Whether yellow, orange, brown or gold
the colors of fall never grow old
This is a reflection of true love
ever changing, yet everlasting
Please join
ShiShi Lotus Yang
and
David Shang Lee
as they exchange wedding
vows on
Wednesday, the thirty first of
October
two thousand eighteen
at five o'clock in the evening
Flagley Park
44 Wickersham Way
Upper Flagley, Yorkshire
Before Victoire knew it, it was the day of yet another wedding. The morning of the wedding, ShiShi was in a tizzy. She had woken them at nearly eight, which was too early in Victoire's book. To keep her mind off the wedding, Victoire had employed her friend's help in working in her greenhouse. With fall approaching, many of her plants were going into hibernation which saddened Victoire, but she wanted to move things around anyways. The work took ShiShi's mind off of the wedding until about noon, but then she realized her nails had been destroyed digging up Victoire's bouncing bulbs.
"NOOOOOOOOO!" she shrieked. Victoire rolled her eyes and began performing a few quick charms. She knew quite a bit about nail charms being a part veela, but that was a different story.
"Come on, let's go to your hair appointment, settle down Shish!" exclaimed Elaine, the Maid of Honor who was practically a genius at running a wedding after the last two she had done along with her own which was still in the early planning stages. After all, she had two months. Victoire was planning on going to her dress fitting the next week.
ShiShi was nervous at the hair appointment, whining the entire time that her nail might break again and the repairing charm that Victoire had preformed might not hold. She was worried about the weather, it may look like a perfect sunny and crisp autumn day now, but in a few hours, it could be raining and gale force winds.
Victoire had her own hair done, an elegant bun with a few whispy curls framing her face at the front. ShiShi had several of her cousins in the wedding also, but they didn't speak English very well, so Victoire and Elaine and Sarah didn't really talk to them. In no time at all, Victoire was putting the last brush of golden and brown eye shadow on her eye lids, and pulling on her golden high heels. Her tent like dress made her look like a pumpkin, but right now, today was ShiShi's day, and if ShiShi wanted her to look like a pumpkin, she would.
The bridal party had apparated from the boutique where they had gotten ready to the wooded park where the ceremony was taking place beneath the brilliant collage of autumn leaves. The park was frequented by hikers, but once in a while the odd wedding occurred in a small clearing near the entrance of the park. ShiShi had arranged for wooden folding chairs to be set up on either side of a long red carpet that was strewn with yellow leaves. Yellow, red, and orange ribbons, silks, and flower arrangements were decorating the set up, while the natural decorations of fall were the centerpiece of the occasion.
The girls apparated into a small tent that had been set up for them and were joined by Mr. Yang, ShiShi's father who was shorter than Victoire, and quite stern looking. They made last minute adjustments to their appearances and after giving ShiShi a round of hugs and kisses, pulled the veil over her face just in time for the wedding music to begin.
ShiShi's cousins were first, following her cousin's daughter who was the flower girl. Next was Victoire, bursting out the small opening of the tent in her poufy dress with some minor difficulty. They would pull back the flaps of the tent when ShiShi emerged so it would be a bit more graceful. She looked down the isle to see the proud faced David waiting for his bride and couldn't help but smile. He looked so anxious, yet serene.
Next came Sarah, smiling at her husband Frank who was David's best man. After, Elaine filed down, also looking like a pumpkin, if Victoire the part Veela couldn't escape the torture, neither could Elaine. As the bridal march started, Victoire glanced at the groomsmen, not really knowing all of them very well but grinning to see Teddy looking at her. He winked at her and she discretely stuck her tongue out at him and gave him a look that clearly told him to pay attention to the wedding.
ShiShi came out of the tent looking like a goddess. She had been growing out her short hair a bit, and it was curled in an updo that gave it the illusion of length. Her smile beneath the lacey veil was bright and happy, lighting up her entire face. Mr. Yang looked so proud as he led her steadily toward David and the priest who were waiting beneath a pair of trees whose branches intertwined to create an arch above the couple. When they reached the front, Mr. Yang pulled back the veil giving his daughter a sweet kiss on the cheek before firmly placing her hand in David's with a look of trust and respect toward the younger man. Mr. Yang was very happy with ShiShi's choice, and who wouldn't be? David was a great guy.
The wedding was beautiful, the crisp fall air neither too hot or too cold. The setting was perfect with the light chattering of birds and animals coming from the surrounding woods making the perfect background noise. Victoire really couldn't imagine a more perfect fall wedding when the Priest announced that David could kiss his bride and a gust of wind suddenly blew a swirl of leaves around the happy couple, almost magically. Okay, so maybe there had been a spell involved, but Victoire wasn't sure if there had or not.
