Having a party in another country was complicated, it turned out.
This wasn't the real wedding, they were going to have a big proper one later — like, in a church and everything, Violet was pretty sure? — so they were keeping the guest list kind of small. At least, that's what Mum said, but she thought thirty people was kind of a lot? But maybe Violet was wrong about that? She hadn't to a lot of weddings, mostly just weird Gaelic ones where they invited the whole neighbourhood just because, and the stupid tea parties she had to do with the noble kids sure seemed to have a lot of people at them, and even dinner with Muime's family. They were inviting just close family, basically — which meant basically all of Mum's family that were still alive (except Uncle Pollus, who was waiting for the proper wedding), and just Muime's parents and her brothers and sisters (and their kids). Of course, inviting thirty people to a foreign country for a party meant you had to get everyone there.
Some of that was easy, Mum could just tell them where the party was going to be and they could get there themselves — like, most of Mum's guests. The Tonkses were coming — they hadn't been sure both Aunt Andi and Uncle Ted would be able to get off work, but it worked out — but they could manage travelling to Sicily by themselves. Aunt Andi and Uncle Ted actually went early, spending a couple days there by themselves, Dora coming along with everyone later. Susan and her mum made it, but they could do travel stuff themselves too, and so could the Malfoys. (Sadly, Aunt Narcissa was one of Mum's closest living family, so Draco was going to be there.) The exception were the Muircheartaighs, who didn't really have the money to get a portkey and a hotel room themselves...or even knew how to do that sort of thing, when it came down to it.
This was kind of a new thing, Violet hadn't really been aware of it happening — she didn't know about it at all until Mum explained it talking about this trip, actually. It turned out Muime's family (or family of their family, depending which story you're talking about) had bad history with the nobility, and even the Blacks specifically...and Mum specifically, even. (Mum didn't explain, something about an old boyfriend ages ago being a friend of Muime's dad's best friend's uncle or something, it was complicated.) Muime's cousin's husband Aodhán Ó Muircheartaigh mentioned that a Black actually married someone else in the family, after being kicked out for reasons, and there was something about his will when he died? Basically, the Muircheartaighs had kind of gotten ripped off in the inheritance, which they thought was stupid, because the Blacks had basically disowned Alphard anyway (Mum's nephew, Uncle Pollus's son), and he'd had a teenage daughter then who'd kind of been depending on having her dad's money to support her through an apprenticeship? Which had gotten even worse when she ended up having triplets, and the father was useless, basically abandoning her and not helping with the kids at all...
Since Mum wanted Muime's family to be happy with them getting married, she was trying to patch over some of the bad history. A lot of it was old stuff, like things that happened generations ago they remembered stories about, or to do with other noble families, so she couldn't really do anything about it, but that thing with the Muircheartaighs was something she could fix — just recently, she'd agreed to a sponsorship of Alphard's granddaughters. This was a thing stupid wealthy people did, though it wasn't so common anymore as it used to be, Violet knew about it from her lessons with Lord Arcturus. It worked on a contract, so exactly what it looked like varied case to case, but basically Mum had agreed to provide for their education and stuff, and to help them get into apprenticeships or whatever when they were old enough. The triplets were going to the craft school at an Ollscoil right now — when Mum talked about the sponsorship, Violet was reminded that she had heard of a set of triplets at the school, but she never met them — and she was currently arranging to send them to Hogwarts the year after Violet...and get them an English tutor until then to make sure they were good enough with it to keep up, since they would only have started learning English at craft school, so...
Violet actually never met the triplets before their group all met at the keyport in London. (There was a keyport at the Refuge, but it didn't go to nearly as many places, so they had to meet in London — which wasn't very convenient, since everyone lived in Ireland, but oh well.) Mum and Violet met the Muircheartaighs in the atrium there with Muime and all of her family who were coming. Muime invited her parents, but only her mum was coming — Violet thought Muime was disappointed, but not really surprised — and three of her four siblings. Her brother Críostóir couldn't make it, busy with something, but her sister Aoife and her brothers Séaghda and Fearghal could, and their wives Esyllt and Béibhinn, and all the kids. (Fionn and Eoghán were only babies, like one or two, Muime left home early to help apparate them over to London safely.) Muime's cousin Ruadhán was also coming, Violet thought they were close? He'd actually come by the house a couple times lately, so.
Dora met up with them at the keyport too, almost late, barely got out of her Auror apprenticeship thing in time. Waiting for everyone to show up (Dora), the kids sat around getting to know each other. Violet at least met the Sirideáin kids before, at that family dinner — Colmán was a couple years younger than her, and Mairéad and Aeronwy were both five or six — but the triplets were new. And not just to Violet either, the Sirideáin kids never met them before either, turned out? The triplets were like, er, the Sirideáin kids' parents' cousin's husband's... fourth cousins or something like that? They weren't closely related, was the point — they might have been at the same holiday parties at the same time or something, but they never actually spoke before.
The triplets were kind of neat! They had one of those super pretty magical hair colours, a dark red red colour — Violet assumed it was a magic thing, because hair wasn't normally that kind of crimson colour, it was cool. Though, when she thought about it, it kind of reminded her of pictures she'd seen of Lily? but her birth mother was also magic, so. They had freckles and cheeks that went all pink when in the sun or when they got excited, like a lot of Muime's family, but with narrow faces and pointy noses more like Mum's family. (Violet wondered if this was kind of like what her baby sisters were going to look like?) Also, they looked identical, exactly the same. They were even dressed similar, Violet immediately lost track of which was Seléne and which was Artaimís and which was Peirsifiné.
And they finished each other's sentences? all the time? Violet asked Mum about it later, and, sometimes multiple births — that is, twins, triplets, and even bigger sets than that — could be born bonded. If someone was having more than one baby at a time, the souls were squeezed so close together as they were growing that they got into resonance with each other — something that happened to one of them carried right through to the other, no matter how far apart they were, like they were two (or more) parts of a whole person. Bonded twins (or more) could hear each other's thoughts and feel each other's feelings, as though they were their own. Often, bonded twins (or more) didn't think of themselves as separate people, more like one big, complicated person who just had more than one body.
They didn't normally stay that way very long, though. Your brain changed as things happened to you, obviously, and some of that was a body thing — enough small differences piling up would break the resonance binding them together, and they'd just be normal people after that. (The bond couldn't be fixed, once it was broken it was gone for good.) Bonded twins would sometimes make it as far as puberty before splitting up, but the more people you had in the bond the more fragile it was. Triplets still being bonded by the age of ten was very rare — Mum thought the Muircheartaigh girls might be trying to keep it up on purpose, and Violet should try not to embarrass them about it.
(Of course Violet wasn't going to embarrass them about it! That seemed like a mean cousin thing to do!)
