Author's Note: Well everyone, here we are! Please enjoy and join me for the A/N at the end for the updating schedule.
Disclaimer: I do not own anything in the Harry Potter universe, it all belong to J.K. Rowling.
Invitations
Sunday, January 16th 2022:
It was times like this that made Victoire wonder why she ever agreed to this wedding in the first place.
Sure, she was super excited at first when she was asked. She might have even shrieked out the answer 'yes' in the heat of the moment; which may have gotten her a pair of startled looks from Xavier and Kyle, but she was definitely regretting her decision at the moment. Planning a wedding seemed like a fun idea at first, but after switching the colour scheme three times, having a four-hour argument over the venue for both the ceremony and reception, and having to decide on the catering and music at least eight months in advance -when there was only actually six and a half months left before the wedding and neither catering nor music had yet to be decided upon.
Victoire Weasley was contemplating whether she actually wanted to walk through the front door of the ginormous 18th century mansion in front of her and began to dread the next task that went with planning the wedding: organizing the guest list.
The tall blonde twenty-one year old was in a bit of a daze as she stared at the shiny mahogany double doors in front of her while she seriously considered ditching their meeting and going back to her flat to catch up on some much needed sleep. Before she could get up the guts to turn around on the heel of her black winter boots and leave, the familiar popping sound of a person apparating filled the air behind her.
"Did someone transfigure the handle into a biting doorknob?" a cheeky voice asked from behind her.
She turned around to see Xavier Wood standing behind her, his tall and lanky build bundled up from the top of his toque-covered head to the bottom of his hiking boots in warm winter clothing.
Victoire rolled her ocean-blue eyes at her dirty-blonde haired friend and responded, "No. I'm just trying to calculate how much trouble I'd be in if I don't walk through that door."
"Sandra would most likely kill you for leaving all of the guest list to her," Xavier responded. He was referencing to Victoire's best mate Sandra Collins who, always being punctual, was probably already sitting down at a table in the mansion in front of them with a four-foot long parchment paper list of wedding guests and roughly 500 blank invitations and envelopes.
"I wouldn't be leaving it just to her," Victoire commented back as she picked at a bit red fuzz from her mittens off of her coat, "Kyle will help, and you're here to help too! You're the best man!"
Xavier rolled his hazel eyes at her, "You know you play a pretty important role in this wedding too, and if you don't show up today to help it's going to take us forever to get through with these invitations and guest list."
Victoire muttered something under her breath but all Xavier could catch were the words 'stupid', 'pureblood families', and 'lots of friends and associates'.
Xavier used his six-foot-three height advantage over her five-foot-eight frame to toss one of his aforementioned lanky arms around her shoulders, and brought her into his side, "C'mon Vic let's get going before Sandra freaks out over us being late. If you're lucky I might even hold open the door for you."
Victoire rolled her eyes, bumped his side with her hip, and sarcastically said, "You sure do know how to make a girl swoon."
Xavier had the chance to bump her back before they reached the polished doors where he removed his toque with a flourish –causing his short dirty-blonde hair to stand up on end– and opened one of the doors with a little bow. Victoire just rolled her eyes at him again before walking through the open doorway, giving Xavier a quiet thanks as she went. The minute the pair had stepped inside a very well dressed middle-aged woman came swooping down on them and ended up pulling the pair into a tight hug as she greeted them with her sophisticated pure-blooded drawl.
"Oh I'm so glad the two of you are here this is going to be so much fun!"
Xavier had extricated himself out of the hug before Victoire could, so he grabbed her arm and gently pulled her out of the overly-excited woman's grasp.
"It's good to see you too Mrs. Line-" Xavier began to say to the woman before she interrupted him.
"Oh Xavier honey, you've been friends with Kyle since you eleven, and now you're both twenty-one, I think it would be perfectly fine for you to call be Guinevere," Mrs. Line told him.
Xavier shot Victoire a look that said 'maybe-you-should-take-over-now-she-might-listen-better-to-you'.
"Mrs. Line," Victoire started getting the woman's attention back to her, "What room are Sandra and Kyle in?"
"Oh they're in library, it has the biggest table that's not the dining room one . . . oh dear me the two of you are still in your coats and scarves! Here let me . . ." Mrs. Line good-naturedly babbled on as she pulled out her wand a said a quick spell that caused their hats, mittens, scarves, and coats to fly off of them and into the coat closet just off the side of the mansion's entrance hall.
