Here's the next chapter, sorry it took so long. I've got a lot of real life stuff on my plate just now - but I finished it all the same!
Enjoy!
Haruka Lune
As it transpired, the alarm clock was unnecessary; Harry and Ron were awakened by Ginny, who had been shaken awake by Hermione, who woke up when she heard Charlie's footsteps coming clearly through the ceiling of the girls' bedroom. The entire group trooped into the kitchen, where they downed a hasty breakfast. Fleur was eating in the bedroom, and so didn't see the scene caused by Margot Celeste when Bill walked into the kitchen, his face uncamoflauged for the first time since June.
Harry didn't want to admit it, but he could understand her horror, if not her rude reaction. Several thick, raised red lines travelled across Bill's nose and cheeks. The corner of his mouth was somewhat twisted from scar tissue. His eyes were intact, but a slash directly across the eyelid that ran all the way back into his hair showed just how close a call that had been. The collar of his robe hid some of the damage; Harry could see places where it continued all the way down his neck, disappearing into fabric. All was well until he pushed his still-untied hair out of his face so he could sit down. Then the early-morning light hit him full in the face, and Margot Celeste screeched.
Harry and Ron both looked up, startled, as a resounding crash sounded through the room. A chair was laying on the floor. Margot Celeste was pointing to Bill and wailing in French. Bill answered her at first, making an admirable effort to stay calm. What remained of his face was turning an angry, flushed red. The fiasco culminated when Margot Celeste slammed her hand down on the table, turned, and hurried up the stairs, presumably to Fleur. Bill returned, with some effort, to his bacon. Charlie, who had entered the kitchen just as Margot Celeste ran out, plopped down next to him and reached for a piece of toast.
"As bad as all that, huh?" he asked. Bill shrugged.
"I guess she'll get over it."
Margot Celeste did not get over it. As it turned out, she refused to be in a wedding for a "monster," which left Fleur without a maid of honor - something that was, apparently, quite serious; Charlie the wedding-lover was practically beside himself, and even Ron looked concerned. Seven o'clock came and went; with four hours to go, they were missing one of the most important women in the wedding after the bride herself. Fleur was almost in tears.
Hermione and Ginny, who had been speaking in low voices in the corner, proved to be their salvation. After pulling Fleur aside and speaking with her fervently for some ten minutes, Hermione asked Mrs. Weasley if she could use the Floo. The result, an hour and a half after the whole fiasco began, was that Luna Lovegood was taking Ginny's place, and Ginny was standing in for Margot Celeste. Ginny and Luna, luckily, were within an inch of each others' heights; Luna could simply walk with Ron, who looked rather pensive about the whole situation. Fleur hurried Ginny upstairs; Mrs. Weasley shepherded Luna into Ginny's bridesmaid dress so she could make sure it fitted properly, and Charlie dragged Bill out of the kitchen and upstairs to get dressed as soon as the coast was clear. Hermione shrugged at Harry's questions as the two of them, with Ron, hurried up to the landing where Hermione would leave them to get dressed.
"I know it's not perfect, Harry," she said again, sounding very exasperated, "but what else could we do? I don't like Fleur, exactly, but we couldn't leave her just standing there. The maid of honor is really important in a Wizarding wedding." She opened the door to the room she was sharing with Ginny and Fleur cautiously, unsure of whether or not they were dressed yet.
"I know I do not always treat you like you would like to be treated . . . but I do not have a sister like you. I think sometimes that you are still very young, but you are not, and that is hard for me to understand - hold still - there. Gabrielle, today, she would have cried - she would not have found a way! You - you are smarter, because you are older, and I forget that. It is not an easy thing to remember, always. But I hope that you will be my sister now, and that you will forgive me, yes?"
Harry and Ron peeked around Hermione's shoulder. Fleur was pinning up Ginny's hair carefully. Ginny smiled partly at her own reflection, and partly at Fleur.
"I can't ever get it to look like that."
"Your 'air is too long to curl it from the bottom upward. You must curl it so it 'angs down, in spirals, and zen - then - you will be able to put it up. It is too pretty to leave it down all ze time like a curtain, like you are trying to 'ide yourself from ze world! When you pull it back - so - you look so much older . . . "
Hermione slipped into the room, quietly picked up her dress, and sneaked back through the door before closing it. She smiled and shrugged at Harry, who was trying to figure out how she intended to change into the dress if she wasn't in the bedroom.
"I'll just use the bathroom," she whispered, when he asked. "I think they need to talk."
It took Harry fifteen minutes to realise he wasn't doing something right; Ron was dressed and brushing his hair (although he was doing a good deal of grumbling about it), and Harry was still trying to lace up his boots so he could put the outer robe on. Not wanting to deal with Ron's mood, he sought out Bill, who probably knew what he was doing better than Ron did anyway.
He found Bill, with Charlie - even better - in what he assumed to be Bill's bedroom (he based this assumption on the large map of Giza hanging next to the window and the long black trenchcoat thrown over a chair that looked like it would break if anyone actually attempted to sit on it). Bill was trying to do something to his hair that was presumably more formal than the usual ponytail, but he kept getting it wrong because his hands were shaking. Charlie finally swatted Bill's hands away and did - whatever it was - himself, chiding Bill the whole time.
"I can't believe you've been trapped inside a pyramid for sixteen hours when part of it caved in and you didn't panic, and now you're terrified," he teased, crossing one lock of hair over the other. "It's only a wedding, and - I mean, you love her, right?"
Bill didn't answer, but Harry caught his expression, clearly reflected in the mirror on the back of the bureau. He wondered if Bill was listening at all; it didn't look that way. On the contrary, he looked like he couldn't remember something he knew to be important, even though he knew he ought to remember it. Charlie rapped him on top of the head, rather sharply, with his knuckles.
"Hello, Earth to Bill, did you get lost in there?" He picked up a black ribbon from the top of the bureau and started tying it around the hair tie at the end of what Harry now recognised as a braid. Bill shook his head slightly. Charlie made an irritated noise as the ribbon came loose. Bill smiled sheepishly.
