea."
Victoire smiled up at him and Teddy, with a slight tug on her necklace, brought their lips together in sweet and meaningful kiss, much like their first one was.
"So?" Victoire asked once they had pulled apart, their foreheads together and their lips lingering
"So we wait." Teddy said simply.
"We wait." Victoire repeated, "And we'll travel. And mature. And be young and stupid."
"Obviously. And we'll fight. And we'll go to our fellow alumni's weddings and judge their rash decisions, which will make us feel better about ourselves." Teddy suggested as Victoire's laughter once again rang out over the cliff top. She pecked him once more before turning herself around and sitting herself down in his lap, leaning back into his Quidditch-toned chest and he wrapped his arms around her.
They sat in another silence. Letting their decision settle in the air around them, Victoire felling immensely better, as though a weight had been lifted, though not at all looking forward to the prospect of breaking the news to their family inside Shell Cottage.
"Vic?" Teddy asked, resting his chin on the top of her head,
"Hmm?"
"Move in with me?"
The question hung in the air for an instant before:
"Of course."
A calm washed over both of them. And for the remaining minutes that they sat there, they discussed silly things and joked about Teddy's shabby, but filled-with-character flat and what Victoire would be doing to it.
When they felt up to it, they walked back to the Cottage, wrapped up in each other (the temperature had dropped significantly once the sun had set) and announced to all that the wedding was being put on hold indefinitely ("At least until I'm twenty-five… and even then we'll see." Victoire had declared). Bill had immediately straightened up and hugged his daughter with all his might, thanking her for coming to her senses. Everyone laughed at her father and even Fleur smile tersely. Gabrielle dissolved into tears at the wasted planning and both Victoire and Teddy spent the rest of the night apologizing and thanking her for all the hard work she put in (though it was no longer being used). But after dinner, Ginny approached the couple and congratulated them for (as she so lovingly put it) "growing a pair and finally deciding what you wanted."
"I wanna forget how convention fits
but can I get out from under it"
'The Underdog' -Spoon
So yeah... this is just a little something.
Please Read and Review!