Victoire placed her hand on Xavier's shoulder so she could kick her boots off, and then placed them gently on the mat just beside the coat closet. Once they had be divested of their winter garb, Mrs. Line led them up the first level of the marble staircase, down a hall, passed several doors, and to the open door of the mansion's large family library.
"The best man and maid of honour are here!" Mrs. Line announced excitedly as she led Victoire and Xavier through the doorway of the library.
Sandra Collins and Kyle Line, who had been sitting at the large mahogany table in the middle of the lavish library, stood up and came to the doorway to greet their friends.
"Hi Vic," Sandra greeted her best friend with a hug.
"Hi Sandra."
"Victoire!" Kyle Line yelled in a cheery voice. It was a scarily similar impression of the way his mother had sounded a few minutes ago when she greeted Victoire and Xavier at the mansion's front door.
Victoire turned to smile at Kyle, but it quickly turned into a frown when he grabbed her tightly into a hug and placed a sloppy kiss on her cheek.
"Down boy!" Victoire cried as she forcefully moved out of his arms and wiped his kiss off her cheek.
"Come on everyone and sit, we have a lot of stuff to do," Sandra directed her friends once everyone had greeted and hugged each other.
Sandra and Kyle settled down beside each other at the table they'd been sitting at when Victoire and Xavier had arrived in the library, while the new pair sat down across from them. The wide and normally dark expanse of the wooden table was covered with long sheets of off-white parchment paper, and with cream coloured wedding invitations and matching envelopes.
"Where do we start soon-to-be-Mrs.-Line?" Victoire asked her best mate in a teasing tone.
Sandra's face turned red and she embarrassedly ran a hand through her shoulder length dirty blonde curls, "Um, well I have two different lists here. The first is a list of everyone who originally received a 'Save the Date' card when we announced in August that the date for our wedding had been set. The second is a list of people we need to send wedding invitations to who were added to the list at the end and therefore didn't receive a 'Save the Date' card. Oh, and on the first list the names with red dots beside them are ones who already said that they wouldn't be able to make it when they first received their 'Save the Date' card . . ."
"Huh?" Xavier asked, planning weddings was a completely foreign concept to him.
"How about Xavier and I do the list of guests that isn't colour coded, and therefore giving us less of a chance to mess something up?" Kyle suggested as he languidly threw an arm around Sandra's shoulder.
Sandra sighed a little uneasily, "Sure, Vic and I can do the list of people who got 'Save the Dates'."
Sandra placed one piece of parchment paper in the middle of the table between Xavier and Kyle, and gave them a stack of invitations and envelops. Next, she placed the other list of guests in between her and Victoire, along with the rest of the invitations.
Victoire tilted her head as she glanced at the list in front of her, "Why do you have to send out both 'Save the Date' cards and wedding invitations? Why not only the invitations?"
Sandra sighed again as she grabbed an envelope and a quill to write the names of the guests, "According to both my mother and Kyle's mum it is proper wedding etiquette to do both. But only if the save the dates go out about a year before the wedding, and if the invitations at least six months before."
Victoire scratched the name of the guest she'd just addressed her first invitation to, off of the list in front of her and sighed, "Godric Gryffindor, weddings are confusing."
"You said it," Kyle piped in before licking the envelope he had in his hands closed.
His fiancée gave him a stern look, "You didn't have to propose you know. And don't lick the envelope when you can use magic to close it."
"Yeah, like not proposing was actually a choice I had-" Kyle began.
"Aww," Victoire chirped.
"The minute we decided to move into a flat together my Mum was already dreaming of grandchildren. It was either propose right then and then wait a few years to pick the date for the wedding, or propose right then, elope, and then have both of our mothers try to kill us for not allowing them to be a part of the wedding," Kyle finished.
"Which choice did you pick?" Xavier asked sarcastically gesturing to the several hundred invitations and envelopes that they still had to complete before the day was over. If they didn't, then they would be behind on the 'Wedding Planning To Do List', which was a real five-foot long piece of parchment paper that Kyle and Sandra's mothers trade-off between each other and then cross matters off the list as they finish them.
"Well we wouldn't have so much crap to do for this wedding if somebody wasn't a pureblood prat with a bazillian family, friends, and business associates that for some reason need to be invited to the nuptials," Victoire commented while shooting an arched look in Kyle's direction. She was just joking with him. Somewhat.