"Sorry. Just - thinking. I mean, if you'd told me a year ago what I'd be doing today . . . "
". . . you'd have told me to lay off the butterbeer," Charlie finished. "But that was a year ago. There's been a lot that's changed, and -"
The sentence finished itself, apparently, because they both fell silent for the few seconds remaining while Charlie finished with the ribbon, stepped back, eyed it, shook his head, and then tugged it off.
"Too girly. You sure you don't want to just tie it up here, like normal?"
Bill shrugged. "Whatever. You're the one they're going to hold responsible no matter how it looks, so - hello, Harry, how long've you been standing there?" he finished, catching sight of Harry in the mirror. Harry grinned sheepishly and shrugged. "Just a couple of minutes. But I don't think the braid looks very good, either," he added, feeling a blush creep up his cheeks. Who was he to be offering an opinion on hair? Charlie seized a hairbrush and started brushing it out viciously.
"See, I told you, Bill, you can always count on two groups of people to give an honest opinion: the complete experts, and the people who are the exact opposite of complete experts. Although I would have preferred an opinion from someone with absolutely no hair at all. And since I've been working in a place where almost everyone has long hair - really long hair - I qualify as an expert, so you can stop giving me that look right now. There. Now we can tie it here and - okay, we can't tie it here, it has to be lower than that - okay, here. Good. Turn around so I can get the sash on."
Bill did as he was told. Harry suspected that wouldn't have been the case on any other day; right now, Bill was simply too nervous to do anything for himself. He also suspected that was the origin of Charlie's comment on experts; Charlie was trying to make Bill laugh. Harry could understand why. The last time he'd seen one of the Weasleys turn that pale, it had been Ron, right before he started vomiting up slugs back in their second year. Charlie clapped his older brother on the back.
"Come on, Bill, you're only setting a precedent for the rest of us and marrying this gorgeous court woman from France who thinks you're the best thing invented since the Golden Snitch. So no pressure, right?"
Bill managed to smile thinly before turning his attention to Harry again.
"Sorry, Harry, I keep forgetting you're here, you're so quiet. What's up?"
Harry held up his boots, somewhat embarrassed. "I can't get these laced. I don't know why, I didn't have a problem doing it last night . . ."
Bill took the boots and examined them closely before reaching for his wand. "You stretched the lace holes, that's why, Harry. You can't pull on soft shoes that way unless the lace holes are reinforced, and these aren't. Here."
Harry sat on the floor so he could tug on a boot. Bill tied it before he could protest. "I know they take a bit of getting used to. I just got so used to wearing them all the time myself that I never stopped to think about how long it took me to learn the right way to keep them on without yanking on the laces."
Harry tried to picture Bill in a pair of the soft, tan colored animal-hide boots and couldn't. He said so. Bill chuckled.
"That's because you never saw me wearing Egyptian clothing. You can't wear black in the desert, you'll cook. It's too hot. Most of us either went round in the skimpiest clothes decency would allow, or got used to wearing traditional clothes. One way or the other you had to keep yourself from getting heatstroke when you had to be out in the sun. Got a nice tan, though." He finished tying the other boot as Charlie snickered. Harry scrambled to his feet and reached for the robes he'd brought with him.
"Thanks. I'll just go finish now, okay?"
Bill shrugged. "May as well stay here. You don't know how to tie the sash. It's not supposed to be knotted."
"Then how do you keep it on?" Harry felt somewhat irritated. Why did there have to be so many rules about a silly set of wedding clothes? He shrugged into the outer robe. Charlie tied the waist sash, but made Harry learn how to do it. Having finished (finally succeeding on his sixth attempt), Harry had no idea what to do, or where he was supposed to go. He was still wearing his glasses, and nobody had told him where they were supposed to wait. Finally Bill noticed him still sitting uncertainly on the foot of the bed and performed the charm that rendered his glasses unnecessary. Harry didn't think he could have pronounced it if he'd tried. Charlie was complaining, in a not very serious sort of way, about having to wear a sash on his shoulders when he was the one who had to keep getting up and down and the sash was sure to fall off.
"I mean, honestly, Bill, who put it into your head to use Egyptian clothing? Why didn't you just, I don't know, use normal dress robes . . . or have us all wear dragonhide jackets and trousers, then we'd look like you. Only Mum would probably have a fit over that," he added thoughtfully. Bill chuckled, very slightly. Harry leaned forward expectantly. It was Bill's wedding, yes, and he had the right to do whatever he wanted with it, but Charlie did have a point. Why were they wearing Egyptian robes?
"The twins started it, you know," Bill said, as he carefully pulled his own sash around his waist. "Fred - George - one of them - made some crack about how when one of us gets married, the whole family gets married -"
"I remember that," Charlie cut in. "And then they were being all stupid, saying you should honeymoon in - where was it? - Greenland, or something. Marry the whole world."
"Right. And Fleur heard that, and - well, you know how she is once she gets an idea . . ." Bill grinned in a manner that Harry suspected was the closest he ever came to being sheepish. "She thought it would be - cute, I guess - to do this whole sort of international thing . . . I think she gave it up somewhere between the time she realized that most of the people in the wedding are British and the time I told her I'd never heard of kisha. Charlie had to fill me in on that one."
"Er, what's kisha?" Harry cut in, feeling very stupid.
Charlie grinned. "It's this wedding tradition in the Romanian Wizarding community - I've been to a couple of Muggle weddings and they didn't do it - where the bride and groom walk down the aisle, and then all the guests queue up and go up to kiss them. Good luck and best of wishes and many happy returns, and all that. Only you've got to watch out for the mothers of the bride and groom. They sort of tend to get a little carried away and then - well, you know how people cry at weddings - "
"Positive rivers," Bill nodded. "Anyway, she gave it up, but she still thought it would be nice to do a sort of tribute thing, I guess, since we're both sort of from other countries. I mean, she's French, and I lived in Egypt for almost ten years - there's going to be loads of people coming here from both places - so she had this idea to mix traditions from those countries into the wedding."