The sun was just beginning to set as the ceremony closed and the bridal party stayed to take pictures while the wedding guests headed to a different part of the park where the reception was being held under some tents.
As soon as ShiShi and David arrived, there was a mob of Asian people clamoring to get the attention of the bride and groom, allowing Elaine, Teddy, and Victoire to sneak off and find James while Sarah and Frank did their "we're married but we're going to sit here and stare into each other's eyes" thingy that they did quite a lot lately. They soon found James who was talking to Murphy who looked uncomfortable. He had never been the best around girls, and suddenly, it seemed like he was turning into a bit of celebrity now that he was getting some fame on the lower league quidditch circuit.
When Ellie and James reunited, James made a big show of trying to approach her from all angles before stepping into the puff of her dress and hugging her while crushing her lungs and the dress. "Wasn't sure if I could get around the poufiness, I tried though," he said with a smirk. Ellie glared.
"Toire, I promise that I will not have a puffy dress. We're picking them out on Wednesday, don't forget," said Elaine looking mournfully at her dress. "Perhaps if I tried a shrinking spell on it… it would deflate," she pondered fingering her wand.
"I wouldn't try it luv, ShiShi's watching," said James causing Elaine to look up guiltily to see that ShiShi had her back turned to them as she talked in rapid Chinese with her grandmother. Ellie smacked James on his chest with a huff.
"Liar," she muttered as she grabbed Toire's hand and began dragging her to the high table for the dinner.
Dinner went smoothly, Victoire chatting happily with Elaine about her wedding plans. They were happy to take note of every detail of ShiShi's wedding and compare it to how that detail would be in Elaine's wedding.
"Now this fish is just delectable, I need to find out where she got this catered, I think we might have to get the fish especially from them because the place we went to in Godric's Hollow doesn't have this nice of a sauce blend," Elaine was saying as Victoire nodded in agreement. The fish was really good.
"ELAINE, VICTOIRE!" came a loud voice from behind them. They swiveled in their chairs to see Tanya LaMonte'. She hugged them both, kissing them each on their cheeks.
"Tanya!" said Victoire gaining her bearings. "How's Russia been, and that boyfriend Vladimir that you were telling us about at Andi's wedding?"
"That's what I came over here to tell you about!" she screeched. "I'M ENGAGED!" She held out her left hand to show an absolutely giant clear and sparkling diamond on a bright and shinning platinum band. Victoire and Elaine's eyes both bugged out of their faces at the sheer wealth that the rather large ring screamed.
"Con-congratulations," stammered Victoire, unable to believe that the diamond could possibly be real, it was huge.
"Be my bridesmaids!" she exclaimed happily. "We wanted to get married on the same day as his parent's anniversary, and that doesn't give us much time, and we want to get married in England, and since you've been involved in so many weddings between the two of you lately, you know the wedding circuit, and so you can help me plan everything!" she exclaimed in a giant rush on sentence.
"We'd be happy to help," said Elaine with a smile. Victoire nodded, a bit reluctantly as she realized the implications of this wedding. This was her fifth wedding before the new year where she would be the bridesmaid. How were all of her friends finding the perfect men, while she a Veela who had magical abilities to attract men to her like flies to honey couldn't even get the one man she'd loved all her life to look twice at her? Plus, so far she'd had to go stag to all of the weddings because she was too lame to find a date. She was a VEELA for Merlin's sake! What was wrong with her?
"How soon did you say you were getting married?" asked Victoire trying to sound enthusiastic.
"Three weeks," gushed Tanya. "November 24th, and I know it's short notice, but money isn't an issue because Vladimir will pay for everything and so we can pay extra for the rush." She lowered her voice, "He's loaded."
"THREE WEEKS!" cried Elaine in shock.
"SHORT NOTICE?" demanded Victoire.
"IMPOSSIBLE!" stated Elaine.
"CAN'T BE DONE," agreed Victoire.
"SORRY," they both said together.
"YOU PROMISED ME!" said Tanya, her face falling and looking utterly dejected.
"Alright, we might be able to manage it, but we aren't promising a miracle. We'll go get the dresses Monday, and then we'll order the cake Tuesday, we'll have to improvise a bit on the menu, but we'll book some place for the reception and the ceremony as soon as possible. We'll spend next week in overdrive and see how it goes. We can't promise a miracle," said Elaine, utterly too nice to say no to a friend in need. Victoire glared at her over Tanya's head.
"THANK YOU SO MUCH! I ABSOLUTELY LOVE YOU DARLINGS!" she said pulling them in for giant hugs while Teddy gave Victoire a funny look from across the table to which she merely shrugged and gave him an I'll tell you later look.