Kyle knew she was just teasing but the very large guest list bugged him too. Sandra is a muggleborn, so even though she has a rather good-sized family, the amount of her family that was allowed to know about magic -and therefore about their wedding- added up to only about twenty people. She had friends to invite, but most of them were ones that she and Kyle shared since they had been in the same year and house for their years at Hogwarts (Gryffindor!) and they shared a lot of the same friends (Victoire and Xavier to name a few). Therefore, the majority of their expected 543 invites to the wedding were going out to distant relatives of Kyle's, he was pureblood on both his mother and his father sides; to high society friends of his parents; and to several business associates of Kyle and his father. The Line's construction business was one of the biggest and most profitable wizarding construction businesses in Europe.
After Hogwarts, Kyle spent two years in a wizarding business course. Since he had finished his course two years ago, he had worked in the main business office of his father's company, and had worked his way up from his entry-level position in the accounting and marketing section, to the manager of the entire accounting and finance department. He had held the position until a year and a half ago, when Sandra had finished her wizarding accounting course and got a job in the finance section as an accountant, and soon after her hiring, a financial advisor in the Line's business. When Sandra joined the company, Kyle didn't want her to feel even more awkward about working not only at her, by then, fiancée's company, but also by having said fiancée be the head of her department. Therefore, he and his father worked out a transfer and Kyle was switched to the head of the marketing and public relations department. Meaning he soon became the face of the company and spent a lot of time discussing contracts face-to-face with his father and possible business clients and investors. This meant that there was a score of employees from the company to invite along with most of the company's clients and investors, most of whom Kyle had actually met.
"You can complain all you want about these annoying wedding rules Victoire," Kyle told her with a smirk, "But you'll be glad that you've been so involved with our wedding planning as you have been, when you and Teddy are in the same boat as us in a few years."
Victoire rolled her eyes as she addressed the envelope in front of her with the names of Xavier's parents: Katie and Oliver Wood, "First off, Teddy and I aren't even engaged. Second, don't even go there. My mother is going to be French whirlwind of excessive energy when the time does come. I'm seriously considering talking dad into putting a full-body-bind curse on her until after the wedding is over."
"Trust me, with the energy my Mum's shown, she'd definitely win the 'crazy-mother' award," Kyle argued back.
Victoire inclined her head in Kyle's direction. She'd had a lot to do with the planning of the wedding so far, because she was Sandra's best friend, and therefore maid of honor. Thus, she's had a front row seat to all of Mrs. Line's wedding mania. Since Kyle was an only child, Mrs. Line was pulling out all the stops for her only son's wedding and didn't show any signs of slowing. Sandra and Kyle had agreed early on that they wanted to do a mix of muggle and wizard traditions for their wedding ceremony and reception, and Mrs. Line was only too happy to help. Not only did she enjoy learning about muggle wedding practices, but she could also be heard bragging to her high society pureblooded friends that her son's wedding was going to be so much better and unique compared to all of their children's boring and traditional pureblooded weddings.
Victoire wasn't sure how Sandra usually took her future mother-in-law's praise, but knowing that Mrs. Line only meant it in the nicest way, and that both she and Kyle's father absolutely loved Sandra, Victoire was fine with putting up with Mrs. Line's wedding craze since it was for her friends' benefit.
"Victoire, how do you spell your Aunt Hermione's name again?" Xavier asked. He was writing out an invitation to the wedding for Victoire's Uncle Ron and Aunt Hermione Weasley, but Xavier wanted to make sure that the spelling was correct before he addressed it in ink.
"H-E-R-M-I-O-N-E. But really Sandra, you don't have to invite everyone in my family, Merlin knows I have a big one. Besides, Uncle Ron's not really the most patient fellow, just an invite to the reception would probably be enough for him," Victoire said.
Sandra waved Victoire's concern off, "Vic, I've been friends with you for years. I know all of your aunts, uncles, and cousins and I think it would be nice for most of them to be there at the wedding. Besides, what are a few extra dozen guests when we're already inviting Kyle's great-great aunt's third cousin once-removed?"
Kyle rolled his eyes at his fiancée, "That great-great aunt's third cousin once-removed is her personal caregiver. Moreover, said great-great aunt has a whole lot of money and no direct heirs to leave it to. We make a good impression on her and we might just get written into her will."
"And you definitely need more money, you're only heir to your family's entire company and fortune," Xavier said sarcastically.
