So I know it's been a while, but what a chapter have I got for you today! Romance, drama, terror and long to boot. I'm actually really proud of this one, can you tell? Anyone, I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I have writing it.

Much love and thanks to all readers and reviewers.

Chapter Four

It had been a surprise to be invited to the Weasley wedding, it had been years since Charlie and I had dated, and while I'd got the know the family pretty well in that time I hadn't spoken to them for years, save the twins. Yet there was the invite, attached to the leg of a very battered looking owl that had just collapsed on my kitchen table.

"Do you think he's dead?" I asked Oliver, buttering my toast.

"Nah, he's still breathing. He'll come round in a bit."

I thumbed at the invitation, "Do you want to come with me?"

"To what?"

"The wedding."

"Do I want to come with you to the wedding of your ex-boyfriend's brother? I don't know, don't you think that'd be a little odd."

"No. They've said I can bring a date, so that does technically mean you're invited."

"I won't know anyone."

"You'll know me, and the twins, and Charlie for that matter. You were on the team with most of them, you probably know more of them than I do."

"What's in it for me?"

"My deepest love and affection."

"I would hope I already had that."

I chuckled, "Well you won't unless you come to the wedding with me."

"Well we can't have that. Fine. I suppose I do tend to get lucky at weddings."

I threw a crust at him. "Behave."

"Nope" he teased "you have my attendance, you will have to be extra nice to me to get my good behaviour. So less of the crust-throwing please."

At that point the bird on the table spluttered back into life. Oliver fed it the crust that had become entangled in his hair and allowed it to drink out of his teacup while I responded to the invite. The owl took of clumsily, scattering cups as it went, until finally it found the window and flew off into the London sky.

The wedding itself took place a month later. The marquee in the gardens of the Burrow sparkled invitingly, it seemed to ward off the dark clouds of the real world for a night. Fleur looked beautiful, seriously, even for a bride. I had to elbow Oliver heavily in the ribs when she walked down the aisle past us. She was part veela, I learned later from the twins, which accounted for a lot. Bill, on the other hand, seemed to be on the other side of the spectrum. His face had been disfigured, great raking scars nearly obliterating one side of it. When I questioned the twins about that their faces turned darker.

"You remember that ruckus at Hogwarts at the end of last year?" Fred said.

"How could I forget?" That day had changed our lives.

"Bill was attacked by a werewolf, Greyback."

I'd heard the names, whispered under fearful breaths. "Shit", I inhaled deeply. "He's okay though, there's not going to be…side effects"

"No" George spoke this time, "aside from the face we think he's ok. He was lucky, really."

I looked back at Bill, amazed and disheartened at what constituted luck these days. "Yeah."

Oliver rejoined us at that point, heartened by butterbeer and music.

"Fancy a dance with me?" He asked, leaning on the back of my chair.

I wasn't feeling it, "maybe later" I replied, "My feet are killing me. You can dance though? I'm sure you'll find a partner."

"I'm sure I will too" he said, wiggiling his eyebrows. "Gentlemen, please make sure my girlfriend isn't swept away by any handsome Bulgarian Quidditch players while I'm gone."

"Oh please" George chuckled, "If anyone's fallen in love with Krum it's you. I've seen how moony eyed you get when you look at him."

"Ohh" I interjected, "have I got competition?"

"Well, he is a world class Seeker." Wood replied, chuckling.

"Go dance" I told him, "I'll see you later."

"I still can't believe you guys actually got together in the end" Fred told me, when Wood had vanished back into the crowd.

"Well it was practically down to you guys in the first place, your bloody bet."

"What bet?"

"The bet about snogging an opposing Quidditch captain."

"Oh that bet. That ended way before you guys hooked up."

That was a surprise. "Really?"

"Yep, and actually it was just anyone from an opposing team. I won, actually."

"Er, no." George cut in, "I definitely snogged Michaela Simmonds before you snogged Rachel Wyte."

"Well, the timing is blurry" Fred acknowledge, "but Wood had to pay up."

So it had been a cover up. Back then, nearly seven years ago now, I probably would have been annoyed by the lie, but all that time with Oliver had taught me that sometimes he said stupid things, and the trick was picking out the ones to get angry over. And this, well, it was just quite flattering.

"You didn't hear it from us."

"Didn't hear what?" A familiar voice echoed behind me.

"Charlie?" I turned around, "God it's been years."

"Good to see you, Riza" he said, giving me a brief hug. "Thanks for coming."

"Thanks for inviting me, it's lovely, honestly I was surprised I was invited."

"Yeah, would it make you feel terrible if I said you were invited because a couple of people dropped out, and I thought mum was going to have a heart attack."

