Chapter 5: Yuletide at the Burrow
The wedding is slated for the evening of Boxing Day. Slovadan and Marina apparate to England on the morning of Christmas Eve and place themselves at the disposal of Mrs. Weasley, who is supervising the cooking and the decorations.
They are billeted at the Lovegoods' home. In spite of Charlie's owls, it is immediately apparent that Ginny, Ron, and Hermione have long since told the Lovegoods about the impending wedding. The straggly blond, owlish-looking daughter of the house is vociferously philosophical about Charlie's request that she not feature his wedding in her father's magazine.
"I couldn't have covered it anyway," she explains. "Not on Boxing Day. Crumple-Horned Snorkacks come out of hibernation for twelve short days at Christmas, and I'll be frantically busy in Scandinavia all this week. I would have apparated there yesterday, except that Dad wanted to go to the Weasleys' for Christmas dinner." She lowers her voice. "He's softening his investigative reporting a bit, you see, in middle age."
Marina spends Christmas Day baking Cauldron Cakes, and Slovadan spends it helping Mr. Weasley and Bill put an Engorgement Charm on the Burrow's living room so that it can hold a hundred or so. They dine sumptuously in a crowd of red-haired wizards of all ages, shapes, and sizes. The handful of blondish and brown-haired Bells stick out like Billywigs in a patch of wood lice.
That night, when Slovadan and Marina return to the Lovegoods' home, there is a note waiting from Viktor. Slovadan watches Marina as she reads it. All it says is that he's in England, staying in Diagon Alley for the nonce, and he'll see her tomorrow. But Slovadan would hardly believe that. He watches as she opens the small package lying beside the note. It contains a Quick Transla-Quill in a lovely peacock feather pattern.
"Marina," says Slovadan, "what's going on between you two?"
His voice arrests her. She knew this conversation was coming, and she thinks she should have told him a month ago, but in Marina's life, first dates have seldom led to second ones, and Slovadan doesn't like to see her hurt.
She takes a deep breath and she says, "We've been seeing each other."
"He knows you're not a pureblood?" inquires Slovadan waspishly.
Marina doubts Slovadan could have said anything nastier if he'd tried. "Yes," she says shortly, "he knows. He knows about Mum too."
Slovadan blanches. Their mother's suicide is possibly Slovadan's least favorite topic of conversation in the entire world. "You told him about Mum?"
"I didn't tell him," says Marina. "He found out for himself. He knows most of what happened, and he still—" She breaks off. She didn't really expect him to Floo her again after the evening when they discussed her mother. Most men don't. Most men don't want to know. They think they do, but they don't. They want her to say it was an illness, they want her to say it was an accident. They want her to say that the Drum Liber made the whole thing up. They do not want to hear that she was an isolated, unhappy, neglected, intermittently abused child who was if anything faintly relieved—horrified, frightened, embarrassed but nonetheless faintly relieved—by her mother's death.
Not even Slovadan wants to hear that.
"I just don't want to see you hurt," says Slovadan.
"He's a good sort," says Marina. "He's a better sort of man than they make in Romania. I'm sorry, Slovadan, but it's true."
Slovadan says lamely, limply, "I just don't want to see you hurt."
She thinks, too late for that.
On Boxing Day, Marina dons the spiffy new red and black velveteen dress robes that Nina Cioran picked out of a German witches' fashion catalog and ordered her as an early Christmas present. The stiff new dress robes hang elegantly from her shoulders but weigh heavily on her mind. She could never have afforded them herself and she's pretty sure the Ciorans can't either, not with four children at Beauxbatons and another starting soon. So difficult to know where friendship ends and charity begins; so difficult to take when one would rather give; so difficult to be claimed as fictive kin when it's so easy, so familiar anyway, to be alone.
The wedding is long and festive and beautiful, and the British wizards are kind, but Marina spends most of the evening with the Eastern European contingent, with Slovadan and Fergal and a few other young men who trained with Charlie and Slovadan in Romania when Marina was barely into her teens. She dances once with Fergal and once with Charlie's rather strange brother George, who gives her a Patented Daydream Charm and a voucher for a Headless Hat and keeps making jokes she doesn't understand. She tries to get him to translate them into French, which she speaks better than English, but he says he doesn't speak any French. Then Charlie's brother Bill tries to translate, but his accent is so bad that Marina can make nothing of it.