"She did a good job," Charlie observed. "It would have been a real mess if she'd tried to fit in everything. I can just see it now - Dad sitting in the front row snoring while the officiator stood there reading this positively massive list of ancient prayers off a papyrus scroll - and nobody able to understand them because they'd all be in Sanskrit or cuneiform or something like that - "
"That's at a funeral, Charlie," Bill protested, as he tied his own boots. "At a wedding they do blessings, and it's not that long. And they'd be translated anyway. Good luck and best of wishes and many happy returns and all that, as you put it."
"I'm still glad we're not doing it. When are we supposed to be downstairs, anyway?"
Bill shrugged. "No idea. Mum said she'd come up and get us, but she and Fleur's mum are really busy - Mum got Fred and George to clean up the gardens for the wedding, but they've still got to do chairs and the wedding arch and all that flowery rot - and I guess they want to make sure Fleur's out of the way. Bad luck to see the wedding dress . . . " Bill shook his head in disbelief. "Positively mad."
They didn't have to wait long for Mrs. Weasley to stick her head in the room and tell them to come downstairs. Harry ran into Luna on the landing. Fleur had carefully pinned her hair back, too, and she was wearing a wreath of flowers on her hair. The bridesmaids had carnations; Ginny would be wearing roses, which would be tucked into her hair a bit like a crown instead of a wreath. Harry had no idea why. Not for the first time, he felt extraordinarily ignorant. Everything in the wedding seemed to symbolise something else - luck, wealth, good fortune, and so on. Many happy returns, as Charlie had said. Luna smiled at him. Harry smiled back, but inwardly he felt as though someone had poured lead into his stomach. This was far more formal than anything he'd ever done before - what if he messed it up? What if he had to scratch his head during the ceremony? What was he supposed to do if Fleur or one of the bridesmaids fainted? What if Percy tried to hex him while everyone was watching Bill and Fleur?
That last thought wasn't the least comforting, though. Ron had been stalking around like a thundercloud all week. Harry hoped he wasn't going to try to foul things up on purpose. As he was thinking this, Ginny called him.
"Harry, we're supposed to be queuing up!"
"Er - sorry - where's Gabrielle?" he improvised, not wanting to look even more stupid, and realising that she wasn't waiting for him. At the mention of her name, Gabrielle hurried out of the kitchen and into the small column of girls standing next to the door. Luna slipped in between Gabrielle and Hermione. Harry stood next to Gabrielle, wishing Ginny hadn't had to become the maid of honor. At least then they would have been nothing but decorations together. The maid of honor actually had a purpose, though, according to Hermione - and she would know. Harry was sure she'd been reading up on Wizarding weddings as soon as Bill had announced his engagement.
Bill slid between the two lines, demonstrated briefly how to escort someone, and then hurried out the back door.
Harry stared as best he could out the window. Bill was walking down the aisle with Mrs. Weasley, who was thankfully not wearing a lacy pink dress but a simple cream colored one. Gabrielle poked Harry painfully in the side.
"'Arry, we are supposed to be going!"
Harry stepped forward, feeling stupider every second. They'd rehearsed this already, so why did he feel like he had no idea what he was doing?
At the back of the garden - which was the front of the altar - Charlie and Ginny stepped away from each other and stood in the places Mr. Weasley had marked in the ground with little colored pegs (since they'd never had a chance to actually practice outside; several people, most notably Charlie and Mrs. Weasley, were afraid they'd stand in reverse). Harry waited impatiently to reach the front of the aisle - Gabrielle was a cute kid, but her hand was making his arm uncomfortably hot.
At last he was able to go stand in front of his peg. Ron shifted forward a little so they were standing in the fan shape Fleur and Mrs. Weasley had described. Several people gasped. Harry stared back down into the crowd, convinced that some cataclysmic event had occurred.
The truth was that nothing overly remarkable had happened, beyond Fleur stepping out into the yard. Harry supposed people were always supposed to gasp and make fascinated noises when the bride walked down the aisle, but he didn't understand why. Fleur looked basically the same as she always did, except that she was wearing a fancy white dress with a long veil and carrying a bouquet of flowers. And, Harry supposed, she looked happy. That could make a big difference to some people. He stopped wondering about Fleur and concentrated on the ceremony instead.
Harry understood Charlie's perfectionist anxiety almost as soon as Fleur reached the altar. A small table of some kind was sitting behind him, and while the officiator - some man from the Ministry, Harry assumed - instructed Bill and Fleur to hold hands (Fleur had to pass her flowers to Ginny in order to do so), Charlie poured red-colored wine into a crystal goblet, which he handed to Bill. Bill drank from it and passed it to Fleur, who did the same. The goblet went back and forth until it was empty, and then Bill passed it back to Charlie, who placed the end of a gold-colored cord in Bill's hand in place of the goblet. Bill's fingers tightened around it while Charlie wound it around first his wrist, then Fleur's, back through, and then took the end of the cord from Bill and somehow connected the two ends without a knot. Harry blinked and tried to look more closely without being conspicuous. It had to be magic; there wasn't even a seam. The officiator murmured something about being "together as one" and taking vows. Bill started in with "I, William, join with thee, Fleur, . . . " and Harry more or less tuned it out until a few words later, when he realised that evidently the Wizarding wedding vow wasn't much like the Muggle version he'd seen on the telly once or twice. He listened more carefully when Fleur's turn came around.
"I, Fleur, join with thee, William, together as one mind, body, and heart, from now until death and beyond, in the infirmity or soundness of mind and body, in bad fortune or fair, with love, respect, equality, and faith, with no beginning or end. This I pledge solemnly to you."
Harry watched, rapt, as Charlie stepped forward again, said something or other about how he, Charles Prewett Weasley, witnessed this bonding, and so on. Ginny did the same, and pulled the shawl away from Fleur's arms. Then the officiator poured something that looked like water - but apparently wasn't -over Bill and Fleur's tied hands, and the cord disappeared. Charlie handed Bill the ring he was supposed to give Fleur, and Bill slid it onto her finger. On the other side, Ginny mimicked the action for Fleur, with Bill's ring.