"Well, we can't have that. No, it doesn't make me feel terrible, I feel very privileged to be asked."

Charlie took one of the seats recently vacated by the twins. "So how have you been?"

"Good, yeah. You?"

"Pretty good. What you up to these days."

I explained briefly about the Goblin scrolls I was still working my way through in some godforsaken basement. He, in return, told me stories about his time working the dragons. It sounded an awful lot cooler than what I was doing. But eventually, inevitably, our conversation turned to Dumbledore, the Ministry and the return of You-Know-Who.

"You think he's really coming back?"

"Yeah" Charlie replied, "Harry says he is, and I believe him."

"Me too."
"They're going somewhere next year, Ron, Harry and Hermione. They think we don't know about it but they don't give mum enough credit. We don't know what, but they're not going back to Hogwarts. It's something to do with Dumbledore."

"Damn, are you going to let them."

"Well mum's going to do her level best to stop them, but honestly, I think they're going to do it no matter what we say. And maybe they should, someone's got to do something. It's just scary you know, they're kids."

They were kids, I supposed But I thought back to when I was there age, how fearless I was, how stubborn, how just naïve enough I was to not think about how impossible things were, and part of me thought they were exactly the right age.

"What will you do?" Charlie asked.

"I don't know." I replied, dejectedly, "I mean, I want to be a soldier, I feel like a soldier, but there's no battle there's just this fear. How do you fight a shadow?"

"With light." Charlie grinned back, rather pleased with his, admittedly excellent, answer. "And tonight is a very bright night indeed, so a dance?"

He was right, God only knew what was going to happen next, but, to all intents and purposes tonight was a good night, so I allowed him to lead me over to where a several couples where already twirling beneath the glowing lanterns.

"May I" Oliver's voice cut into the music. Charlie nodded and passed me over. Oliver smiled down at me, sweeping me further across the floor. He looked handsome in the glow, the light somehow lingering in his eyes.

"You are looking very beautiful tonight" he muttered in my ear.

"You're not looking to bad, yourself."

I hadn't noticed but we seemed to have left the tent, and were dancing on the lawn, the stars peppering the sky over our heads. Suddenly, Oliver stopped.

"So" he looked awkward, "Weddings…"

"Weddings" I agreed, slightly bemused.

"Would you ever fancy taking part in one in a more…central…role?"

"I've already been a bridesmaid. And you've been a best man, so I hardly think we can complain."

Oliver was fidgeting now, his eyes flickering from me, to the ground, to the stars.

"I was thinking, even more central."

"Like a…?" I knew what he was getting at, but it was funny watching him squirm.

"Oh you know what I mean."

"I think I do, but that doesn't mean you're getting out of saying it."

He relaxed, but only slightly. He finally focused on my face. "Like a bride. Like my bride."

I paused, struggling to keep from grinning. "Just, out of interest" I said teasingly, "where you planning on getting down on one knee?"

"So fussy" Oliver muttered, but he did kneel. "Riza Alvic, God only knows what kind of trouble I am going to bring myself by asking you this, but will you marry me?"

It was getting even more difficult not to grin now, but I managed to reply, exasperated "Oh, why not?"

"Is that a yes?"

I did smile now, "What do you think?"

"Yes?" he asked hopefully, a smile beginning to form.

"YES!" I shouted throwing my head back, before descending into helpless, glorious laughter.

Oliver was laughing too, catching me in his arms he kissed me, something made difficult by the fact that neither of us could stop grinning. It was one of the those perfect, patronus producing moments. In fact, I could see a patronus heading towards the tent.

That couldn't be good news.

And the happiness drained from my face, and from Oliver's. The two of us rushed towards where the silvery form had taken its place in the tent. The words that echoed from it drove the blood from my face.

"The ministry has fallen, Scrimgeour is dead. They are coming."

It was then the screaming started, tables overturned around us as hundreds of people rushed past desperate to flee the tent. Then the death eaters arrived, I didn't even know what a death eater looked like but when I saw them I knew it instinctively, masked, cloaked figures that sent a jolt of fear and disgust to the bottom of your stomach. Curses began to shoot around us, I thought I saw people falling, maybe dying, but maybe that was just my imagination. Somewhere in the confusion I found a logical thought. I grabbed Oliver's hand and prepared to apparated.

Take me home.

The first thing I noticed when my knees slammed into the carpet was I was in the living room of my father's flat. I nearly sobbed with relief that I managed to get there. I turned to Oliver, to check he was still with me, and noticed the second thing. Oliver was bleeding, not just a quite deep cut bleeding, properly profusely blood all over the carpet bleeding. His left leg had a huge chunk missing from the thigh, he must have been splinched. For a moment I was too shocked too move, but fortunately my father had already entered the room and taken charge.