"Says the guy who's been a profession Quidditch player for the last five years, and whose parents had both been professional Quidditch players for decades before that," Kyle snarked back at his best man.
"We get it okay, both you gits have money. Now can we cut the chatter and get these invitations done? Just looking at the number of people we need to invite to my wedding is making me get cold feet," Sandra told them.
Her words shut them up, and both Xavier and Kyle fell silent. They knew that she was just joking, but neither of them wanted to say something to upset her in anyway, or Godric forbid, make her re-think the wedding. Kyle had proposed to Sandra in May of 2019, and while she had said yes, it had taken him three more years to convince her to settle down and to set a date for their wedding. Once she'd agreed to the end of July in 2022 Kyle had locked it in and made it so that it was almost impossible for her to want to change it by pushing it farther back. Essentially he'd told both his mother and hers, therefore making it impossible for Sandra to change their wedding date.
Victoire had spoken to Sandra about her reluctance to set a wedding date in the first few months after their engagement when she realized that Sandra would change the topic of conversation every time someone brought up the topic of the wedding date. The girls had had a few discussions about it, and Sandra finally admitted to Victoire that she wanted to wait to set the wedding date until she had finished her accounting course and had begun a job. Sandra and Kyle had discussed their plans for the future, and he had agreed with her that it would be best for her to finish her accounting course and start a job before their marriage, especially since it would probably keep his mother from hounding them for grandchildren as soon as their vows traveled out of their lips.
The four of them -the future bride and groom, and their best man and maid of honor- continued working on the invitations in silence until Victoire came across a certain name on her list.
"Sandra, please tell me that you stayed up late into the night to write this list and that half of it was most likely copied down when you were sleep deprived."
"Nope. But why do you ask Vic?"
"Because this must be a mistake."
"What does it say?" Xavier asked as he leaned in to see what she was fussing about.
"This says that I need to address an invitation for my best friend's wedding to Colton Knott," Victoire announced, pronouncing the name with great distain.
Colton Knott was a pureblooded Slytherin that went to Hogwarts with Victoire and her friends. For seven years she and he had been, for the lack of a better word, enemies. However, in her last year their relationship had changed into something that, at selected times, could be mistaken for amiable, and culminated with Colton essentially saving her life in the last month of their seventh year, and had the two of them agreeing to basically never talk about it again.
Kyle rolled his eyes at Victoire but didn't speak. He knew how Victoire felt about Colton, but he also knew that she knew how he felt about Colton. Kyle and Colton had been friends as children because their parents ran in the same pureblooded circles, even though the Lines were everything that was nice and polite and the Knotts seemed to be the stereotype of the slimly Slytherin pureblood. When they started Hogwarts, Kyle was sorted into Gryffindor and Colton into Slytherin. In Colton's eyes, that was the end of their friendship, and even though they had a more polite relationship between them than Colton and Victoire's, they still weren't back to the way they were before Hogwarts. The Knotts were old friends and business associates of the Lines so it was given that they would get an invitation to the wedding.
"Victoire, you know why Knott gets an invite to the wedding. I'm not very happy about it, but as Kyle keeps reminding me this is our chance to throw a better party with our friends and family with questionable social standing, than Colton and Anastasia's was with their completely pureblooded family and friends," Sandra reminded her.
"And it was nice of Colton to invite us to their wedding a few years ago, wasn't it?" Kyle asked as he tried once again to warm his fiancée up to the idea of Colton Knott being an okay person.
Sandra obligingly nodded her head while Victoire rolled her eyes. The Knotts were still acquaintances with the Lines, but they never even tried to hide their dislike of Kyle's muggleborn girlfriend-turned-fiancée-soon-to-become-wife. Colton only liked Sandra slightly more than he liked Victoire. Which wasn't a lot. The only reason Sandra had gotten an invite to Colton Knott and Anastasia Greengrass's wedding a few years ago was because Kyle had gotten an invitation, and he added her down as his plus one. He had been counting on the fact that the Knotts had a public image to uphold, one that wouldn't permit them to be caught publicly snubbing Kyle's fiancée by not allowing her to come to the wedding.
"Victoire, you of all people need to learn to handle Colton Knott, after all he does have a rather intricate relationship with Dom," Xavier told her with a smirk.
"Do not remind me Wood," Victoire groaned.