It was then that the only hiccough in the whole ceremony occurred. The officiator asked Fleur if she took William to be her lawfully wedded husband, and she answered "I do." The officiator turned to Bill and repeated the question, substituting "Fleur" and "wife" for "William" and "husband." Bill suddenly seemed to blank out. Harry was reminded strongly of his sudden absentmindedness in the bedroom upstairs. Charlie surreptitiously poked Bill in the back. Bill blinked and then smiled. "Yeah. Yes, I do." The officiator nodded, but Harry exchanged a knowing look with Ginny across the aisle. What had that all been about?
Bill pulled up the veil, after a momentary search for the edge of it (several people chuckled kindly), and then Ginny reached up and carefully unpinned it so she could hand it to Charlie. Charlie picked up the wine goblet, wrapped it carefully in the veil, and then folded a piece of dark blue cloth over it before setting it down by Bill's foot. Harry glanced at Bill's face and saw an expression he was at a loss to name - the closest he could come was a little boy who'd been told that he could have all the cookies he wanted; something along the lines of "oh-boy-I-can't-believe-I'm-actually-allowed-to-do-this." Then Bill stepped on the goblet.(1) It cracked, and his smile got even wider. Then he started laughing just as Fred and George hooted their approval.
Everyone started clapping and cheering, even Ron. Harry didn't think he'd noticed Bill and Fleur kissing; he didn't think Ron would ever quite get used to that. Music started up somewhere, and Harry, remembering his cue with relief, stepped forward to the aisle and escorted Gabrielle back down it. They were supposed to stand to the side and wait for Bill and Fleur to walk between them, and then they'd follow them inside in reverse order. Harry looked back up the aisle, watching Bill escort Fleur down the aisle. Halfway back, he stooped down and picked her up. Fleur let out a sort of surprised almost-squeal, and several people stopped conversing with each other to laugh kindly. The back door opened as Bill carried her through the back arch, Percy and Ron filed out, and Harry followed them.
It took only fifteen minutes to get food and tables set up in the back, thanks to several people with good conjuring skills and the almost militant food tray-carrying pattern Mrs. Weasley and Madame Delacour had arranged. Right now they were both sitting at the kitchen table, hugging each other and crying. Harry tried not to stare as he skirted past them with a large platter of chicken.
Charlie didn't waste any time on such niceties. His mouth was twitching as he lugged a couple of buckets of ice cubes into the garden, and by the time he came back he was laughing helplessly. He swooped down on his mother and hugged her.
"Come on, Mum, it's a wedding. You're supposed to be happy. And just imagine - by next Christmas you'll have two or three mini-Bills running around here. You can pull out all those old baby pictures you're always threatening him with and we'll all have a good laugh. Mum, don't cry. Please?"
Mrs. Weasley managed to laugh, although the laugh was watery and ended on the sort of hiccoughing noise that meant she was still crying in spite of Charlie's cheerful remonstrances. "I just can't believe he's old enough to get married," she said, sniffling into a handkerchief. "I still remember having to haul him in out of the back yard by the straps of his overalls because he wouldn't come in for his bath. Where did the last twenty years go?"
Charlie shrugged. "I think those were my overalls, Mum. Bill was only wearing them. He always had to roll up the legs because I was taller than him back then."
Mrs. Weasley gave that funny laugh again. Bill came into the middle of this chaos with his over-robe and sash missing, but the rest of his clothing intact. Fleur followed behind him in a different pair of shoes (Harry assumed this choice was for comfort, although he couldn't understand why women insisted on wearing uncomfortable shoes in the first place) and no shawl. Apparently they were trying to be as comfortable as possible for the next several hours, when they had to walk around and talk to people and dance. Dance. Harry shuddered and almost dropped the large bowl of punch he was carrying. He did not want to dance.
Luck ran Harry's way for awhile, at least. He had to help bring out the big dishes, and after that Mrs. Weasley and Madame Delacour did everything. Once his place in the kitchen was over he had to stand in something Charlie called a "receiving line," which wasn't hard at all - he just had to smile and say hello to people, most of whom he didn't know. When all the food had been brought out Madame Delacour pointed him toward a long table sitting in front of the marriage arch. He was supposed to sit there, she told him, and Bill or Fleur would tell him where exactly he was supposed to be. Harry glanced at the other tables that filled the yard and back at Madame Delacour with a questioning glance. She smiled and shrugged and pointed toward Fleur; Madame Delacour spoke very little English. Harry followed her nonverbal advice and attempted to make his way to Fleur, who was chatting happily with one of her friends. She broke off whatever she was saying and switched from French to English.
"Jeanette, this is 'Arry - 'e is a friend of William's younger brother - and 'Arry, this is Jeanette, a friend from Beauxbatons. She 'as been saying that Madame Maxime 'as been talking about leaving the school!"
Harry tried to look shocked. The truth was that Madame Maxime was part of the Order - if the Order still even existed, he thought fleetingly, and felt an old, sore ache of grief - and Harry figured she was probably more needed here than at some school in France. Fleur sighed before slapping on a smile.
"You need something, 'Arry, yes?"
Harry shrugged. "I was just wondering why I'm supposed to sit up there." He pointed at the long table. Fleur and Jeanette laughed, and he felt his cheeks turning red. Fleur patted his shoulder.
"It is the table for the wedding party, 'Arry. We will all be sitting there when we eat."
Harry smiled and nodded and left, having received one answer and ending up with more questions. Wasn't this the wedding party? Harry felt that old feeling of stupidity creeping up on him again. A hand clapped him on the shoulder and he turned to see Percy, back in his glasses (the spell Bill had used was extremely temporary), grinning as widely as ever.