Eventually it was time to go, Dora rushing over to join them at the last second, and they went on downstairs to the portkey rooms. Mum had arranged it ahead of time, they actually had a private portkey — and setting it up was a little complicated, since they had babies with. The little kids just had their arms strapped to the net, the same as Violet always was, but Eoghán and Fionn were put in special baskets, full balls that closed all the way around to completely surround them, the baskets attached to the net and held by their dads. That was what they always did with babies, apparently? Muime said it wasn't really safe to bring babies through the floo, but they could take portkeys, just had to be careful about it.
After a few moments being dragged through colourful spinny nothingness, they landed in Naples (though the signs called it Napole). It took a minute for everyone to get back on their feet and settled, once they were okay going up through customs — which didn't take very long, they just magically scanned everyone's bags quick, for illegal stuff — and from there out onto the city streets. They didn't stay in Naples, though, going straight to the nearest apparation point, from where Mum apparated them two or three at a time to Marathia.
Marathia was a little town on the coast, hugged between two big mountains — steep enough that trees had trouble hanging on above a certain point, instead taken over by grass, even that not able to get all the way to the top, the tips jagged greyish stone — the little valley the town was in sloping down toward the shoreline. The place was very green, the wavering switchbacking streets (even in the valley the slope too steep to just build roads straight up it) separated with rows of bushes and trees, the buildings with bright white and yellow plaster sides and pretty red roofs. Like in a lot of old towns, the magical town was mixed in with the muggle one, little neighbourhoods tucked away down side streets the muggles couldn't see, or even single houses ducked under wards, close next to each other but still hidden.
Violet thought it was pretty! With the mountains overhead and all the green everywhere, ferns along the pavement and shaded by trees, the cute little white and red buildings, and the sea stretching out and out and out. She kind of wanted to go up on one of the mountains and paint it, but they didn't have time for that.
It was hot, which wasn't really a surprise — they were way down on the Mediterranean, after all. Violet did prepare for that, wearing a light dress, and there was a nice breeze coming off of the sea, so. It wasn't so bad for her, but some of Muime's family quickly started looking kind of miserable, still in heavy linen and wool British clothes.
A longish walk out of the main magical neighbourhood and up a narrow coiling path up the side of the mountain — the densest part of the town right over there to the left and under them, buildings packed close along little brick streets, sometimes cocked at funny angles thanks to the shape of the mountain — and they reached a row of magical houses looking out over the valley, one of which Mum had rented out for the next couple nights. It wasn't a super big place, the steepness of the mountains squeezing down the amount of space they could use. With bright white plaster siding and a red clay-tile roof like seemingly everything else here, it was three levels high, balconies with twisty iron railings leaning out over the little gardens inside the walls, vines crawling up the sides here and there.
The inside of the house was definitely bigger than the outside (thank you, magic), but with the number of people they had it was still going to be a little bit of a tight fit. On the ground floor there was a pretty, open, sunny entryway, a wood staircase with a railing carved to look like flowering vines curving up to the next level. There was a sitting room that went right out into the back gardens, very private hidden by the steep brush-covered mountain face and the house and the trees on all sides, a nice-but-slightly-cramped kitchen, a dining room that definitely didn't have enough seats for all of them. The first floor had a couple more sitting rooms and some bedrooms, the second floor had a little library/lounge thing looking out over the town and the sea and some more bedrooms, above that a cramped little loft. There were toilets, but no baths or showers or anything — there was a public bath back in town, and that was it, the house too old to have been planned to have its own.
The first thing they did was figure out who was going to be sleeping where — and that wasn't easy to do, because they had five bedrooms (six if you counted the loft) and eighteen people (twenty if you counted the babies). They could get a bed in the loft — Violet guessed that was theoretically fine, but she was not sleeping up there, too cramped and no windows — and the upstairs sitting rooms and the library could be converted to sleeping space pretty easy, bringing them up to nine bedrooms, which was more than enough if they shared. Rudhán said he'd take the loft, and the parents (with the babies) would get proper bedrooms, which left Ailís, Aoife, Sorcha, and the kids to somehow be fit into the two bedrooms left and however many other rooms they wanted to use for bedrooms. This was a little complicated to figure out, because Aeronwy and Mairéad were still little, and the adults didn't want them to be without a grown-up nearby, and Ailís (the triplets' mum) didn't really know anybody, and that they had one boy and a bunch of girls and limited rooms made it awkward to split everyone up...
While people were still talking about it, Violet blurted out that she was cool with sleeping in the library — it was pretty up there, with the big wide windows to a balcony looking out over the sea and all. Mum said that was fine, so she went up there to set down her things and decide where she was going to sleep while everyone else continued talking about how they were splitting everyone up. She would figure out after the fact that they'd put Sorcha and the girls in one remaining bedroom and Dora and Aoife and Ailís in the other, and Colmán and the triplets were camping out in their own sitting rooms, which worked out well enough, it just took way too long to figure out.
They'd left Britain later into the afternoon, and Sicily was an hour ahead, so pretty soon it was dinner time. They ordered take-out from a muggle place in town, and by the time they got the food the rest of their group showed up — Aunt Andi and Uncle Ted and Aunt Narcissa and Uncle Lucius and Draco were in the country already, and came by to join them for dinner. (Susan and her mum would be arriving tomorrow morning.) Crammed into the back garden, that was too many people for a space that size, and too loud with too many conversations going on, it was very quickly making Violet uncomfortable. Like, the buzzing, skin-crawling, nauseating, overwhelmed kind of uncomfortable, that made it hard to tell what the people sitting right next to her saying, or even really eat anything at all. So Violet excused herself, and took her food up to the library to eat up there instead.
By the time someone came up to check on her — Muime, with Aoife and Sorcha — Violet had already finished eating a while ago, and was set up on the balcony with her sketchbook and her pastels. The sun was setting over the sea! and it was super pretty! Pastels were faster, if she did it right, she was hoping she could catch enough of it to actually do a proper version of it later. (If she had time tomorrow, she might sketch some of the town and the valley in more detail, between the sketch and the pastel drawing she might be able to make it her September painting for Master Walter.) She'd only met Aoife and Sorcha the one time, they'd never seen her art stuff before, and—
Oh! Violet kind of forgot Sorcha said she could call her Mamó, before. (Dinner with Muime's family had been kind of a lot.) With Diana and Caoileann, that meant she had three grandmothers now, which kind of felt like a lot to her? It wasn't that long ago that she hadn't had any grandmothers at all. Anyway, Mamó and Aoife kind of cooed over her work for a little bit, before leaving her alone to catch as much as she could before the colours of the sunset faded away.
The next morning, Violet was woken up by Aoife — which was a little awkward on Aoife's end, because she didn't realise Violet didn't wear anything to bed, but Violet just acted like nothing unusual was happening and she stopped being weird about it pretty quickly. They had a rather big breakfast — Mum and Mamó and Esyllt had been up working on it for a while, apparently — because dinner would be pretty big, the wedding party and all, so they wouldn't be doing much for lunch. Thankfully, breakfast was more spread out, people taking their food and moving into clumps here and there in the garden or one room or another in the house, Violet didn't have to go up to hide in the library again.