Xavier had been referring to Colton's affiliation with Victoire's younger sister Dominique 'Dom' Weasley. Dom was one and a half years out of Hogwarts and was almost finished her magical law course. The last year of her course involved taking an internship in a law office a few hours a week to accompany her sporadic classes in her last year. Since Dom was near the top of her class in her studies, she won the opportunity to take the best internship offer given to her and her classmates. To Victoire's dismay, that best internship was one with the law office that Colton Knott's father was a partner at, and Colton a junior partner. Dom took the position, and according to her, she was doing a kick-arse job. So, while Victoire was very happy for her two-years younger sister, the downside was that Victoire had to hear a lot more about Colton Knott than she'd ever wanted to.
Before Kyle could try once again to remind Victoire that Colton Knott wasn't all that bad, Mrs. Line walked in with a gilded silver serving tray, topped with a delicate and antique looking tea set.
"I thought you guys deserved a little break," she said as she set the tea set down next to Sandra, who had completed the most of the invitations out of all four of them and therefore had the most free space around her.
"Thanks Mum," Kyle said shifting the empty invitations away so that he wouldn't spill on them.
Sandra helped Mrs. Line pour the tea and handed out the cups to Victoire and Xavier.
Victoire picked up the delicate blue-green and white patterned china and looked at it worriedly as if one touch from her would cause a crack, "This isn't some sort of family antique, is it?"
"Why yes it is dear," Mrs. Line told her pleasantly, "This set has been in the family for at least ten generations."
Victoire and Xavier shared a look and softly set their cups and saucers down onto the table in unison.
"Dear me, you guys must still have to go through about half of the invitations," Mrs. Line commented looking at the stacks of invitations that had been addressed, compared to the ones that were empty.
"Yup," Xavier said taking a look at the list of guests they still had to make out invitations to.
"And is it going to be only the four of you to work on them today? Is Ally not coming?" Mrs. Line asked the group in general.
Victoire resisted the urge to shoot a look at Xavier, unlike Sandra and Kyle who couldn't help the reflex of their eyes wandering to Xavier's direction when Mrs. Line casually slipped Ally's name.
There were a few moments of awkward silence before Victoire coughed self-consciously and broke it, "Well, Ally has an upcoming potions exam this week and she's at a group study session today."
"Oh she works so hard. But I had hoped that she would come today to help, at least she would be taking a break from all of her work," Mrs. Line lamented.
Victoire tried not to notice that Sandra and Kyle were still trying to catch Xavier's eye and read his expression. She sighed quietly before answering Mrs. Line, "Well my grandparents have started to re-instate Sunday night family dinners, so I'll see her tonight for a few hours."
Mrs. Line nodded, "That's good, and at least this way you can tell Ally about how far you guys have gotten in the wedding planning today-"
Kyle interrupted his mother and charmingly reminded her about how many invitations they had left to finish. Mrs. Line hadn't realized how she'd created an awkward atmosphere in the room, and Kyle was just trying to nudge her to leave. When she finally caught Kyle's drift, she left the tea set on the table and excused herself from the room.
Once she was gone, Sandra and Kyle quickly and conspicuously busied themselves with the invitations in front of them. During which, they alternated shooting surreptitious looks in Xavier's direction. Victoire wanted to face-palm herself for the both of their actions. She addressed two more invitations before setting her quill down and looking directly at Xavier's face. He was looking down at the envelope in front of him and had his quill poised to write, yet his eyes closed.
"Xavier . . ." Victoire started in her 'do-you-want-to-talk-about-it-voice'.
"Don't bother Vic," he told her quietly as he opened his eyes and sent her look that screamed 'I-don't-want-to-talk-about-it'.
"Xav-" She tried again.
"I'm fine Vic. We just need to finish these invites so I can get back to my flat and get some sleep," Xavier said, his tone trying to come off as light-hearted near the end.
Victoire was going to try one last time to get him to talk to her, but Kyle broke in.
"Don't tell me you had a Quidditch practice this morning. It's a Sunday!" Kyle said in much more convincing and conversational tone.
Xavier knew what his best friend was doing but decided for everyone's sake that he should play along, "Yeah, it was an optional running and workout practice though, and I had nothing to do so I didn't see any harm in it."
"You're muscles are going to see the harm in it tomorrow," Sandra quipped as she dipped her quill into the inkpot.
