Thursday evening, everyone was asked to come down for an early dinner and to dress nicely please. They all came down to see many directions flung around the room by the house-elves and a very excited-looking Alicia and a madly grinning George.
After a very good meal of everyone at the table exchanging rather curious looks, wondering if anyone knew what was going on, people were put out of their misery.
George stood up, with Alicia at his side, smiling nervously.
"Well, you probably want to know what's going on," George said finally.
"Yes; that'd be nice," added Ron.
"Well…" George started, only to be interrupted by his younger sister.
"You're engaged?!" she shouted, catching the sight of a sparkling boulder on Alicia's finger, springing up out of her chair. Everyone followed her glance and gasped.
"Well, that was an easier way to introduce it," said George.
Suddenly, no one was sitting down and congratulating was being done and house-elves were bringing out butterbeer by the case and there was about six different toasts occurring at the same time.
The date was set for August 28, only in five weeks time.
There was so much to get done, in so little time.
As George insisted he wanted nothing fancy, the girls simply shushed him, and Alicia merely shrugged.
Preparations were now underway.
Invitations were gone a week later. Food figured out first. Colors followed. Dresses, dress robes, flowers, and seating arrangements were discussed for hours at a time.
Girls were running around all day, and guys were running from them all day.
The time was approaching fast.
Everyone was set trying to make three new rooms- one for Mr. And Mrs. Weasley, another for Alicia's parents and little sister, and one for George and Alicia after the wedding.
Hermione, already exhausted from the stress of wedding preparations, collapsed into tears when no one believed her when she thought the house might explode from so many enlargement charms put upon it, and only a twenty-minute hug from Ron could calm her down.
When Pauley dropped an entire bowl of punch on Lavender "for fun," her hysterics could only be helped by Seamus.
The day before the wedding, Alicia burst into tears when she thought her parents had decided not to come. She could only be consoled by George, the news that her parents were running a few hours late, and an entire box of Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes.
And once Alicia and George's parents arrived, everyone became frenzied as they realized that there was less than twenty-four hours to go until the wedding.
All fourteen girls in the house rose early to prepare for the wedding.
Since the house didn't have a large backyard, the wedding was being held at the indoor Quidditch pitch in the master bedroom.
The guys had all come down to eat breakfast, and, about an hour later, Ron and Neville were the first to go back up the stairs.
There was a grunt and a thud as Neville was thrown backwards of the second step on the staircase.
"Oi! They've put a shield charm on the whole second floor!" Ron shouted.
Soon, they were surrounded by the guys who had done the unthinkable and abandoned their breakfast.
Suddenly, Hermione's voice filled the air.
"Ronald. I told you what was to happen today! None of you are to come up you before 2:30. Your dress robes are all down there. You have no need to come up here and bother us."
Ron turned red.
"Oh, Hermione! I'd like to say something too!" came the voice of Lavender Brown.
Harry saw Seamus try to sneak out of the room, but Ron caught him and dragged him back.
"No, we all have to go through it!" Ron said.
"Oh, Seamus! Please try and look extra nice today; my mother and father will be there today, and they just can't wait to meet you!" Lavender's voice called, turning Seamus a brighter red than Ron.
Finally, another voice drifted into hearing.
"Neville?" Luna said. "I left your corsage on the kitchen counter. Don't worry about the teeth though. If you pet it, it won't bite you."
Neville blushed at the few sniggers that went up around the room.
There was a long pause, and George whispered, "Let's go, quick, before they start up again!"
They began creeping out of the room, but yet another voice drifted into the room.
"George Weasley!" cried his mother. George stopped midstep. "Make sure you look extra nice today! You are getting married today after all!" Here, Mrs. Weasley began to sob: "Oh, my Georgie's getting married!"
The guys crept out of the room, stifling back laughs, until Ron said at last, "Yes, come on, Georgie, let's get ready now."
George smacked him.
The guys arrived at the foot of the stairs, waiting until 2:31, not wanting to disrupt the voices again.
They went upstairs and waited to see what the girls had done to their beloved Quidditch pitch.
They opened the door to the master bedroom and saw that what they were looking at no longer resembled their old Quidditch pitch remotely.
Streamers hung from blossoming trees all over the place that had amazingly sprung up overnight. They were in rows leading up to a great, ivy-covered gazebo.
Cotton-ball clouds stretched across a blue sky (although really, the weather outside was rather grey and stormy).
Chairs were set up in rows covered in ribbons so that they all looked like oddly shaped May Poles.
The grass was green and perfect, even the spots where Seamus and Terry had accidentally kicked up dirt as they were taking off on their brooms last week.
It looked as if the place had been waiting to hold a wedding ever since it had been built.
It was the perfect scene for a wedding, even George admitted it.
Told to wait here and be very careful, and above everything not to touch anything by the disembodied voice that was Hermione, they all took a seat at one of the large tables that had been set up for the guests.
Then, suddenly, the doors opened softly, and like a dream, they arrived.
Alicia, knowing George would be there, stayed in her room with her mother, sister, and Mrs. Weasley, since he was not to see her until the wedding started.
The guys turned around in their seats and immediately froze.
Lavender, true to her name, had settled on a a light-colored purple dress and had left her long hair down, catching Seamus' attention immediately, to a point where he wouldn't have noticed if you dropped a dragon on the Quidditch pitch near him.
Harry saw Ginny in her sky-blue dress, and kept trying to look away, but found himself failing miserably.
Hermione blushed as Ron stared at her, eyes wide, in her rose-colored floaty dress and strappy heels.
They gawked until Ron, in a very un-Ron-like move, went over and picked a rose-colored flower and walked over to Hermione, placing it in her hair, declaring it a "perfect match."
Music played and dancing started.
Soon guests were arriving and people took their places.
Alicia came in, smiling graciously, down the aisle, and the ceremony commenced, leaving the girls teary-eyed and the guys bored (as most weddings did), until the reception where the girls were picked up and swung around by the guys as they danced.
They danced all night, collapsing into giggles at about three in the morning, watching fireworks go off in the sky.
