Written for Round 1 of the All-Era Endurance Test Competition at the HPFC Forum. The brief was to write a character sketch.
Mother of the Bride
Victoire is in her element, a white-clad princess in the centre of a swarm of multi-coloured bridesmaids. Fleur smiles indulgently, because if a girl is not allowed to be a princess on her wedding day, when can she be one? And Fleur knows well enough that Victoire will lose all ideas of self-importance once she sees Ted waiting for her. Victoire is very like her, and she remembers her own wedding day. Pretty dresses and flowers, tiaras and bridesmaids, guests and acclaim are all very well, but when it comes down to it, a wedding day is about one man and one woman. On her own wedding day, once she saw Bill, she might as well have been alone with him and wearing rags. She loved him and he loved her, and that was the thing that mattered. It was still the thing that mattered most after more than twenty years.
Dominique is pretty in lilac silk, more than happy to stay on the edge of the crowd of chattering girls and to give her sister her rightful place in centre stage. That has been the story of Dominique's life. She is the quiet one, even the shy one. At family gatherings, she and Lucy are the silent ones on the fringe of a seething mass of noisy Weasleys and Potters. But Dominique is both kind and brave. She hates to put herself forward, but will do so if someone is in trouble or needs help. She gets that from her father, Fleur acknowledges. She was never as unselfish as either her husband or her middle child. Marriage and motherhood have mellowed her, taught her the necessity of putting others before herself on occasion, but it does not come naturally to her as it does to Bill and Dominique.
There is a tap at the door, and Bill and Louis enter. Louis is as tall as his father already, and as handsome as Victoire is beautiful. Unfortunately, he is well aware of it. Fleur recognises her own vanity in him and hopes he will grow out of it sooner than she did. He is clever too, the cleverest of her children. Still, his partners in crime, Fred and James, will not let him think too much of himself. Fleur envies their friendship. She never had close friends when she was young, thinking too much of herself to let even Amelie and Suzette come close to knowing the real her. Gabrielle was the only person she let pierce the brittle armour of self-sufficiency she wore. As an adult, through Audrey, and to a lesser extent Angelina and Hermione, she has learnt the true value of friendship, and she pities her younger self for what she missed.
"You look beautiful." Bill is talking to her, not to Victoire, and she shakes her head at him, even as she leans in for his kiss. Today is not her day. She takes Louis' arm and lets him lead her from the room. Behind them, the flock of bridesmaids, giggling and whispering, form up behind Victoire and Bill.
Today is Victoire's day, hers and Ted's, and Fleur is happy for it to be so.