Hermione, it soon emerges, did not bury Mr. Weasley's Muggle camcorder in the backyard, and it is much in evidence during the ceremony and the reception. Things keep going wrong with it, because it's designed to run on batteries, which don't work very well in the magic-laden environment of the Burrow. Mr. Weasley keeps interrupting the wedding ceremony and the wedding dinner to plead that Charlie and Katie repeat that vow, hold that kiss, not swallow that piece of cake yet because he wants to get it on tape. This is, after all, the last wedding of this generation, and his eldest grandson is not yet three.
Viktor, who is good with Muggle gimcracks, ultimately takes charge of the camcorder, to the relief of Mrs. Weasley and most of her children. For the rest of the evening, Charlie raises his hands to his face every time Viktor comes near him, and Katie laughs, and Viktor films Katie quickly and then leaves them alone. He strolls nonchalantly around the Burrow with the camcorder on his shoulder. The final wedding video will contain very extensive footage of Fergal, Slovadan, and Marina.
It is hours past sunset, past dinner and dessert, when Viktor puts the thing down and asks Marina to dance. It's growing late, and most of the dancers still on the floor are married couples, absorbed in long-practiced rhythms. From the edges of the dance floor, bleary-eyed wedding guests watch the dancers. The lights are dim, and Viktor swings Marina gently in a dark corner near the back door. Their bodies are not quite touching, but no matter; she fancies that she feels his nervousness and his longing, and it unnerves her. She feels like a magnet is drawing her to him, and she struggles not to be drawn. Even in costly new winter-weight dress robes, she feels naked and exposed, as if not only Viktor but a hundred wedding guests can see her nervousness and her longing.
Another song begins, and he holds her close, but she pulls away. "I—I think—I don't want to dance this one, Viktor," she mutters. She lets go his hand and flees.
He follows her, as she was hoping and dreading, and she has a chance to explain, but she doesn't know what to say.
They walk outside, in the reflected light of the stars on the snow, and he says, "Marina, are you okay?"
She glances over his shoulder, hoping Slovadan hasn't followed them.
"Marina," says Viktor, "did I do anything to offend you?"
"No," says Marina, "no, not at all."
"I'm sorry I don't dance well."
"You dance better than I do," says Marina candidly.
"Marina, what's wrong?"
"I—" she gropes for words. "I just don't like dancing in front of so many people. I feel—exposed."
"Because people will think we're together?" says Viktor quietly.
It's so tempting to say yes, to say yes, Viktor, that's it, that's all, people might think we're together, and we've only gone out eight or nine times. But he sounds so sad.
"Dancing—muddles me," mutters Marina, looking away. "I—I get caught up—I don't think about my feet—"
Viktor looks at her with an expression of the utmost astonishment. "Dancing with me muddles you?" He seizes her by the waist and holds her two inches from him, as if they were dancing. "Does this muddle you?" he asks hopefully.
Marina smiles uncertainly.
"I wasn't even sure if you liked me," says Viktor.
"I—well, I guess I'm a little reserved," says Marina.
Viktor looks back towards the house. "There's a girl here tonight that I liked—well, that I was in love with, for—a few years." He says it casually, as if that isn't very long. He clears his throat. "She liked me very much, I think, in a fairly platonic manner, and she never quite had the nerve to tell me so. She just—she was flattered, I guess. There was someone else all the time. I thought that you—"
Marina opens her mouth in surprise. This line of thinking never occurred to her. What has occurred her, frequently and forcefully, is that Viktor has surely dated a great deal more than she has. It's not just that he's famous; it's not just that he went to school. At his age, wealthy and pureblooded, he's probably being fixed up with a succession of suitable young witches. With his connections, he's probably got half of wizarding Bulgaria combing through genealogies to find him a spouse. It never occurred to her that Viktor would not realize how desirable he is, how much power he has over her. "Who was it?" she asks faintly.
"It—well, Hermione."
She thought as much. And she's utterly delighted and relieved, because Hermione is not a glamorous Bulgarian pureblood, but a wildly unsuitable Muggle-born foreigner, who is married and madly in love and, moreover, seven months pregnant. Indeed, Hermione is everything Marina could hope for in an ex-girlfriend for Viktor.
"I don't think you're very well-suited to an English girl," says Marina with quiet decision. "I think you need a Ro—an eastern European one."
Viktor laughs out loud. He seldom smiles, but now he is grinning from ear to ear. He has never looked so young. He locks his hands behind her waist, and he brushes his nose against her cheek, butting and snuggling her like an eager puppy, and she thinks, maybe this will turn out well after all.