"Harry! Good to see you, I wanted to have a word this morning before the wedding -"
"Percy, what's a wedding party?" Harry blurted out, feeling more ignorant than ever as soon as the words had left his mouth. Percy looked startled; Harry had the feeling he'd derailed a long train of thought.
"Oh! Well, the wedding party is the people who took part in the wedding - that's to say the bride, groom, best man, maid of honor, bridesmaids, groomsmen, and the parents of the bride and groom. They like to have those people sitting separately during the meal so they can do toasts and things without everything looking disorganised. Technically Father and Madame Delacour aren't part of the wedding party, but it's considered bad ettiquette to split up a married couple when you're seating them. If you want to go find your name card, I don't think anyone would care. We'll be sitting down soon anyway."
"Er - name card?"
"At most formal events where there's assigned seating you'll have a card with your name on it sitting at your place setting," Percy explained airily. "You won't be on either end or in the middle here, though - that's where the parents and the bride and groom sit, with the maid of honor and best man next to them." He drifted away to accost one of Bill's friends, who apparently worked at the Egyptian Ministry of Magic. Harry cast a quick glance to make sure Percy wouldn't be coming back, and then hurried up to the table. He found his place between Ginny and Hermione and sighed in relief. Gabrielle was sitting between Charlie and Percy on the other side. Ginny saw him and smiled. The white roses were still in her hair, but as she turned toward some friend of the family Harry saw one fall out. He slipped between two chairs and picked it up. Charlie ushered Bill, both of themlaughing at something,up to what Harry was beginning to think of as the wedding table, and he hurried to sit down. He didn't want to be the last one standing.
The meal passed quickly; Harry had glanced down both ends of the table and had determined that the Delacours were sitting on the far end of his side of the table, next to Hermione. Ginny was sitting next to Fleur, and on the other side Charlie was sitting next to Bill. Mr. and Mrs. Weasley were all the way at the other end, next to Percy. Harry could only imagine the fights there must have been over that. The Delacours should have been sitting with Gabrielle, too, now that he thought of it; Madame Delacour spoke barely any English, and Fleur's father didn't speak any at all. Maybe this was some kind of attempt to make them mingle. Harry thought, considering what Bill had said about trying to bring Percy back into the family, that the idea of mingling was the most plausible.
He was interrupted in his musings by Charlie, who was tapping his table knife against his wineglass. It was a sound Harry would forever associate with Professor McGonagall as her part in the Welcoming Feast at Hogwarts. He felt the knot that had been tied around his stomach once again and had to swallow hard. He wished Dumbledore could have been here; he would have been at his finest, Harry was sure. He was the kind of wizard who would have enjoyed a wedding. Harry had just begun to worry that he would make Bill and Fleur look like fools by starting to cry when Charlie saved him by standing up. A hush fell over the garden.
"Just a minute? Okay, right, thanks." Charlie picked up his suddenly-full wineglass. Fleur was blushing. "It's not easy being a younger brother, you know," Charlie said. The entire garden seemed to be hanging on his every syllable. Harry wondered how Charlie could stand that kind of scrutiny - Ron would have folded up and died.
"I always worried, when I was a kid, that someday some girl was going to steal my older brother and I wouldn't have anyone to look up to anymore. We always had this kind of, this sort of friendly sibling rivalry going, and I was sure that I'd have absolutely no idea what to do with myself if Bill got married."
Ginny poked a very sharp elbow into Harry's side. "Smile a little, can't you?" she whispered through her teeth. Harry tried to comply as Charlie continued.
"I have to admit I panicked when Bill told me he was engaged, because I didn't want him to get married. I felt like I'd be losing something special because Bill's always been not just my brother, but my best friend. It took a lot of paper shuffling for me to get here, so I only met Fleur about two weeks ago. As soon as I did, though, I knew I wasn't going to lose anything. She's warm, and friendly, and she values family above everything else, which is why I feel that I didn't lose a brother. I always wanted a second sister as much like the first one as possible, and now I have one. And I hope she'll be around for a long, long time. Welcome to the family, Fleur." Charlie hoisted his glass in the general direction of Bill and Fleur and then took a sip. Applause broke out all over the garden as people joined in the toast. Harry took a cautious sip of wine and grinned while Ginny blushed. He supposed that, coming from Charlie, the idea that Ginny was like Fleur was high praise.
Harry watched as Bill and Fleur stood up and moved into the central part of the garden, which was free of tables. Someone started some music, and they danced. Charlie and Ginny got up next, followed by the Delacours and Mr. and Mrs. Weasley, and then Hermione was poking Harry's other side and telling him they were supposed to get up and dance. Harry got it over with as soon as he possibly could. Gabrielle spoke English, but it was so heavily accented that she was almost impossible to understand. Harry broke away from her at the first opportunity and sat down with Charlie at one of the smaller tables. Ron and Hermione joined them shortly. Hermione was in the middle of some kind of speech on Wizarding marriage traditions.
"- all very interesting, and I especially liked the seamless cord, but I don't understand the goblet. Why did he have to smash the goblet? I didn't see that when I was looking up different ceremonies and things -"
Charlie grinned knowingly at Ron, who looked perplexed, and then put a hand on Hermione's arm. She silenced at once.
"It's a very old Wizarding custom, Hermione," Charlie began, and Harry scooted his chair closer. He'd been wondering about the goblet, too. "It started some time back in the middle ages, about 1200 or so - see, back then you were supposed to pledge yourself only to your husband, and things like that, but people were ignoring that, and diseases were getting really spread around because of it. So this custom got started that you break a wineglass to seal your vows, but there was a charm on the wineglass so it could only be broken if the bride was a virgin. If it didn't break, you were dishonoring your family, which was a big deal back then. Eventually the whole gender double-standard thing was broken down and the charm was expanded to include the groom, but it's sort of - evolved - over time, so there are all different kinds of charms that deal with it. I think Bill and Fleur used the original, though - the original that was expanded, I mean."
Hermione made some kind of noise, which she quickly muffled in her hands. Charlie turned to her.
"What?"