Susan and her mum showed up during breakfast, hi! Susan said hello to a few people — Mum and Muime first, and then a few of the other adults — but quickly found Violet. She was having a bad Seer time, apparently — they snuck somewhere out of sight so Violet could make her some food.
Violet spent most of the morning playing with Susan and Dora and the triplets. Not really doing anything much, just playing card games, some board game Dora found in the library (which was a bit of a mess, since nobody could read the directions), just things to occupy them while talking. Though, the talking was also a little awkward, because Dora didn't really speak any Gaelic at all, and the triplets' English wasn't great — though, better than most of the rest of Muime's family, Dora couldn't talk to most of the people in the house very well. The triplets were a little odd and confusing sometimes, and not just because Violet got confused by people, she could tell Dora thought they were a little weird too. But, that was probably just because they were three people but also kind of one person? She could see how that might make them seem different from other people. But they were nice! Violet didn't get their jokes all the time, but that was kind of normal for her, really...
She kind of missed this happening, but when she was upstairs with Dora and the triplets Mum and Muime left to go to some office somewhere. Mum had told her what that was about, when talking through what the plan for this trip was, so even though she missed it she knew what it meant when they came back during lunch (just snacks, nothing big) and said it went well.
You could come get married in Sicily if you were from somewhere else, but there were rules — they wanted to know your real name and your birthdate (preferably with some papers to prove that), and they would ask you some questions. Mum had said the name was for their own records, and the birthdate was to make sure that people weren't too young to be getting married. For the questions, Muime and Mum were split up and sent to different rooms, where they had lie-detecting stuff, asked about their relationship and why they wanted to get married and stuff. That seemed a little silly to Violet, but Mum said it was to catch, like, people being forced into it, or all kinds of other bad things that could happen sometimes. There was a time not so long ago where people could get around laws to protect people by going to a different country to get married, so Sicily added this stuff to stop people from doing that, which Violet guessed was a good thing to do?
Having papers to prove their real name and their age was actually more complicated than it sounded, because magical Britain didn't give out ID cards of any kind, or even birth certificates, most of the time. Apparently a lot of poorer people didn't have any kind of papers at all...which wasn't really a surprise, when Violet thought about it, having seen how some people on the magical side lived. It wasn't a problem for Mum — the nobility did tend to keep birth certificates and stuff, but she actually used her old Auror papers — but it was harder for Muime to come up with anything that the officials in Sicily would accept. She'd brought her official NEWT results, a contract for a potion-brewing job she'd done to make some pocket money once years ago, and a copy of her Mastery certificate (not the real one, didn't want to lose it), which she hoped together would prove that she was who she said she was and was old enough to be getting married. The questions part they weren't worried about, the weak point was Muime's papers.
The Sicilians must have accepted them though, because when they got back Mum said they were good, someone would be meeting them at the beach when it was time. Yay!
A little bit after 'lunch', some of the grown-ups decided they should all go down to the baths, to get cleaned up ahead of the party. That seemed kind of silly to Violet? She meant, it's not like it was a super formal party they had to dress up for or anything? Muime and Mum would sign some papers and then they'd be having dinner on the beach — Violet was planning on going in the normal sleeveless dress she was already wearing right now, and she probably wouldn't even bother keeping her shoes on. But they pretty quickly decided almost everyone was going — Muime and Aoife and Mamó were doing something, and a couple people were staying behind with the babies — so fine, Violet guessed she could come with.
The baths were kind of neat! In the main town centre on the magical side, there was a little building on the ground level, but there wasn't much there (just a shop counter and some toilets, really), a big wide staircase leading below ground. It went pretty deep, and Violet bet they'd definitely used magic to make it bigger, some of the ceilings really high, arching up up up in a way that kind of reminded her of the cathedral and stuff in Rome, kinda. They were colourful like the big churches in Rome too! There were mosaics all over on the floor, the style and the colours immediately reminding Violet of ancient Roman stuff — she was pretty sure some of it was from that time, even, just repaired and kept up over the millennia since — the walls painted in bright colours, a lot of forest scenes with all kinds of plants and flowers and animals and stuff, underwater scenes, stuff with people Violet thought might be references to stories she didn't know enough to recognise. The place was lit with enchanted torches fitted into the walls, flickery yellow-orange light throwing dancing shadows but without any smell of smoke, it was pretty!
Violet still thought getting all nice for the party was a little silly, but she was glad she came, just to see the baths. She'd seen plenty of public baths while visiting other countries, but still, this was neat.
The baths were split in two, girls going on one side of the main hallway and the boys the other. There was a big changing room, with lockers for their things — these were also newer, the ceramic not matching the stone walls, tacked on, with modern enchanted locks — and stacks of towels and whatever else. (Only reusable things, soap and such was sold back upstairs but they'd brought their own.) Some of the other girls were a little shy about the undressing part, which, Violet wasn't really sure why? Bathing with other people around was pretty normal for poor people in Britain. Though, when she thought about it, they all lived in tiny little farming villages and stuff, so, maybe it was how big this place was, and how many strangers there were around — they were hardly the only people here, after all, at least a couple dozen other women and girls in here with them. She guessed that made sense.
(Not that Violet really understood why anyone would be shy about it at all — once it sank in that she wasn't going to get in trouble for being a freak, she stopped caring almost right away — but she didn't have to understand it to know that other people were. Lots of things people did were like that for her, really.)
The bath itself was big and open, and steamy, and super pretty, with all the mosaics and murals and stuff, and it smelled nice! She thought there must be perfumes they were putting in the air, or maybe that was from everyone using soap? Not sure. Anyway, shower first, hang around in the water for a while, blah blah, super normal stuff for Violet by this point.
All the people around, and echoes of who knew how many people who'd been in the baths going back however long, had been a little tiring for Susan — she wanted to sneak in a nap before it was time for the wedding. When they got back at the house, Violet and Susan went up to the library, she cast an illusion to make a little glowing sign on the outside of the door — Susan is sleeping, keep closed please, decorated with bunches of flowers and a big red heart — before closing it, and then casting a sound paling so it'd be quiet in here. Susan curled up on one of the sofas, and Violet brought her art stuff out on the balcony. She wanted to get down some of the more fiddly little details of the town and the mountains and the shore and stuff, so she could make that painting she had the idea for...