"The medicine cabinet, essence of dittany." He told me, sternly, his voice cutting through the rising panic in my brain.

Essence of dittany, okay, I could do that. I pushed everything out of my mind, forcing myself to look for the bottle. If I thought about everything that happened that night I was liable to pass out myself. I found the bottle, and with shaking hands brought it back to my father who was leaning over the unconscious Oliver, his sleeves covered up to the elbow in blood. He took the bottle gently from my hands and poured it over the wound. There was a hiss, and a slight smell of burning and the liquid touched the severed skin, but as the faint smoked cleared away the wound seemed to stop bleeding. Oliver moaned, despite his catatonic state.

"Help me clear this up." My father told me, passing me rolls of tissue, we mopped up the excess blood in silence, until finally, we could see the wound clearly. The sight of it made me want to vomit. I'd never seen someone splinched before, well maybe a couple of eyebrows gone, a finger on one occasion, but never properly, properly splinched. It was horrific, the bone lay exposed beneath layers of muscle, sinew and fat. The skin ripped and discoloured from the dittany. I retched slightly, and my father guided me down into an arm chair.

"You're okay" I breathed, when I finally could speak again, "The ministry, I thought..."

"I got out in time. I'm okay." He hugged me, "I am so happy to see you. But, I'm afraid I have something to tell you."

"What?"

"Not just now, we need to get Oliver sorted first, then we'll talk."

He smiled weakly at me, which did nothing to put my mind at ease. "Okay" I agreed.

"The dittany should help for now, but he needs a healer. Can you contact Henry?"

Henry, I hadn't even thought about Henry and Flora, were they okay? I rushed over the fireplace, and was relieved when Henry finally answered.

"Riza?"

"Yes, are you alright? Is Flora with you?"

"Yes we're all here, did you hear what happened at the ministry? Are you okay?"

I nodded vigorously, "We heard, Oliver and I are at my fathers, he's injured, I know it's a bad time given everything that's going on but is there any chance…"

I didn't even have to finish my sentence before Henry was nodding, "I'll come over right away" he said.

"Will Flora be alright?"
"She'll be fine, we've taken precautions. Speaking of which, she wants a word. I'll get my stuff and come over."

He moved away and his face was replaced by Flora's, she looked equal parts terrified and relieved.

"I'm so glad you're okay." I gushed at her, "I thought, with you at the ministry."

"I'm on maternity leave." Flora replied, "the baby probably saved my life."

"When's it due?"

"Any day now, is Oliver okay, I heard you talking."

"He's been splinched, it's bad, but he'll make it."

"It's good to see you."

"You too."

"Henry's coming now, stay safe."

"You too. I'll see you soon."

"I hope so."

Flora disappeared and a pop in the next room told me Henry had arrived. When I walked in he had already set about bandaging Oliver's arm.

"Is he going to be okay?" I asked, settling down in an armchair.

"Yes" Henry said, not looking up from his work, "but he'll be passed out for a while, and he'll be weak for a few days after that, it's a nasty wound. Splinched?"

I nodded, "It's my fault, I was in a hurry." I paused, "death eaters attacked the wedding."

My father gasped and Henry looked up to stare at me.

"You're not serious?" He said.

"I am. I don't know what's happening now, I hope everyone's okay."

My father put a comforting arm around me. "Thank God you made it back okay."

Henry nodded, returning to his work.

Eventually he was finished. "Would you like a cup of tea?" I asked, as he packed up his things.

"I'd love too, but I should get back. I don't really want to leave Flora alone, she's pretty shaken. We're all pretty shaken."

"You said you had taken precautions?"

"The fidelius charm, what with Flora's job and all, you never know who might come looking."

It was a scary thought, and one I tried to suppress.

"Listen" Henry continued, "I'll speak to you in the next few days, I'll have to come over to check on Oliver anyway, so we'll talk more then." He gave me hug, "It'll be alright."

I nodded weakly, but I couldn't even convince myself, let alone anyone else.

"Bye then"

"Bye"

When Henry had gone my father and me moved Oliver into the guest bedroom, lying him down on the mattress. When we returned to the living room, I knew it was time to discuss what my father had mentioned earlier.

"So, you wanted to talk?" I asked, trying to keep my voice as calm as possible.

"Yes" his face looked heavy, and his eyes full of sadness. "I'm sorry, Riza, but I'm afraid that you and I are in grave danger, and we have to leave."

"What?" I had started to feel very dizzy, the words were being heard and I knew what they meant, but they didn't seem to relate to anything.

"I'm so sorry, my darling, but there's something I've never told you. I suppose I just wanted to keep your safe, and there was no reason too, well, until now. Riza, I need to speak to you about your mother."