Hermione shook her head, but didn't take her hands away from her mouth.
"I think she's surprised that Bill - you know - " Harry cut in, and then broke off. Charlie laughed.
"Oh. That." He drained a glass of punch that had been sitting in front of him. "That's because you lot didn't grow up with our mum. I don't think I'll ever forget, when I was fifteen and I got a letter by owl post from this girl in my class - 'women are not toys, Charles, they should be treated with respect and dignity, and if I ever hear that you've been acting inappropriately -'" Charlie broke off from his imitation of Mrs.Weasleyand gave Ron a knowing smile. "You're nodding. You just got this talk, didn't you?"
Ron turned red and mumbled something noncommittal. Charlie chuckled.
"It never changes. Ever. It's always the same. I swear, I bet I could go back in time and hear our grandmother giving the same identical speech - same words and everything - to Uncle Gideon and Uncle Fabian. Even Fred and George didn't get out of it. Well - she talked, but I'm not sure they listened, actually. They probably just kind of pretended to."
All four of them laughed, but Harry's merriment faded as Percy sat down, straightening his robes as he did.
"Marvellous day, really, sky's so clear," Percy commented. Charlie turned to him.
"Perce, you haven't heard from Oliver lately, have you? Dumb sod said he'd be here, but Bill said he never even answered the invitation . . . "
"Oliver Wood?" Harry asked, startled, as Percy shrugged and shook his head. Charlie smiled reminiscently.
"Sure, Oliver Wood. I was the one who put him on the team (2), Harry. Sort of. He was in first year when I was in seventh, and near the end of the year our Keeper - well - well, she sort of just dropped out."
"Why?" Harry asked, more curious than ever. He hadn't known that Charlie had been Quidditch Captain, too.
Charlie made a face. "We weren't ever told, but I think I could make a few educated guesses. She left school around then, too. Anyway, we only had one game to go, and here I am telling our Chasers that they've got to do double time as both Keeper and Chaser because I couldn't find anyone decent to play - Ruben Andrews actually scored for what would have been the other team in a real game,when I lobbed one at him and he whacked it with his broom tail in the wrong direction - and we're getting ready to go out for the Cup, all of us scared witless because we have two days to go, and this little - this - " Charlie made motions that were apparently supposed to indicate a boy about the size of Colin Creevey before continuing - "this midget, practically, walks up to me in the hall between Charms and Transfiguration and says he can play. I told him I'd try him out if he could get a decent broom by dinnertime, and he went to just about every single person in Gryffindor House - and a few in Ravenclaw, we were going up against Slytherin and nobody wanted them to win because - never mind, long story. Anyway, he walks up to me at the dinner table and tells me he borrowed a Nimbus from one of the Ravenclaw prefects. I had three people shooting at him for twenty minutes straight - because that's how Slytherin played back then, I wanted to be sure he could handle it - and he didn't miss once. Phenomenal. We won two-hundred-ninety to ten. And now that little midget's playing for Puddlemere United. I wasn't sure whether to slap him in the head or on the back when he told me that. What's he supposed to do in ten years when he can't play anymore?"
Ron made a face. "Ludo Bagman played for fifteen years, Charlie, and he -"
"- became an internationally wanted crook, Ron," Charlie interrupted as Fred and George sat down. Percy looked somewhat disgusted at being sandwiched between them and walked away, mumbling something about getting a drink. One of the twins snickered.
"Shut your trap, Fred, he's trying," Charlie admonished. Harry gaped. How could he tell them apart? Ron looked mildly startled and then brushed it off. Charlie bounced to his feet suddenly. The twins followed suit.
"There goes a fine man, boys, let's all give him a moment of silence," Charlie intoned gravely, and he, Fred, and George all crossed their hands and bowed their heads solemnly (all three of them doing so at the exact same time) as though they were in mourning. Bill, who was walking past (and who was apparently the object of their attentions), gave them all a look that said more clearly than any words that he was not amused.
"Very funny, Charlie," Bill said, rolling his eyes and advancing on them. Charlie clapped both hands over his ears protectively. One of the twins put his hands on top of his own head, and the other grabbed his stomach. Ron snickered. Harry laughed quietly at what seemed to be a very old game. After determining that Bill wasn't in a hitting kind of mood, they all plunked back into their seats - in unison. Harry found this somewhat unnerving, but didn't say anything. Bill pulled out the chair that Percy had been sitting in, sat down, stretched his legs out, and pulled a small bottle of Muggle root beer from his pocket. Ron raised his eyebrows. Bill took a long swig from the neck of the bottle before setting it down and letting out a long sigh.
"I didn't think she was ever going to let go," he confided, nodding toward Fleur. She was dancing with her father. "Not that I care, mind you, but a man's got to sit down sometime."
"This coming from the man who shimmied down a burial shaft, fell, broke a foot, and walked on it that way for three hours until somebody noticed the bruise creeping up his ankle?" Charlie commented, one eyebrow raised in disbelief. Bill cuffed him in the ear. Charlie yowled in protest.
"That's different, Charlie, that was my job." The twins snickered again. Bill shot them a dirty look. "And besides, walking isn't dancing, with all these fancy turns and whatnot -"
" - and the unique opportunity to step on the hem of your new bride's dress and both have to sit down so you don't fall down," Charlie interjected. Bill shrugged bemusedly.
"Mum said I was handsome. She never said I could dance."
At that, everyone started laughing. The song ended, and Fleur crossed the dance floor to sit down with them. Harry had to admit that, in Bill's favor, Fleur's dress was extremely long - the skirt was attached to a band, which was in turn attached to what Mrs. Weasley had called a corsage, that went around Fleur's wrist. The skirt came up to her wrist at that point so it was pulled up a little in the front. Ginny had informed Harry that the band was there so Fleur wouldn't have to keep holding the skirt up all the time, since the skirt was longer than she was tall. Although that arrangement did allow her to walk without stepping on the skirt, Harry rather fancied it would be rather difficult to dance in it without either person stepping on it. Fleur hitched the edge of the skirt into her lap and ran her wand along it to repair the slightly torn hem. Then she smiled at Bill, who was surreptitiously watching her over the rim of his bottle.