After a while — Violet had no idea how long, distracted with drawing — the door cracked open, and Amelia stuck her head in the room. It was time to get ready to go now. Not that they had much getting ready to do, really — it's not like it was a super fancy party or anything, they didn't have to dress up. Violet was still in the light yellow and blue sundress she put on this morning, and she didn't plan on changing. She did change the colours of her fingernails (a nice sky blue to match her dress) and put some more rainbow flecks in her hair, just because, but other than that. Susan was also dressing mostly normal, in a pale blue dress with pretty curly white and yellow embroidery — they kind of matched, a little! There was also a matching cloak, with a hood — there was a certain way to wear a hood that signalled to people that you were a Seer, so they knew not to touch you and things like that — and gloves, so she could better avoid directly touching things.
It looked really warm, frankly — and it was hot in Sicily. It would be windy on the beach, at least, but Violet would be worried about being too hot in that. But she guessed there were cooling charms and stuff, it was probably fine...
Anyway, Susan cast a couple glamours to hide how super pale she was and the dark circles around her eyes, and Violet plaited her hair for her — every few bends sticking in flowers she transfigured from pencil shavings, because, that's why! — and they were ready. They were pretty close to the first done, waiting downstairs for everyone else to catch up, the grown-ups trying to get all their kids presentable. Not sure why they bothered, they were just going down to the beach anyway, but whatever. Violet and Susan and Aoife and Ruadhán talked about whatever while they waited, her bare feet idly kicking in the air.
...Was Ruadhán gay? He didn't come out and say it, when Susan and Aoife were talking about their families and stuff, but he kind of implied it. She guessed it would make a little sense if he was? Unless Violet was forgetting someone, he was the only one of Muime's cousins and siblings and stuff who wasn't married, or at least moving toward getting married — the exceptions were Aoife, who was still a little young for it, and Mathúin, who was a bit autistic and weird and not interested — and it might explain why she got the feeling Muime and Ruadhán were especially close? being the only queers in the family, you know. She thought it was maybe rude to come out and ask, she might bring it up with Muime later...
The ground floor of the house got more and more crowded as people finished up, but thankfully she didn't have to deal with it too long before everyone was ready and they could leave. Muime had flowers plaited into her hair, and through the buttonholes and along the collar of her blouse, she was super pretty! That's what she was doing with Aoife and Mamó earlier, it turned out, buying the flowers and doing that. Neat!
The kids were lectured for a little bit to act normal — to get to where they were going, they'd have to walk through non-magical parts of the town. Violet was pretty sure most of them had hardly even seen a muggle before, and also they weren't really dressed normal? Nothing super-obviously magical (though she guessed her own hair kind of was), just old-fashioned linen dresses and things, in styles normal people weren't used to seeing. She didn't think it was suspiciously weird, though, they'd probably assume their group were just from some backwater place in some other European country, helped along by most of them only speaking a language they wouldn't recognise, since Gaelic was so rare on the muggle side. Yeah, it should be fine.
The town was still super pretty. Violet and the other kids skipped along the narrow curling streets, occasionally pausing to wait for the adults to catch up again — only Muime and Mamó and Amelia actually knew where they were going (Mum was already down there) — poking at the plants or trying to pronounce the Italian on the signs. (Those of them who could read, anyway, some of the kids couldn't.) Dora got some giggles by reading the signs off in a very exaggerated, terrible Italian voice — she also got a few funny looks from people around, but she'd just wink at them and go back to playing around with the little kids.
Eventually they got down to the road running along the coast, on the other side passed through a tingly curtain of wards into a hidden magical neighbourhood. This one was super super old, with a road made out of blocks the same greyish colour of the cliffs and buildings with flat, wide reddish brick — that stuff was very old, maybe actually ancient Roman, though they had added onto it, plaster-sided upper levels and extra buildings, with more colourful decorations, stained glass and embroidered cloth and stuff. Down the street here and they came to a steep, back-and-forth staircase, which ended right on a beach that the mages had hidden under wards for them to use, the air shivering and roaring with ocean waves hitting the shore.
The sand was pretty dark, made out of the same greyish stone as the mountains, in some places shading more toward white or more toward black, random patches and streaks of lighter or darker rock, all mixed up. The beach was a bit pebbly — there were super tiny grains of sand, but there were bigger rocks too, skittering and scratching under their feet as they walked. Violet guessed this beach was newer, small bits of rock the waves had smashed off of the cliffs just behind them, the water mostly hadn't had time to grind it down to tiny tiny sand yet.
There were some people around, but it was super super obvious where the party was going to be: a spot over to the right had some tables and things set up, a magical turntable with one of those big cone-shaped speakers they used when they wanted it to be louder. There were also some carts, some people in trousers and jackets, workers of some kind? Mum was there, wearing a pretty red-purple and white dress, the skirt yanked to one side by the wind, she waved over at them. As they got closer, Violet saw that Aunt Andi and Uncle Ted and the Malfoys were already here. The Malfoys actually had dressed up nice...though, she kind of thought that was just normal for them? They were kind of stuffy, formal, proper types, so.
Uncle Lucius even still had his usual cane and gloves and everything, which was very silly. They were at the beach!
Their whole group had barely even gotten over there, still milling around talking, when an unfamiliar man in professional-looking trousers and jacket turned up. Mum greeted him with a handshake and all, the two of them talking in French, and— Oh! This was the government person, with the papers and stuff! It was time! There was suddenly a bunch of activity going on — the worker people were folding open the carts and unloading onto the table, the place settings and stuff already set up — Violet was distracted by that, jumped at a tap on her arm, Susan. Oh, Muime was trying to get her attention, oops...
Someone had conjured a little stand, the government person setting up a few things. Violet was waved up between Mum and Muime, standing on one side of the little stand — Mum ran a hand through Violet's hair before turning back to what they were doing — the government person standing opposite them, Mamó across the corner on Muime's side. Her hands gripping the end of the stand, tipping up on her toes in the sand to see better, Violet was almost vibrating, it took actual effort to not hop in place or make any noises or anything, trying to be politely quiet. She couldn't help it! Muime and Mum were getting married, right now, Muime was going to be her mum for real, it was so exciting!
(She knew Muime thought a wedding didn't count if there wasn't a priest doing it, this was just for law and paperwork reasons, but still!)
The ceremony was super super short, and also it was all in French, Violet understood basically none of it. The government person talked for a little bit, there was some back and forth with Mum and Muime — Muime sounding awkward, she did speak some French but not super well. There was a part where the government person set a silvery metal loop in the middle of the stand, him and Mum and Muime all putting a hand on it, both Mum and Muime saying...things. Later on, Mum would explain that the ring was a lie-detecting thing — the other two people would get a little shock if one of them lied — this was the wedding vows part of the wedding. Nothing super fancy or even romantic, just basic I do want to marry you, and yes, I understand what that means (there was a thing about the legal stuff) , I'm super super serious about it, that kind of thing. Violet wasn't sure why they needed to do that, maybe still trying to catch people who were being forced into it or something? The government person was holding onto the ring too, despite not saying anything himself. Whatever.
