Abracadabra by DrTaylor
Chapter Notes: Here comes the bride!
Well, as much as I enjoy doing this, I don't get paid for it. Sad, huh?
Ron was most unhappy.
“How could you! You told my only sister she can go with us to find the first Horcrux! You said you’d protect her, you broke up with her to protect her, and now all of a sudden you’re dating again and she’s going with us! How could you?”
“Ron,” Hermione said patiently, “everyone knew they were together. Voldemort already knows. Harry’s not doing her any good staying away from her, and it might put her in more danger if she isn’t with him as much anyway.”
“I don’t care! She still can’t come with us to find the first Horcrux! I won’t let her.”
“She’s not,” said Harry. “We’re just going to Grimmauld Place to check and see if we can find some clue to the location of the first Horcrux. That’s all.”
“So why is it so important that she goes, then?”
Harry rolled his eyes. Sometimes Ron could be a bit stupid. “Because she’s the one that came up with the clue we needed that led us to Grimmauld Place, which is more than we came up with on our own.”
“So you’re basically saying you told her everything. After we agreed to wait until we need her.”
“No, I just told her we were looking for the name of a dead Death Eater with the initials R.A.B. who might have gotten on the outs with Voldemort. She came up with a name, and I decided to ask her to come along in case she remembers something else, which is more than we’ve managed. Actually, I haven’t even asked her yet. I just told you I was going to ask her and you jumped down my throat.”
“Oh.” Ron looked at the clock. “We might want to get dressed soon. The wedding’s in an hour.”
Hermione gasped. “Oh no! I’m supposed to be doing Ginny’s hair right now!” She ran from the room.
“Mental,” Ron muttered. “It’s just hair.”
They put on their dress robes in silence, and went downstairs. They could hear the girls giggling behind Ginny’s bedroom door, and Harry plainly heard Hermione’s voice saying, “He said what?”
Harry had a pretty good idea what they were talking about.
Downstairs, he found an empty chair in the living room to wait until closer to time for the ceremony. Ron was outside, escorting various relatives to their seats. Harry was enjoying the privacy, it gave him some time to think about the night before, and the time he had spent with Ginny outside by the broom shed, until…
“So, mate, what’s this Ginny was telling Hermione?” asked Fred, apparating onto the couch. Something you said to her, what was it? Oh, yes. Now I remember!”
Suddenly, a large amount of confetti appeared over Harry’s head, all of it bearing what seemed to be…
“Guys?” Harry asked, “Why make confetti with tiny pictures of your sister on it?”
“Well,” replied George, “we actually didn’t. We enchanted the confetti so that it would show a picture of whoever the person we cast it on was thinking of. We were looking for a way to test it…this was perfect.”
“We can’t allow you to go saying things like that to our sister without a little payback,” said Fred.
“Besides, the girls are up there mooning over you,” said George.
“Bit revolting, really,”
“But, it doesn’t matter, we just wanted you to know, you’re not getting away with this. If you want to tell Ginny you love her, you have to deal with all of us now.”
“What George is trying to say, is, you’re doomed, mate.”
The twins grinned. “Fred,” said George, “don’t you think that we need to be testing our new chair cushions right about now?”
“Why, yes, dear brother, I do,” replied Fred. “Bye, Harry. Don’t do anything we’d have to kill you for!”
“And don’t tell Mum, she’s gonna be revolting enough for the next month, ‘my little baby’s getting married...’”
The twins left the room, leaving Harry alone again. He glanced at the clock: the wedding was due to start soon. He left the room to go find a seat with Hermione.
Harry supposed that weddings were very emotional times, but he didn’t understand why every woman present needed to leak like a hosepipe. Since Ron and Ginny were both in the wedding, Harry and Hermione were seated together close to the front of the ceremony. Hermione was sobbing onto Harry’s shoulder as Bill and Fleur said their vows. Harry, himself, was distracted during the ceremony, although only a complete idiot would fail to notice the ever-larger stain on the shoulder of his dress robes.
The thing that was distracting him was Ginny.