"I told you it could be fixed. You see, you almost cannot see the seam - and it is at the bottom. It will not matter. Who looks for a seam in lace?"
Bill made a face that apparently indicated confusion - Harry couldn't tell, mainly because the scar across Bill's eye kept him from opening it all the way. Fleur laughed and leaned over to kiss him on the cheek. Charlie stage-whispered something about the kiss of death, and Fleur started laughing again.
"Eet - it - is not the kiss of death, Charles!" she protested, and Charlie winced. Harry grinned at him as Professor McGonagall, wearing emerald-green dress robes, strode up to the table. His grin faded almost immediately. He liked McGonagall, of course, but she wasn't Dumbledore. Ron looked as though he felt about the same. McGonagall extended a hand of congratulations to Bill, and then nodded to Charlie, Ron, and the twins before turning and smiling, very faintly, at Harry. It was a smile he understood from all the times he'd been in her office - it's all right, I'm on your side, lighten up - and he found himself smiling back. Then McGonagall turned again, this time to Fleur.
"Miss Dela - Mrs. Weasley, your mother is looking for you." Harry and Ron smirked at each other as Fleur, who looked extremely startled at being so addressed, thanked McGonagall and hurried off to find Madame Delacour. McGonagall took the seat Fleur had been sitting in. Bill suddenly appeared somewhat panicked.
"No, no, don't say anything," he held up a hand before McGonagall could say a word, "they don't know yet."
McGonagall gave him a somewhat incredulous look. Charlie turned to stare at his older brother. Everyone else leaned forward a little. Bill had the grace to blush, raising his hands and shrugging. "I didn't want anyone to know until - oh, well."
"So what exactly are we not supposed to know yet?" Charlie inquired. The twins started laughing. Bill made a face. "Well . . . Mum knows, and Dad and Fleur know, of course, but . . . "
"Come on, Bill what is it?" Charlie persisted. Bill relented, grinning.
"The reason I've been doing so much work at Gringotts. They needed things in order, because I'm quitting."
A stunned silence washed over the table, followed by one of the twins saying, "You've got to be out of your mind, mate."
Bill shook his head. "No, I decided to take a different job. Something more exciting than 'at what time was this withdrawal made?' and all that rot."
Hermione gasped. Harryblinked in surprise. He'd forgotten she was there."You mean - you're going to - "
" - be teaching at Hogwarts, yes, take a breath, Hermione," Bill finished for her, grinning wryly. "I didn't want to tell you lot because I wanted to see the looks on your faces when I was introduced, but - well -"
"What are you teaching?" Ron interrupted. He clearly didn't care about dramatic effect. Bill grinned.
"Defence Against the Dark Arts, obviously, Ron, what else - "
"But you can't!" Harry interjected, panicked. He liked Bill. "You can't, it's - "
" - cursed by Voldemort, I know, I know, we - that's to say . . . you know, the party we had . . . "
Harry nodded to show he understood. Bill was talking about the Order.
"Well, Dumbledore left all kinds of records, so we know. That's why I'm doing it."
"What?" Harry stared. Bill grinned.
"I spent ten years as a Curse Breaker against some of the nastiest traps known to wizardkind, Harry. If I can't figure it out by the last week of term, I'm going to resign a day early and see what that does."
"Lupin did that," Harry protested, and Bill shrugged.
"Can't tell you anything else, Harry, just don't panic, okay? It's going to be fine." Bill frowned suddenly at the group of giggling French girls standing up near the front table. "What the - "
Fleur came hurrying down to their table. "Professor, you are not married, yes?"
Professor McGonagall blinked in surprise. Harry couldn't blame her - Fleur had a bad habit of mixing things - pronouns, tenses, and so on - when she was excited, and it made her extremely hard to understand sometimes. McGonagall looked as though she were hoping someone could explain Fleur's comment, but no explanation proved to be necessary, for Fleur carried on.
"We are trying to find all the unmarried women to throw the bouquet, my mother says it is bad luck to leave anyone out, and so I am asking everyone, all the women that is - and you do not wear a wedding ring, so you are not married, I am right?"
McGonagall shook her head to indicate that no, she wasn't married. Fleur grabbed her hand excitedly. "Then you must come and be part of the ceremony, it is good luck!"
McGonagall allowed herself to be led away, but Harry was much mistaken if she actually understood what was going on. That wasn't news; once again, he was completely in the dark. Charlie chuckled and leaned over.
"Fleur's got to throw the wedding bouquet to see who's going to be married next," he explained. "It's this really old tradition that whoever catches it is supposed to be married within a year."
Harry had a sudden mental image of McGonagall in Fleur's lacy white dress, and snorted laughter. Ron joined him. Hermione sniffed disapprovingly and had just opened her mouth to say something when Fleur came back, grabbed her hand, and led her off into the knot of girls. They spread out into a fan shape. Charlie raised his arms above his head.
"Ooh! Me! Me! Let me catch it!"
Bill swatted him on the ear again. Charlie didn't yowl this time; he just snickered.
"Don't forget, it's your turn next, O Great Married One," he teased, and Bill picked up a waterglass that was sitting on the table. He held it over Charlie's head.
"One more crack, brother mine who came with his best friend because he didn't have a date and couldn't find one, and this goes right down the back of your shirt, you get it?"
Charlie pouted. "I could so have had a date if I wanted, Bill, I just - hey!" The girls up front were squealing. Harry caught just a glimpse of a very flustered Minerva McGonagall, holding Fleur's roses and lilies in her hands, before Charlie slapped Bill on the back, hauled him to his feet, and yelled for a chair, which the date of one of Fleur's friends quickly procured. Two of the girls pushed Fleur down into the chair and started to giggle. Harry stood up for a better view.
"What's going on?" he asked, hoping the twins would have an answer. They did.