Once that was done, the loop was put away, and some papers were moved up — Violet tipped higher onto her toes to read them (even making herself a little taller), but they were in French. The government person pointed at a few places on the pages, talking in French, maybe explaining something? Mum said something, nodding, and the government person held out a sharp, black, jagged-looking quill, Mum taking it from him.
Violet cringed away, her stomach lurching and her skin crawling. There was something wrong with that quill, even being this close to it was making her feel sick, and all cold and prickly. She kind of wanted to reach up and smack the quill out of Mum's hand, but she forced herself to stand still, biting her lip — Mum knew more about dark magic and stuff than Violet did, and she didn't seem worried.
Mum scribbled at the page, gritting her teeth, Violet got closer, tipping back up on her toes. She'd written her name on a line, her full name — Lady Cassiopeia Calliste Nymphadora, NMAH Black. (Noble types liked having lots of names, two middle names or even more was super common.) The ink was oddly red, and...blood? was that blood? Mum handed the bad quill over to Muime, who wrote her name — in Gaelic letters, Ꞅı́oṁa Ꞅ̇oꞃċa nı́ Ꞅ̇ıꞃıꝺeáın — gritting her teeth as she did, a little twitch in her wrist with the first line, putting a funny jagged edge in the first S. Muime then handed the quill over to Mamó, muttering in Gaelic — Violet caught it, warning her that this was a blood quill, it was going to sting a bit but that was it.
So it was blood, then. Violet knew that that was something mages did with contracts sometimes — it was a security thing, so you could be absolutely sure a signature actually belonged to someone — but still, that was weird...
Mamó signed on another line — also in Gaelic letters, the shapes looking a little clumsy (and also she forgot the dot for the séimhiú, writing it Ꞅoꞃca). The government person took the quill back, put his own signature on another line. And... And they were done? Was that it? Were they done?
They were done! The government person was packing up the papers, saying something to Mum and Muime, and— That meant they must be done, they were married now! That was fast...
Esyllt called over a joke about it not being official until someone kissed the bride — Violet knew Gaelic mages actually didn't always do the you may now kiss the bride thing, it depends which kind of wedding they were having (but Esyllt was Cambrian, so). Muime glanced her way for a second, before grabbing the straps of Mum's dress and tugging her over. Violet was still standing between them, Mum bonking against her shoulder a little, she ducked and stepped out of the way, giggling, it looked like Muime had kind of gotten Mum by surprise, flailing a little before her hands found Muime's shoulders. After a couple seconds, Muime yanked Mum into one of those dramatic dip things that they did in, like, muggle films and stuff, Mum letting out a startled muffled "mmm!" her feet slipping in the sand, and they ended up falling over, Muime plopping down onto her bum and Mum sprawling across her lap, both of them breathlessly laughing, their family around laughing with them or (like Mamó) coming over to check they were okay...
Violet just watched, giggling and actually bouncing on her toes now, her face almost hurting. They were being so silly!
Very quickly, they were all sitting down to the actual dinner part of dinner. There was a double-wide chair at the middle of one of the tables — that would be for Mum and Muime, a thing they did at Gaelic wedding parties — Muime said Violet should pick a chair next to it. Mum took a bit longer to get here, talking to some of the worker people, and then lingering over the turntable. Soon there was music playing — old jazz stuff, probably not actually one of the records Mum got from Julie (she gave most of those back a while ago), but something she got since. She played this sort of stuff a lot in the house, because she was old-fashioned like that, and the one she was playing was bouncy and cheerful enough, so Violet guessed that was fine.
She did notice Uncle Lucius make a face about it. Muime's family might not know enough to recognise it was muggle music, but she guessed he probably did — but that was too bad, it was Mum's wedding, she could pick the music, so there!
The worker people were still sticking around, and oddly enough sitting at one end of the other table over there, looking a little out of place. She thought they would have, you know, gone off somewhere else out of the way for them to finish up here, so they could do the clean-up part. If Violet had to guess — and she did, because she didn't overhear the conversation, which probably would have been in French anyway — Mum had actually gotten the caterer people she hired to do extra plates, and didn't tell them that those plates were for them until...probably just when she'd been talking to them a minute ago? So Mum had kind of invited them to the wedding, which was nice! A little awkward, since they didn't know anyone, but still, better than them sitting off wherever until they were done here.
(Of course, she knew from her lessons with Lord Arcturus that that was actually an old-fashioned aristocracy thing — at the big important events, like weddings, you were supposed to feed the household staff, and any extra people you hired for the day too — but it was one of those extra old-fashioned aristocracy things hardly anyone did anymore. Mum was super old, so.)
Some of the kids were starting on their food, but the adults were seemingly waiting. When Mum squeezed down next to Muime, someone (she didn't see who) said Mum forgot the toast. "I don't know, I didn't think of that part." Mum nudged Muime with an elbow. "Hey, isn't that supposed to be the groom's job? You're the one wearing the trousers."
Laughs running through the party, Muime let out a harsh pfah. "I'm not really the speech type, I think we can skip it."
"Hold up, allow me." A bit down the table, one of the men stood up — Violet was mostly sure that was Fearghal, Muime's eldest brother. (She was bad with faces sometimes, especially people she didn't know very well.) He held up his wine glass, waited a moment for everyone else to reach for theirs. His face very solemn and serious, holding the moment all dramatic...and then he said, "My devious baby sister hooked herself a bloody lady, so let's drink about it." There was some surprised laughter and teasing, only getting louder when Mum gave her glass a little nudge upward in Fearghal's direction and took a big gulp out of it, Violet was pretty sure Muime was blushing, covering her face with one hand, silly...
Violet was a little worried that the party would be too much for her, that she'd get overwhelmed, like what happened having dinner with Muime's family that time or even just last night. It didn't, though? She didn't know what it was. It wasn't like there were any fewer people last night, or that it wasn't any quieter — it was technically even louder, with the roaring of the waves not far away, and the music. But it wasn't so bad, actually? Maybe it was because they were out in the open, with the noise from the waves muffling some of the conversation going on, so she actually couldn't hear the voices too far away very well, less jumbling up going on, the wind blowing through making it feel less crowded. She didn't think Mum picked a beach for the party for her, but it was working pretty well, actually.
Even if Violet had to sit with Draco and Aunt Narcissa — she was right on Mum's other side, and her family was on this side of the table, and there weren't very many of them. Aunt Narcissa was fine, she was nice (if a little boring at times), but she didn't like Draco much. At least he was mostly behaving today...though he did complain about everyone talking in Gaelic, he didn't understand what anyone was saying. He spoke three languages already — English, Cambrian, and also French — but Gaelic wasn't one of them, so. Of course, that meant pretty much the only person Draco had to talk to was his parents, Dora (who obviously made him uncomfortable), or Violet herself, which was a little annoying, but whatever. As long as he wasn't being mean to her friends, she guessed he was okay...
(She did kind of wish the Muircheartaighs were sitting over here instead, though, or Susan! Why did Susan and her mum have to be all the way on the end?)