A few minutes later, Elaine was making a speech and then ShiShi and David were dancing their first dance as a couple. As other happy couples joined the newest married one, Victoire looked away. Various of her mum and grandma Molly's friends had tried to set her up several times already tonight. Honestly, she wasn't interesting in Michael Higgs, thirty year old, successful accountant for the Ministry, great reptutation and ready to settle down. Robert McBride the twenty three year old hippogriff farmer with a large farm in Scotland didn't really strike her fancy either. All of those men just weren't right for her, they weren't Teddy Lupin.
Sarah and Frank were happily dancing, engrossed in each other's eyes and not paying attention at all to Elaine and James who were doing some pretty advanced dancing as James twirled a laughing Ellie around the floor, causing her giant dress to bell out and reveal the layers of white ruffles underneath the skirt. Andi and Kendrick were talking quietly with small smiles on their faces as he led Andi across the floor to near where Tanya was dancing with her fiancé, Vladimir, a handsome dark haired man with a big brown mustache and thick eyebrows. Turning around, Victoire knew she couldn't watch this all night, none, absolutely none, of her friends were single anymore.
The sudden feeling as if she was suffocating overtook Victoire and she decided she needed air, practically running out of the cheerful tent full of people. Reaching the outside of the tent, she saw that it was a perfect clear night, the moon shining down on the moonlit park prettily. Clutching her wand she began pacing, thinking how stupid she was, how she should have told Tanya where to stuff it, same with the rest of her friends and their stupid weddings and bridesmaid dresses.
The pitying looks, the unasked question of what's a great girl like you doing without a date and single, the conspiratory glances of would be match makers. They were driving her crazy. And this wasn't the first wedding where it had occurred. Muttering to herself under her breath, she was surprised when a quiet, "Vic?" intruded the darkness.
Spinning she identified the person who had followed her out of the tent as Teddy Lupin. Great, just great. "Wotcher Ted," she said with a small smile. He could always make her smile.
"This whole wedding reception thing blows," he said out of the blue. "Let's escape!"
"Honestly Ted, we need to be here for cake, and the throwing of the bouquet, and the garter, and all those other traditions," replied Victoire rolling her eyes and secretly hoping she would catch the bouquet. She really needed to.
"We can be back before anyone knows we left. Let's just go have a bit of fun. I never see you since I'm stuck in Egypt, land of no friends. The few nights I'm home I like to have some fun! The rest of my time is spent translating that ancient engraving, so I need some modern entertainment."
"What did you have in mind?" she asked raising an eyebrow at the way he was practically begging her.
"Do you still like chocolate and candy?" he asked with a wry grin.
"Is the queen English?" she shot back rolling her eyes. Teddy bent over and picked up two carved pumpkins that were decorating the area outside the tent and tapped them both with his wand. Waving his wand a silvery jet shot out of it and hit Victoire in the chest. Looking down she felt her body tingling and watched as the ground became closer and her dress turned white. "Lupin?" she asked looking up to see a Teddy Lupin just as she remembered him at age eleven. Grasping her throat she looked at him and then pulled her own wand and conjured a mirror. Yup, she was eleven again.
"Don't worry, I know the counter charm, just a disguise charm, quite handy. Here's your pumpkin, we're going trick or treating! I want candy!" laughed Teddy. Victoire smirked at his young sounding voice, vaguely remembering back in about third or fourth year when it had cracked and sputtered regularly before developing into the deep smooth one she was used to. It gave her goosebumps to hear his eleven year old voice now.
"This is sooo weird on so many levels Ted," she said smiling nonetheless.
"Come on, let's apparate, I'll side along you, and then we'll come back before anyone knows we've left." Giggling like the pair of eleven year olds they looked like, they disappeared with a pop.
A half hour later, Teddy looked at Victoire and frowned. "How was this ever fun, all this bloody walking. Honestly, have you ever heard of such shite, and the ruddy candy is barely worth the effort of moving from one house to the next! Pure bollocks" he moaned. A woman holding the hand of her small daughter looked back at Victoire and gave her a dirty look and Victoire remembered that children age didn't swear like sailors. She raised her eyebrows at Teddy while he continued his rant.
"THEODORE, language," she scolded using her best grown up tone that she could manage with her eleven year old voice.
"Come on Tor! We can think of something better than this, like, perhaps we could transfigure our appearances and just keep going to the same house or two. That one house back there gave a very good amount of chocolate. We should go back," he said. He morphed his face into that of an entirely different looking child and grinned. "TWICK O TWEET!" he said in his most obnoxious non-Teddy voice.
"You know Lupin, that might be a good idea."
"See Weasley, there's a reason we're friends," he said waving his wand and changing their costumes from a princes and a little prince to a cowboy and a fairy. "I come up with all the great ideas and am the clever one."