"Sandra, I'm a professional Quidditch player. I'm used to completely gruelling and pain-inducing workouts," Xavier teasingly reminded her.
"But your body still needs a day off from work Xavier. You practice every day that you don't have a game, and your one day off from any physical activity are the Sundays that you don't play games," Victoire reminded him in a stern tone.
"Thanks Healer Weasley," Xavier told her sarcastically.
Victoire rolled her eyes but didn't even attempt to argue back. He and her friends had been jokingly calling her that since she decided she wanted to be a healer in her fifth year. Their teasing had gotten more prevalent as she'd gotten further and further into her healer training. She was currently halfway through her fourth and last year of her healer-training course. The next step when she graduated at the end of the year was a year residency period in St. Mungo's hospital, which included studying for the official board of health healer exams that she would take after she had successfully completed her residency period. She hadn't earned the title of Healer yet, but her friends were already making use of it.
Victoire took a moment to look at the stack of invitations she still needed to address, and was surprised that she only had about thirty left to do. She grabbed the next invitation to address with a renewed vigour and asked Sandra, "I know why Kyle's other groomsmen aren't able to help us with the invites today, but why couldn't Jenny make it to this fun little get-together?"
Victoire was referring to Sandra's little sister by two years, who although not maid of honour like she'd wanted to be, did hold the honourable title of one of the bridesmaids and was therefore expected to help in some of the wedding preparations.
Sandra rolled her eyes in annoyance as she went to answer Victoire's question, "Several good reasons actually. First, her penmanship is worse than Kyle's. Second, she's mentioned several times that since she's just a bridesmaid and not the maid of honour that she might not be able to clear her schedule as well as she'd like to, to make it to our wedding preparation meetings. Third, this is going to sound really mean, but she's a muggle and she doesn't fully understand everything that will come along with wizarding weddings and magic. And fourth, she's proven that she has a talent for making our get-togethers uncomfortable."
"How so?" Victoire asked, referring to the last part of the Sandra's explanation.
"She's developed a fancy for Xavier," Sandra announced simply.
"What?" Victoire and Xavier cried in unison.
Kyle snickered at their reaction, he, and his fiancée, had already discussed her sister's new-found crush on his best man, "We figured it out last week when we all met to discuss the venue for the reception. She stared at him the whole time, and then wouldn't stop talking about him when we left."
"We?" Sandra asked with an arched eyebrow.
"Dear, in t-minus seven months and counting we're going to be a legal and spiritual unit, so I think we can start practicing sharing praise and blame for ideas," Kyle responded.
"In fact you guys are behind on that, Victoire and Teddy have been using the 'we' instead of 'I' for at least six years," Xavier snickered.
Victoire crumpled up one of the envelopes that she'd made a spelling mistake on and tossed it at Xavier's head. Unfortunately, his professional keeping skills came out and he stopped the paper missile and flung it away.
"So if that's how things work when you get married, does that mean that Sandra will get the praise when you acquire new clients for your company?" Victoire asked in a cheeky tone.
"I doubt it would be possible to give her any more praise for new clients than she already gets. I spent two hours with our newest client, trying to convince him to do business with us and I hadn't made it any farther than the start line, when one of our interns came in and gave us the newest financial projections report that Sandra had just happened to put together. He flipped through the report, and in five minutes he'd decided to double his offer and was saying that it would be an honour to do business with us," Kyle said with a very, very proud, and self-satisfied air.
"I bet he would have tripled his offer is Sandra had delivered the report herself," Xavier said as he shot Sandra a wink.
Sandra blushed and kept her eyes down to where she was addressing an envelope to her muggle grandparents.
"Stop it you're embarrassing her," Victoire chided.
Sandra gave her best mate a thankful smile and tried to laugh off her embarrassment, "Don't worry about me, I think Kyle's trying to make it his mission to embarrass me in front of my co-workers when we're at work."
Kyle chuckled, threw an arm over his fiancée's shoulder, and pulled her close so he could kiss her temple, "You know that I don't mean any harm when I stop by and visit . . . and to make sure that all of your male co-workers are keeping their hands to themselves."
"Well don't you just sound like an over-controlling fiancée, I bet you don't like those blokes just talking to her either," Victoire asked with an arched eyebrow.
"They can talk about work all they want, everything else is them just trying to flirt," Kyle pouted.
"I wouldn't put it past you to put all those guys who try to talk to her on report either," Xavier said to Kyle.