The food was good! or interesting, at least, Violet didn't like all of it. (She could be picky sometimes.) It was a really complicated, long meal, they were doing the whole multiple courses thing that people did for fancy things, and very Italian. Muime's family didn't get out much, being poor peasants and all, Violet thought Mum was kind of trying to show them neat stuff they wouldn't normally get. The first was l'aperitif or l'entrée or something — almost the only French she knew was for stupid formal things — little plates scattered around the table with bits of cheese and fish and tiny little breaded and fried things, like fritters of some kind? The fish was smoked, she didn't know that at first, bleh, gave the rest of the piece she took to Draco. She was a little cautious about the fritters, since she couldn't see what was in them, cutting them in half with her fork before eating them — one had olives and anchovies in it, she made a face and tipped it over onto Mum's plate. (And then quick charmed her plate clean, because ew.) The cheese and some of the fritters were good, at least.
And her drink was good! It was fizzy, and orange-y and herby, and Violet didn't know exactly, a funny combination of things, but she liked it anyway. It was supposed to have alcohol in it, apparently, but soon after they started eating proper Mum had Violet and Draco hand over their glasses so she could transfigure the alcohol out of them and into her glass. (Draco gave her a very funny look — that wasn't the sort of thing normal mages could do.) By the colour of their glasses, Violet thought the other kids had something else? Whatever. It was good, was the point.
They were sitting and talking and eating and drinking for a while, Violet poking at her food and listening to the music and half-heartedly talking to Draco, when the worker people got up to swap out the plates. They were doing it in the Russian style, apparently, where everyone was given their own plate for every course, instead of the French style, where the dishes for the course were laid out on the table and everyone served themselves — the latter was normally done by the old nobility in magical Britain and the former more and more often by the richer commoners and newer noble families, which was a thing she knew because this was the sort of thing her lessons with Lord Arcturus had been about, for reasons. Or maybe Italy had their own way of doing it that just seemed similar by coincidence? She didn't know, hadn't come up.
Anyway, all their plates were pasta, which she did know was an Italian thing, in place of the fish or soup part. (Which was a thing she knew, for reasons.) Hers had short, skinny, flat strips of pasta, in some kind of thin butter sauce maybe? with beans in there and topped by a crumbling apart bit of baked fish, capers dotted here and there through it. She thought putting fish in pasta was weird, but it smelled good at least, all garlicky and sagey. (There was also wine with this course, Mum transfigured the alcohol out for Violet and Draco again.) She patiently waited for everyone to be served before touching her utensils, idly kicking her feet, but she noticed most of the other kids didn't bother — she guessed Lord Arcturus's lessons had stuck, at least a little.
She also noticed that most people had a similar plate to hers, except most of them had mussels and stuff. Violet didn't like mussels (they felt all grainy and slimy, ech), Mum must have remembered that and gotten something different for her. That was nice!
She was about to thank Mum for thinking of it, but she and Muime were being cute, huddled close together and whispering — she couldn't see Mum's face from here, but Muime was all smiling, a little pink in her cheeks — so she decided not to interrupt them.
Anyway, her setting had a little side plate, so Violet scooped up her fish with her fork and her spoon, careful to not let the fragile thing flake apart (her tongue poking through her lips in concentration), and moved it over to the smaller plate. There, that was better. The sauce tasted a little fishy, but not super fishy, subtle-like, and she guessed it worked okay with the capers and the herbs. Not her favourite, but it was still good. Could maybe use a little— Oh! There was shredded cheese on the table over here, yeah, she could use some...
Mum and Muime were still being very cute. Violet was a little bored, with only Draco to talk to, her eyes randomly wandering over the party — she noticed sometimes that one of them would, just, stare at the other for a little bit, a funny look on her face she didn't know how to read. And then someone would get their attention, or the other would turn to say something to them, and they'd go back to normal. She didn't know what was going on there, exactly, but it was still cute.
(She heard other kids before talk about being annoyed or embarrassed or grossed out by their parents being all lovey with each other, but she didn't really get it? She thought it was sweet!)
Violet was getting a little antsy by the time the next course came around, and she could tell she wasn't the only one, some of the other kids bouncing in their seats, twisting around to talk to each other or playing around with whatever there was in reach. She had practise behaving at the table, from her lessons with Lord Arcturus and those stupid teas with the Hogwarts kids, but she didn't like sitting still for this long either. (Unless she was doing an art thing, anyway, that didn't count.) When the next plate was set down in front of her, Violet made a face — but immediately stopped herself, not wanting to accidentally be mean to the worker person. It just smelled kind of weird? It looked like pieces of some kind of meat...lamb, maybe? with bits of potatoes and carrots, and smaller things she wasn't sure about (garlic? shallots?), in some kind of sauce. But the sauce was a funny colour, like, brownish-reddish-purplish, and it smelled minty, but also weirdly sweet? What was that? There was a side dish with it, some kind of creamy rice with mushrooms in it, that looked okay at least.
Once everyone was served, Violet started poking at the meat and potatoes — it only took a couple bites for her to decide that she did not like it. She thought they'd cooked grapes down in the gravy? was that what that was? Whatever it was, it was very very weird, the combination of savoury and sweet things that did not go together quickly making her feel a little sick. She gave up, setting the plate well away from her in the middle of the table (it smelled funny too). Instead of trying the rice right way, she took a couple sips of her fresh glass of wine (the alcohol again transfigured out for her by Mum) to wish out her mouth, waited a bit for her to stop feeling bleh.
The rice was super super good though! All rich with the mushrooms, and cheese probably? and creamy and thick and good, and she thought there was garlic and black pepper and...saffron? was that saffron? Whatever, it was great. She ended up eating it really quickly, it was gone disappointingly soon. Oh well.
Since Violet didn't like one half of the main course, and inhaled the other one very quickly, she was one of the first people to finish eating. And she was bored, Draco was being boring! She didn't care about whatever his cousin in France said about something, or something that happened at a quidditch game he and Aunt Narcissa went to, or stuff about Slytherin at school, why was she stuck next to Draco? (She kind of felt mean, calling him so boring in her head and wishing she was sitting next to anyone else, but she couldn't help it.) Thankfully, Mum noticed that some of the kids — not just Violet, but she thought she might be being super obvious about it, squirming in her chair and playing with her utensils — were getting antsy, because after a bit she said that was dinner, they'd have dessert later, the kids should go play.
Yay, Violet didn't have to keep sitting there anymore, finally...
Violet ran away from the table, mostly just to use some of her pent up energy, the pebbly sand uneven and soft and hard under her bare feet — she'd kicked off her sandals at some point during dinner, left them under her chair. It was so pretty out! It'd gotten later into the evening, the sun dropping down toward the water, the sky going all kinds of colours, orange and yellow and purple, the water surface beneath it almost looking like it was on fire, glowing bright and shifting from the waves. After a bit of her and the other kids running around randomly just because, Dora (shrunk down to their size now) conjured a net and a volleyball.