"He's got to throw the garter," one of them said. (3)
"But first he's got to get it off, Fred," the other one (George, apparently) added.
"Yeah, without using his hands," Fred snickered.
"How's he supposed to get it off if he can't use his hands?" Harry asked, feeling more confused than ever. George hauled him to his feet.
"His teeth. Come on, Harry, we're supposed to be up there."
"Right, it's bad luck if we get left out," Fred added, before dissolving into laughter.
"Wait a minute. His teeth? Isn't a garter, you know, way . . . up? And - whoever catches it doesn't have to marry McGonagall, does he?" Harry inquired, alarmed. He suddenly saw McGonagall in Fleur's dress again, only this time he was standing next to her in a top hat and tails.
"Yes, and not really - Mum would've had conniptions - and no," Fred supplied without missing a beat. Harry shook his head and stepped into the fan of single guys who were now standing where the girls had been. Most of them were laughing at Bill, who was sitting on the ground with his legs folded beneath him. Charlie, sniggering like a maniac, was tying Bill's hands behind his back with what looked suspiciously like the shoulder-sash from Charlie's best man robes. Fleur had her hands to her face; she was giggling as hard as Charlie, but she had a blush on her face to go with the laughter. Bill's face matched hers. Harry heard him mutter something. Charlie laughed harder than ever, and Harry leaned over toward George to ask what Bill had said.
"He said 'I can't believe my kid brother is tying me up. Isn't this supposed to go the other way around?'" George whispered as Charlie tugged on the knot between Bill's wrists, stepped backward into the fan, and started a rhythmic clapping. Some of the older people in the fan - Bill's friends, Harry figured - started stamping a foot in time with the clapping. Bill struggled to find a hem for close to a minute before simply grabbing a section of lace in his mouth and pulling it back. Most of the people watching laughed loudly. The sound increased as he seized the decorative garter (which was just above Fleur's knee, not very high at all - Harry'd seen her wearing skirts shorter than that during the year she'd spent at Hogwarts), pulled it off, and then tried to step over his hands so he could pick it up. Charlie pulled out his wand and flicked it. The erstwhile shoulder-sash unknotted itself. Bill picked up the small circle of fabric he'd fought for, turned his back, and tossed it. The throw went wide to the left, and Charlie snagged it, then blushed. Bill turned around to see who'd caught it, saw Charlie (who looked very confused indeed), and laughed so hard he had to sit down. Harry and Ron sighed in unison, relieved.
". . . never catch me pulling up some girl's skirt in public, even if it was only in fun," Ron sermonized as he and Harry wandered through the crowd of guests, each carrying a piece of wedding cake. Ron had been going on about the garter-throwing ever since Fleur had pulled Bill up from where he'd sat down, twenty minutes ago. Harry was tempted to tell him to shut up, that it really wasn't that indecent, but Charlie beat him to it. They were all sitting at the same table they'd been at before Fleur threw the bouquet (with the exception of Bill and Fleur themselves, who were cutting the cake for other people), and Harry suspected that he, at least, would be sitting here until the reception was over. Charlie had gotten up twice to dance with some friend of Bill's, a dark-eyed girl named Nina, who seemed to be Bill's version of a blind date for his younger brother. Ron had been dragged away at one point by Hermione, and McGonagall had only now gotten back with a piece of cake. The twins, of course, had been all over the place, most especially behind the wedding arch from that morning. Harry had the feeling they were plotting something. He only hoped their somewhat limited sense of propriety would keep them from making a fiasco out of their brother's wedding.
Harry got his answer soon enough, as dark fell over the Weasley garden and the twins touched off fireworks. Fleur shrieked at the first loud boom, convinced that someone was shooting hexes at the garden, and then laughed at herself out loud, clearly embarrassed. Most people had drifted away within an hour of Fred and George's show at the end, until by eleven o'clock only the Weasleys, Delacours, Luna, Harry, and Hermione were still standing in the garden. The Delacours soon bid them goodnight after helping to carry dishes inside, and Luna followed. Bill and Fleur had disappeared, probably already on their way to wherever they were spending their honeymoon. Mrs. Weasley yawned.
"Well, that's that," she said, in a falsely cheery voice - Harry suspected she'd been crying again. Charlie was folding tablecloths with his wand - it was far less dangerous than floating glass dishes through the garden, and far quicker than folding them by hand, of course. Mrs. Weasley made shooing motions at Harry, Ron, Ginny, and Hermione.
"Up to bed, all of you," she admonished. "We can take care of the tables and chairs in the morning. By the day after tomorrow you won't even know there was . . . you won't be able to tell we had people here at all," she finished, and Harry could hear tears threatening again. He and Ron made good their escape . . . but Harry had to wonder, as he plodded up the staircase, if he would even still be at the Burrow the day after tomorrow.
REFERENCE NOTES:
(1) This is traditionally the sealing of the vows at a Jewish wedding, although in a Jewish wedding the veil isn't wrapped around the wineglass (and the bride and groom don't drink from it, I don't think). My sister, who is Jewish (and getting married this May!), told me that this traditional custom is a symbol of breaking away from the old home and family and starting the new. I liked that idea, so I added more to it and called it a Wizarding tradition instead.
(2) According to JKR in an interview, Charlie is three years older than Percy and two years younger than Bill, which means he would have started school eight years before Harry did. This can't be correct, though (and Rowling herself has admitted that the math is probably off) because in PoA Oliver says that it's been 7 years since Gryffindor's won the Quidditch Cup, and Charlie played right up to the end of school (the last time Gryffindor won was when he was on the team, according to F&G in the first book), meaning that there ought to be eight years of difference between Charlie and Percy's ages. With those two exceptions, though, Charlie's age would appear to be as Rowling said in that interview, so even though I hate using the "incorrect" age, I will be using it in this story to prevent confusion. (And if this note confused you, just ignore it.)
(3) I don't know if this occurs in Europe, too, but I've been to two or three weddings in the US, and they all did this. It's basically the guy's version of the bouquet-throwing.