"What does that make me?"
"The one who stands there and looks pretty," he joked as they approached the door. "TRICK OR TREAT!" they chimed and received their candy. They then walked back down the path and ducked behind the fence before changing costumes and looks. This was as easy as stealing candy from a muggle, oh, wait, that is what they were doing after all.
Finally after an hour or so of "trick or treating" and getting quite the stash of candy, two giant pillowcases full, they two apparated back to the party as their normal selves. Victoire frowned at the hideous pumpkin dress. They were laughing as they walked back into the big party to see that the wedding guests were all a few degrees drunker than an hour ago. Walking to an abandoned table, they both poured their respective candy hordes onto the table and began trading things.
"Aw, come on Vic, you don't even like almonds, just give em to me, I don't see why you have to have something in return for something you don't like at all!" said Teddy.
"Well, they are gross, I hate nuts. Mostly, with the exception of those in my family," she laughed. "But, I should get something in return. I'm not going to just give them all to you! Give me your marshmello thingys."
"But I like those!"
"You like nuts better!"
"Hello Ted, Victoire," came a voice causing both arguing youths to look up into the smiling green eyes of Harold James Potter.
"Harry!" laughed Teddy hugging his godfather as Victoire grinned at her uncle.
"What are you doing here?" asked Victoire with a smile.
"Well, apparently there are some wizards out tonight making Halloween trouble for the muggles. As if the pranks weren't enough, apparently someone detected some suspicious magic and thinks there are some children that aren't really children running around muggle London stealing candy from muggles. Disguising with magic or something. Had to call in reinforcements, and I knew James would be here and thought he could investigate the scene of the crime for me and clear up that case while I work on some exploding pumpkins in Surrey. But, since I saw you guys, I thought I would stop and say hi." Harry gave them both pointed looks, clearly saying, I believe I know what you're up to.
"Well, as nice as that sounds," said Teddy hastily shoving all of his candy into his pillowcase in one swift movement and getting up from the table. "I believe that I need to go speak with Murphy. I promised that I would speak with one of his friends about the differences between humans and goblins and the importance of taking these species specifics when dealing with a inter-race relationship." And before Harry or Victoire could blink, he was gone. Harry looked at Victoire with a grin. GREAT, she was screwed. He may as well have just said he needed to fly to Venus on a unicorn and retrieve the lost scrolls of Aramais because that would be more believable.
"Oh look Uncle Harry, ShiShi is going to cut the cake, and I need to be over there, and yeah, don't bother looking for the people stealing the muggle's candy, that was me and Teddy and we're sorry and no one has to know right, well the cake should be good so why don't you get a piece of the chocolate, it's the best, I know because I picked it out," she said disappearing rapidly after her jumbled confession. She never could keep her mouth shut to her uncle.
He was smiling however as he watched her go. He had never really been on duty tonight and was actually a friend of the groom's mother, Cho Chang Lee. He had merely wanted to watch his niece and godson squirm. They had looked like they were having quite a bit of fun though.
Later that night, Ted and Vic apparated back to London together so that Teddy could walk Victoire home. Both swinging their bags of muggle sweets, they munched happily on sweets on the way home, catching up on the month since they had seen each other at Andi's wedding.
"Teddy, Tanya is getting married on the twenty fourth, do you think you could make it home for her wedding?" she asked as they reached her apartment.
"Errr, I could try," he said with a thoughtful look.
"Well, maybe you could be my date of sorts, I mean, just my friend, who comes as my date, not an actual date, but, I don't want to go alone. And maybe, you could not be Teddy Lupin, but uhh… someone that they don't think was my pity date, just friend date? Because if we go together, everyone will think, oh, they are just friends and still feel sorry for me as the Veela who can't get a date, and needs a man in her life. And I really don't, but I hate the looks. And, if you don't want to this was stupid to ask you, I'm sorry."
"Vic," he said interrupting her tirade. "I'll be your date, my name's Fredrick, known as Fred or Freddie Girard, from France, I work in the Ministry in France and you met me one summer you went to visit your grandparents. Any other details you make up about me should be sent via owl to me in Egypt so I know who I'm supposed to be," said Teddy morphing his features into a thin faces but quite handsome black haired man with a long slender if pointy nose and dark brown eyes.
"Teddy, you are the sweetest man alive, I love you so much!" she said hugging him happily and kissing him on each cheek. Teddy grinned over her shoulder before she went inside, still thanking him and saying goodbye until the wedding or the next time he was in England. Victoire's disguise date was better than Victoire's not date or Victoire brining someone else as a date. What a delicious night. Chocolate and kisses, if only on the cheek.
Big thanks for reading and reviewing! Ellie