Sure, why not? It was a little slow to get going, since a lot of the kids didn't know how to play volleyball...probably never heard of it, honestly, was volleyball a muggle thing? Thought so. Violet never really played volleyball before, just recognised it, and she thought Dora made their... What were the things you played volleyball in called? Anyway, they had a bunch of kids and a couple of the grown-ups playing with them, Violet thought Dora made it a little bigger than it was supposed to be, but with the extra people it worked out. She also thought the net was too low but, well, kids.
While Violet and the kids were messing around playing volleyball — people kept falling, and there were pebbles in the sand, getting a little banged up, but it wasn't so bad — strangers started showing up. There were other people on the beach, and they had their party going on here, with the music playing and everything. She thought Mum was explaining to people that this was a wedding, here, have a glass of wine — there were definitely more grown-ups in the party than they'd started with. Mum (most likely) had transfigured a patch of the beach flat and smooth, and there were couples dancing, grown-ups having grown-up fun while the kids played around.
After a while, Violet banged her knee funny on a rock, stinging and getting funny numb shoots down her leg, so she decided to quit playing. Also, all the extra people around was starting to make it kind of loud, so she turned away from the party, toward the water. The sun had set by now, it was a lot darker — though there was still a deep reddish glow in the sky, fading toward purple and then into dark not-quite-black-blue, some of the clouds near the horizon still glowing yellow-orange on one side, it was pretty! Violet wasn't the only one to quit playing, she and some of the other kids wandering randomly along the shoreline, chatting about whatever.
Most of the kids had seen the ocean before, sure, and there were even a couple beaches not too far away from where they lived — somewhat rare, Ireland had a lot of rocky shores and cliffs and stuff — but people mostly didn't go out to the ocean just because? If people did go out to the water, it was mostly one of the little lakes around, or the Shannon. (They just said the river, but Violet knew they meant the River Shannon.) They didn't normally go swimming (not when people were around), for silly stuffy proper reasons, and even if it were appropriate they probably wouldn't much anyway, because it'd be cold. But the Mediterranean was a lot warmer than the Atlantic around Ireland, it wasn't at all unpleasant to walk along the shore, with the waves rolling over their feet, soft and warm.
It tickled! The waves would wash past her, swishing around her ankles, and then the water would slide back out to the ocean, and kind of try to pull the sand out from under her feet? That was a thing that waves did, she didn't know why, but it felt funny!
Wandering around, Violet slowly drifted further into the water, the ocean swishing past her legs one way and then the other, the wet sand plooshing around her toes and pebbles rubbing against her skin. Eventually she went deep enough that a wave lapped up and got the hem of her dress wet, oops...
Violet paused for a moment, pouting down at the water around her legs — looking dark dark dark blue now, the sky fading toward black, a few clouds up there still glowing faintly purple. Then she turned toward the shore, the waves pushing at the backs of her legs and the backflow dragging over her feet, trying to yank the sand away, that still tickled! She walked a little bit up onto dry land, the sand sticking to her wet feet. Loosening the buckles and yanking at the straps, she pulled off her wand holster (she only had her pear wand on her at the moment), tossed it a little further from the water just in case. The she pulled her dress over her head, let it plop down into the sand, wiggled out of her pants and kicked them over that way. And then she turned back into the water — she skipped up the last couple steps, jumped, her feet crashing into the burbling waves with a ploosh, she giggled to herself a little.
Some of the other kids were staring at her — she knew she was being super improper right now, for mages in Britain — but she just ignored it, pushing deeper into the water. It was nice! It was all warm and soft and bubbling, the waves rushing past her and then flowing back the other way, swish swish swish...
(She mostly ignored the other kids, but she did notice Draco go all uncomfortable, his face turning super super pink, and turn around to go back to the party. If Violet had known all she had to do to get rid of Draco was take her clothes off, she would have done it earlier.)
Violet was reluctant to get out too deep — she could swim a little, but she wasn't sure if she was good enough to be safe too far out. Normally when she'd been in the ocean before, Mum or Muime was right there just in case, so. She'd just been annoyed with the water getting on her dress anyway. (She didn't like it when her clothes got wet, all clingy and gross.) She only went out, like, around waist-high, the waves lapping up to the bottom of her ribs, letting them push and pull at her, staring out over the water, a deep bluish glow still hanging on the horizon.
It was nice out here! Violet did like the night, all deep and dramatic and pretty, and the water warm and pleasant, the waves swishing one way and then swishing back the other, the air feeling all heavy and fuzzy, like a thick blanket, filled with the music and the laughter from the party and the constant roaring and burbling of the waves running against the sand...
After a little bit standing out here, she was distracted by voices behind her...shouting for people to stop that? what? She glanced back over her shoulder, and oh! some of the other kids were taking off their clothes to come out with her! The grown-ups who noticed were asking them not to, but they mostly just ignored them, Susan and the triplets swishing out into the water to meet her first, Colmán and Mairéad not far behind.
Apparently Violet was a bad influence — she couldn't help giggling at the thought.
(She noticed that the triplets seemed to be identical everywhere, which was interesting, that people would just be born like that, but staring was rude so she forced herself to stop.)
For a while they just kept talking, only difference being out in the water now...and also naked, obviously. Some of the Gaelic kids were a bit awkward about that, at first (especially since they were mostly girls and only one boy), but they got over it pretty quick. Violet decided to flop down into the water, her head dropping under the surface before standing up again — her hair was all heavy and wet and clingy now, bleh, so she made it short. (Wet hair clinging to her was almost as uncomfortable as wet clothes clinging to her.) The triplets dipped down under the water too, their hair going all flat and heavy and messy, one of the kids made a comment about merpeople, and suddenly there was a splash fight going on. Violet didn't quite follow what that was about — she thought maybe comparing someone to merpeople was supposed to be a mean comment, because magic racism? — but splash fights were fun! so she just shrugged her confusion off and joined in.
They were in the middle of that when Dora and also, surprisingly, Amelia turned up — apparently the grown-ups didn't want the kids out in the water by themselves, especially since it was dark out, worried someone might drown or get swept away by a current or something. Amelia and Dora tagged all of them with tracking spells, so they could find them if they needed to, but they were allowed to keep playing. Since there were grown-ups here, so Violet didn't have to worry as much about getting hurt or something, she went further out into the water, she and Susan and Dora and the triplets practising swimming, now and then stopping to chat or break out into little splash fights.
The triplets had mixed feelings about going to Hogwarts now. The whole thing with this sponsorship, really, it was still new and they didn't know how to feel about it. But yeah, Violet kind of had mixed feelings about going to Hogwarts too — it'd always been the thing she was supposed to do, but that was before she went to an Ollscoil for a couple years and made friends and stuff. She did know most of the kids in her class, and Susan would be there too, and some of them were nice! but a lot of the noble kids were mean, or just kind of boring...
