Epilogue to Life, According to the Ministry. Preface to Love, According to the Ministry.

If you'd asked me before I'd met Amelie, what the best thing in the world was, I would probably have told you it was laughing until I couldn't breathe anymore with my friends. That, or it would have been singing in the kitchen with my grandmother as she taught me to cook. Perhaps Harry taking me to my first game when I was four (which Ginny won, in case you were wondering). Maybe, just maybe, it would have been when James was two and he stormed up to me with his little fists firmly wedged on his hips as he'd seen Ginny do to Harry before, and told me that I had to come to see him at least twice a day because he missed his big brother... But that was before I met Amelie. Before I knew what pure, unbridled happiness was. It was before I knew that it could physically hurt to look into someone's eyes and know your entire world revolved around them.

Falling in love with Amelie wasn't something I ever planned. Honestly, I don't think anyone apart from Lily would ever have imagined we would have been suited to each other - and that would have been because she wanted Amelie to grow up to marry one of her brothers, and I count to her. Maybe some of the best things in life are the things you don't plan on? The things you never imagined possible. Maybe sometimes you're supposed to experience the impossible just so that you can appreciate the world as it is so that you can experience the brilliance, colour, touch, smell - everything that makes life beautiful and infinite and limitless.

That is what I see, what I feel, what I experience when I am around Amelie. I can't say she's perfect because she's not and neither am I, none of us are, but she is the closest I have ever had the chance to meet. Am is intelligent, mature, kind, funny, calming, strong, insecure despite said strength, shy, passionate, has a tendency to zone out, can pretty much predict the future, and can do anything she sets her mind to. I cannot imagine how anyone could not love her, not fall for her faster than you ever thought possible (although if anyone was to do that I would have to warn you that it could only end in heartbreak. I think if I could ever manage to part from her, you'd have the added obstacle of James here before you had a chance).

I fell in love with Amelie Lupin the first time she cried. I know, that doesn't sound too good really, but it's true. She cried because she didn't want to hurt someone who had hurt her - because she wanted to fight her battles in her own way, and in her own time. I didn't understand it and I still don't, but I stand by her, and in that instant I found my heart break itself into pieces for her and reform both protected and protector. With Amelie, I know what it is to allow myself to rely on someone as much as they rely on me - I know what it is to give and take in equal measure - to risk - to have that risk rewarded with a simple smile - a touch of a hand on mine - a softening of eyes more complex and beautiful than any jewel.

Amelie has my heart. She has my soul. She has my past. My future. My present. It is safe with her. It is impossible. It is a risk. It is filled with hopes, dreams, and visions beyond my comprehension. We are young, that is true, but what is truer is that we will live a long life together, have at least four children, and we will be happier than I ever dreamed of being.

To Amelie Lupin.

To my wife.

To the most incredible person I have ever met in my life.

To love, and most of all...

To happiness.

Teddy Lupin's wedding speech - filmed by a crying Lily Potter. The camera wavers as she shakes a little, and then focuses on the couple once again, standing together with their arms around one another. Amelie's face is pressed against Teddy's neck by the end and he presses a tender kiss to her forehead when she refuses to look up at him. The camera zooms in on the couple's faces in time to capture their whispered admissions of love. Amelie pushes Teddy's shoulder, and later Hermione will enhance the sound enough to show that she is asking how he can know all of that, let alone manage to make a speech from it. His response leaves them both laughing as the film shuts off.

"Do you want me to start again and add 'bloody infuriating' to the list? I can if you want. Just be thankful I didn't tell them all how hot you find me, eh?"


So... I sat down to start a proper chapter for the next part of the story, and this came out instead. It's pretty much the epilogue of this part of the story, but I will post the first chapter of the next part here as well as on the new fanfiction story, which will be called Love, According to the Ministry. That first chapter will pick up just after this speech, but it's Amelie so we should all expect her to give us a rundown of the wedding ceremony at the beginning in case we missed anything whilst she was distracted.