"He actually did try that my first few weeks, but then I made him stop," Sandra told them with a laugh.
Kyle frowned at his fiancée, "You promised you wouldn't tell them about that!"
Victoire giggled while Sandra tried to calm Kyle's ruffled feathers, "They're our best friends Kyle. They're not going to think anything less of you because of that."
"Well I wouldn't have had to put those guys on report if they hadn't tried to flirt with you," Kyle muttered.
"Wait," Victoire started slowly, "They flirted with a woman wearing and engagement ring?"
"How could they miss that rock? It's the size of Canada," Xavier said gesturing to the huge diamond on Sandra's left ring finger. It was another family heirloom of some sort.
"I didn't wear it my first week there. I didn't want people to know that I was engaged to the owner's son," Sandra explained as she twisted said engagement ring around her finger.
"I mean, I wouldn't want people to think I was engaged to Kyle either, but if you didn't want to wear the rock, you could have said no when Kyle first got down on one knee," Victoire said playfully.
Kyle rolled his eyes, "She just didn't want people to think that she got her job just because of our relationship."
"Understandable," Xavier agreed while Victoire nodded her head.
"But I was back to wearing it after a week working there. Kyle's dad came down to my office to see how my first week had gone, and he kinda let the cat out of the bag then," Sandra explained.
"Hey! I'm out of envelopes!" Victoire called excitedly as she placed her quill to rest in the closest inkpot.
"Me too!" Xavier announced excitedly as he finished writing the last letter of the name on the last envelope he had to address.
"Je suis fini," Kyle said excitedly, demonstrating one of the few sentences of French he actually knew how to speak despite the fact that both his mother and father could speak it fluently.
"And . . . finished," Sandra agreed placing her last invitation into the already addressed envelope and sealing it with her wand.
"Perfect," Victoire said glancing down at her watch, "Just enough time to go back to my flat and get a nap before heading off to family dinner."
"It's three-thirty Vic, how much of a nap could you actually get before heading to your grandparents for dinner?" Sandra asked as she started to shuffle the invitations into neat little piles.
"Even an hour of extra sleep would be a big help right about now," Victoire said rubbing her eyes tiredly.
"Oh Vic, are you still not sleeping well?" Sandra asked, her eyes growing wide with concern.
"Do I ever sleep well when he's away?" Victoire asked rhetorically.
"According to you, no," Kyle answered her.
"That was rhetorical Kyle."
"I know."
"Then why did you answer?"
"Because I felt like it."
"You're a nutter."
"Yup."
Despite her best effort, Kyle's antics made a smile bloom across Victoire's face. Which she knew was his intention.
"I'm going back to my apartment and to pass out. If I sleep through the alarm I'll set on my clock, and my family calls any of you asking where I am, tell them I probably just slept through my wake-up call," Victoire told them as she stood up from the table and moved towards the exit.
"I'll go with you, I could use some extra shuteye too," Xavier said standing up and walking with her.
"You've got your own flat to sleep at," Victoire said nudging him in the shoulder.
Xavier rolled his eyes before looking at her sincerely, "Do you want to talk . . . about Teddy?"
Victoire shook her head hard, "No. . . do you want to talk about Ally?"
Xavier shook his head too.
They continued their journey to the foyer of the Line's mansion in silence.
Author's Note: Well, I hope that everyone enjoyed that, the first chapter of Life After Hogwarts!
Please don't forget to tell me your thoughts or ask me you questions in your reviews or PMs :)
For those of you coming from TTA, tell me what you think.
For those of you just meeting these characters, please also tell me what you think and ask questions if you'd like because I do try to answer most questions asked in both reviews and PMs, but just remember that this story will have a lot to go, and some of the questions you may have I may tell you to sit on because they'll be answered at a later date.
Updating schedule: Well, I like to have chapters written up a head of time before I start to update because I usually give you one once a week when I have a stick pile, but I have no stock pile, so the next update of this story will definitely be in the new year, and may be even a month or more after that. I will try to update as I write though, even if that means the updates will be more sporadic, because I'd really like to see how everyone feels about the chapters and the way the plot is going, because I am writing this sequel for all of you!
So, in the mean time it would probably be best to add this story t your story alert, me to your author alert, and to follow this story on Twitter (Try and Tri Again) to know as soon as I update, and maybe even a little before I plan to.
I hope everyone enjoys their holidays, and I'll update in the new year :)