After a little while, the triplets admitted they were worried that the noble British kids would be mean to them, because, you know, class stuff. But Violet would be there! And she was kind of their big cousin now, so, she'd make sure to introduce them to nice people next year, even if some of the noble kids were mean, Violet would make sure they'd still have friends, it'd be okay!
(Dora thought this talk was very funny, for some reason.)
They were out in the water for... Violet didn't know, a long time? She was actually starting to get a little sore from swimming back and forth in little loops, and she thought her fingers were doing that funny wrinkling thing. Anyway, eventually Mum's voice came slithering into her ears — there was a prickle of magic to it, some kind of spell she was doing to talk directly to the people out in the water. Oh, it was dessert time! There was cake! Yay!
They were actually pretty far out from the shore, she didn't really notice that happening — they'd all been treading water for a while now, she'd been not thinking about where they were and just trusting Dora to take care of them — she swam back toward the shore as hard as she could. That probably wasn't very fast, Violet didn't go swimming often (besides the bath, she guessed, that didn't count), but she was getting there ahead of Susan and the triplets at least. She got into the shallows, going a little dizzy as the surface of the water seemed to tilt around her, and then the wave was crashing over her head, forcing her underwater, ugh, she got it up her nose, nnnooooo...
Violet spent a little bit on her knees, coughing up sea water and trying to clear her head — which was very very gross, stuff leaking out of her nose, but at least she was still in the water, so she could clean herself off right away. The waves were trying to yank the sand out from under her again, her legs slowly sinking, that still tickled! Once she decided that was good enough, she stood up, pushed the rest of the way out of the water and skipped over to the party.
She was padding onto the patch of sand that'd been transfigured into a flat dance floor when Mum suddenly appeared, grabbed her by the shoulders and turned her around, laughingly told her to go back and get her dress — oh right, clothes, oops...
(To get to cake faster, Violet just transfigured her pants and vest into little coins and tucked them under her wand holster, but nobody need to know she wasn't wearing underwear.)
The cake was amazing! Everybody got their own little cake, because they were being fancy today, They were flowers! Like, shaped into the petals of a...Violet wasn't sure what kind of flower it was, but, making a little cup with some kind of filling inside, and the surface was shiny, some kind of glaze on it? It was super super pretty! Making the food pretty on top of tasting good was a neat trick, she always thought it was great when people did that.
And it wasn't just pretty, it tasted good too! She thought, like, the cake-petals had been fried individually and then put together to make the flower — like a puzzle made out of deliciousness! — and the filling was...some kind of custard? or maybe a soft cheese mixed with sweetener and flavourings? And the glaze was an orange syrup, with a tang to it that might be alcohol? maybe? She didn't know, but what she did know was that it was very very good, best cake ever.
Though, it was served with coffee, which Violet thought was a little weird — it was after sunset, wasn't it too late for coffee? The coffee tasted funny, there was something else in it, but it wasn't a bad funny, it was pretty good actually! Sweet and creamy and there was some kind of spice in there, and Violet didn't even like coffee, normally, but this stuff was good.
The party had gone a little quieter, the extra people who'd come over left, everyone sitting down with their cake and coffee. Though it wasn't very long before the cake was gone — it was very good, things like that had a way of disappearing really fast — and people were moving around again, shuffling chairs around to make little clumps of people talking, or doing more dancing on the flattened off part. It was late, the sky had been fully black for a while now, speckles of glinting dust blocked in patches with clouds, invisible in the night save for how they hid the stars. Violet noticed the younger kids were asleep already, curled up in their chairs or on the ground with a cloak tucked over them, some of the older kids looking like they weren't going to make it much longer either. Even, um, Béibhinn, that was Béibhinn, she was asleep in her chair too, baby Eoghán curled up with her.
And Violet was getting pretty sleepy too, actually — she felt fine until just a bit ago, but it was hitting her now. Feeling all warm and tingly and numb, drooping back into her chair and staring up at the sky, but not doing a good job of making out the stars really, hard to keep her eyes open. Hitting her a little hard, and she just had coffee even! But it was late though, so.
(She'd be told tomorrow that the taste to the coffee she hadn't been able to figure out had been some liquor they'd mixed in. Oops?)
Mum was out on the dance floor, with one of Muime's brothers... Fearghal? Violet was mostly sure that was Fearghal. Muime was in her wide chair right here, talking with her mum and Aoife and Narcissa, surprisingly. (Violet didn't realise that Muime and Aunt Narcissa got along.) Didn't know what they were talking about, gossipy stuff, who cares.
Violet watched them for a little bit, feeling more and more sleepy, shapes going kind of fuzzy and the words people were saying burbly nonsense. Mum was still out there talking and dancing with people, so, she shuffled over into the extra wide chair, slid up next to Muime. "Hello, sweetheart," Muime said. Her arm curled around Violet's back, out of the way, so she squeezed against her side, warm and comfortable — just going to make Violet fall asleep faster. "You look tired."
Instead of answering out loud, Violet just hummed, rested her head against Muime's chest, her arm looping around her waist. She was warm, and soft, and comfortable, and Violet was sleepy.
There was a little bit of cooing over Violet being adorable from the other women, but they quickly went back to talking about...whatever they were talking about before. She didn't listen, quickly drifting off, the party seeming further and further away, the meaningless noise of the waves crashing to shore filling her head...
"Happy you're my mum."
"Eh? What was that, Willow, I didn't hear."
Not a surprise, she was, like, half asleep, probably came out all mumbly. She tried a little harder to talk clearly, though her face kind of was smooshed against Muime, so it came out a little muffled. "I'm happy you're my mum for real, now."
Muime froze, for a second, but then her arm tightened around Violet, hugging her closer, her other hand slipping through her hair. (She hadn't tried to make it longer again, but it kind of floofed out by itself when she wasn't paying attention, drooping down to her shoulders.) Bending down over her, her cheek against the top of Violet's head, "I'm happy I'm your mum too." She pressed a kiss down on Violet's forehead, muttered, "Thank you, Willow."
Not sure what Muime was thanking her for, but okay. "Love you."
"I love you too, sweetheart, so much."
Muime holding her close, warm and comfortable, there was more talking, but Violet didn't really hear any of it, meaningless burbling in her ears as the world faded away...
D'aww? D'aww.
In case you were wondering about the bit about the Blacks claiming Alphard's assets after his death screwing over Ailís, yes, that's the same money Sirius got from his Uncle Alphard he used to live independently. There's a reason less bastardly Blacks in my various fics make a point of trying to make it up to the Muircheartaighs.
Anyway, train ride is next, woo. We're finally getting to Hogwarts, nearly half a million words in! What pacing, such author.
Kay bye.