Fleur had, as she had been constantly saying, dressed the bridesmaids in pale gold, and Harry thought that this was especially flattering on Ginny. She was standing behind Fleur’s sister, Gabrielle, and looked magnificent in her gold robes, carrying a bouquet of flowers. Hermione had arranged her hair in ringlets, and although Harry didn’t understand why girls bothered with their hair so much, he was able to appreciate the end result: Ginny looked gorgeous.
The wedding continued, the little old man who had performed Dumbledore’s funeral talking about love and commitment and how wonderful those things were, Hermione sobbing on his shoulder, Ron trying (and failing) to not fidget during the ceremony, and Harry still had eyes only for Ginny.
Abruptly, the music started again and all the guests rose. Fleur and Bill walked off down the aisle followed by their various siblings. Hermione looked up as Ron passed them, and then promptly started sobbing into Harry’s robes again. When the music stopped, guests began to file towards the food, and the dozen or so tables set up in the yard. Harry followed; Hermione, still crying, in tow.
They reached their seats and were about to sit when something clicked for Harry. “Wait!” he told the Weasleys. “Don’t sit! Where are Fred and George?”
Mrs. Weasley looked suspicious. “Why?”
“I heard them talking about the chairs before the wedding. It didn’t click then, but…”
Someone screamed. The Weasleys all looked over. Someone, likely a friend of Bill’s, had sat down in his seat, and was now wearing a white wedding veil on his head. Fred and George could be seen near the food giving each other high fives and grinning. Harry looked over at the others at his table. Mr. Weasley was looking at his chair as though he was dying to collapse into it, but clearly wondering if he dared. Mrs. Weasley was looking at the twins as though she wanted to kill them. Bill was laughing, Charlie was poking his chair suspiciously as though testing it, and Ron was heading over to Fred and George with an inquisitive air about him. Hermione looked simply annoyed. Ginny, however, sat down in her chair muttering something about “wimps” as a wedding veil popped onto her head. She sighed and removed it, then took off her high heeled shoes before heading for the food herself.
The festivities carried on all day and into the evening. First there was food, then the band started playing, more food (Mrs. Weasley’s mission to fatten Harry up had been slacking of late, but she was making up for it today), and toasts made by each member of the Weasley and Delacour families. Harry listened as Fleur’s family broke into sobs one by one, and then as the eight Weasleys had their turn. Mr. Weasley told a few anecdotes about Bill’s childhood and how proud he was. Mrs. Weasley also broke into sobs in the middle of her toast: “my little baby’s getting married!” she wailed. Charlie told the assembled guests how brilliant this was because Bill was in need of someone to tell him when he had his shoes on the wrong feet (“I was five!” yelled Bill, pretending to throttle his brother).
Fred and George stood up next, and Mrs. Weasley looked a little pale. They made a traditional (and uncharacteristically low-key) toast, but just before sitting down, launched a small firecracker that, instead of shooting sparks, sprinkled their enchanted confetti on Bill and Fleur. They each reached out and snatched a piece off of each of them, examined the pieces, and declared, in one voice, “just testing!” before sitting back down and holding up a sign that read: “Confetti of Love: 10 knuts a bag!”
Ron’s turn was next, and then Ginny’s. They both spoke about how Bill had usually been their favorite older brother when they were growing up. Bill finished up with a toast to his new wife.
The band started playing again, and, surprisingly, Ron led Hermione onto the dance floor. The Weasleys drifted away until Harry was left sitting alone with Ginny. He sighed. There was only one thing he could think to do, and although he didn’t want to do it, some battles just had to be fought. He turned to Ginny.
“Dance with me?”
She grinned. They made their way onto the dance floor, and he took her in his arms. He had danced with Parvati Patil at the Yule Ball, but he felt much less self-concious here, with Ginny. Until, all of a sudden...
"Harry, your shoulder is wet."
Harry rolled his eyes. "Oh, yeah, that was because Ron had the inclination to seat me next to a human geyser."
Ginny giggled.
They spent the rest of the evening dancing, eating, and talking, enjoying themselves to the fullest. Harry knew, that night, that for him, the war would truly begin tomorrow, but Ron had been right, when he said, after Dumbledore’s funeral, that they had to go to the wedding. Harry was now quite sure, as he watched Fleur and Bill cut what had formerly been a beautiful cake but was now squashed all over Bill’s face, that all he wanted to do was make sure he survived to have this for himself someday.