Something Better Than This

Chapter 3: The Wedding

Bill and Fleur were having a June wedding, if just barely. Much of the Order and those sympathetic but not in the know were gathering at the Burrow for it, many of them dropping in and out for dinner or staying overnight now and again, wedged into conjured or Transfigured beds. Harry didn't think anybody was Secret-Keeping for the Burrow, or if they were, an awful lot of people were in on the secret; it all seemed dangerous... but everyone came anyway, or came and went again and came back, recklessly and defiantly celebratory.

Clouds and rain drizzled in for the last few days of preparations, which sent both Mrs. Weasley and Fleur into fits given that the wedding was intended to be outdoors.

It wasn't much good for anyone else's mood either. Ginny quarreled hotly with Gabrielle over whether Fleur wasn't good enough for Bill or vice versa; Gabrielle won out, after a fashion, by reversing position midway through the argument and announcing huffily that she thought her sister was wise and intelligent, and that it was clear Ginny was not giving her fine brother enough credit. Ginny fumed over this tactic until Gabrielle proclaimed further that given all this, Ginny's otherwise high opinion of Bill meant that Gabrielle must like her too, and kissed her on the cheek; the shock set Ginny laughing.

Neville fretted over Trevor, who remained obstinately missing; Augusta Longbottom frowned severely whenever she caught him at it.

Luna roved between the Burrow and her own home with a fine disregard for the weather and was regularly hit by Drying Charms on her way in the door. She seemed entirely unfazed by this.

Fleur's mother Estelle gave no sign of being worried. She could walk through the rain and step inside with no more sign of the damp than a brilliant sparkling network on her long silver hair, like dewfall.

Bill, having recruited or been recruited by Crookshanks, spent a good deal of time stalking with the cat through the house and garden in a playful war with Fred and George, disabling most of the practical jokes they'd planted. It was hard to catch a career curse-breaker off guard, evidently, and Crookshanks had a talent for sniffing out suspicious spells. Fleur insisted on preparing a beef roast one night that Harry regarded as a rather alarming shade of pink, but both Bill and Professor Lupin ate it with great relish and Tonks joked about it matching her hair.

The night before the wedding, everyone was at the Burrow, which required considerable adjustments to the dining arrangements and possibly to the floor plan. Harry was reasonably sure that, much like the expanding rear seat of the Ford Anglia that now roamed the Forbidden Forest, the shape of the dining table was probably impossible without magic.

Mad-Eye Moody did Mrs. Weasley great honor, and ate food that had not passed near the twins without even checking it for spells or poison. Remus sat between the twins and across from Tonks, and despite his evident distraction completely failed to be discolored, disfigured, discombobulated, discomfitted, or otherwise disturbed. Fleur's mother had an unfortunate tendency to mesmerize half the men at the table whenever her hair moved, but other than that, everyone was getting along reasonably well.

There was a knock at the door.

Mrs. Weasley went to it and looked out; Mr. Weasley followed her protectively, wand drawn. The rest of the table went quiet, and thus, they all heard her gasp.

"Ask, Molly," Mr. Weasley said in a low voice.

She pressed her forehead against the doorframe. "Percy," she said softly.

George swore. Bill frowned at him.

"Percy," she repeated, her voice a little stronger, "what did I write in the note I sent with your jumper, the year before last?"

Harry looked over at Ginny, eyes widening. That was the one Percy had sent back.

In the dead silence around the table, they heard Percy's tired voice break a little as he said, "Come home."

Mrs. Weasley abandoned the security questions and instead flung the door wide and her arms around her wayward son. Harry, leaning a little to see, was relieved to observe that Percy hadn't brought Scrimgeour this time. He sat hastily back in his chair and pretended not to have been looking.

When his parents brought him into the room where everyone else was eating, Percy stopped in the doorway and blanched, eyes roving from one face to another. He went whiter when Mad-Eye Moody sat up straight and focused both eyes on him, and whiter still when his gaze fell on Bill's face. The marks Fenrir had left still weren't gone; they were bloodless at the moment, but the skin still gaped apart redly.

Bill nodded amicably to him. "Glad you got the invitation," he said.

"You invited him?" Fred demanded. "After what he did to Mum?"

"Looks like Mum wanted to see him, doesn't it?" Bill replied without looking at his brother. "Come sit down, Perce. I'll conjure you a chair. D'you mind moving over a little, Gabrielle?"

Gabrielle didn't mind. She scooted over practically into Ginny's lap and regarded the new arrival with interest. As soon as Percy had been safely seated, she piped up, "Why is it that your brothers are angry with you? They should be angry if you did not come, isn't it so?"

Percy looked around the table, then at the small silvery girl beside him, and said, "Political disagreement."

Gabrielle wrinkled her delicate nose. "So? Politics are bad for dinner. Shout at each other later and then forget it."

Fleur, astoundingly, actually choked on her food. Swallowing hastily, she murmured, "It is not always so simple, Gabrielle."

"He reckoned," said Fred acidly, "that if he got promoted for not noticing his boss was under Imperius for a year, there wasn't anything suspicious. He reckoned he'd stick his head up his -- ow! -- in the sand with Fudge and call Harry and Dumbledore liars. And he sent back the jumper Mum gave him."

"Harry is not a liar! He was my savior!"

"He saved Ginny too, but try telling Percy that," George put in.

"Enough." To Harry's surprise, it wasn't Mrs. Weasley who broke in, but her husband. Mr. Weasley's voice was quiet but firm, and his eyes were steely. "Despite our... remaining disagreements, we're glad to have Percy home again."

"I think you needn't have any disagreement with the Ministry now," Percy said stiffly. "Minister Scrimgeour is doing everything possible--"

This was too much for Harry. "How's Stan Shunpike, then?"

Percy put his fork down. "Well treated. Despite his claims to know about Death Eater movements. I should have believed you about You-Know-Who," he said, the words coming harsh and staccato, "but do you think that means everybody you like is trustworthy? Even when they say otherwise?"

"No," said Harry hotly, "but Scrimgeour admitted he was just holding Stan because he didn't want to admit that arresting him was a mistake!"

"Harry, will you please--" Mrs. Weasley began.

"Mum..." Percy had shut his eyes, and his throat was working; he appeared to be struggling with himself. After a long moment, he opened his eyes again and looked at Harry. "...I didn't know that."

It wasn't much of a peace offering, but things relaxed again a little bit, and in the morning, Percy was still there.

-----

The clouds parted with the sunrise, leaving only scraps behind and painted in a glorious spread of pink and gold. With this promise of a beautiful day where they could have the wedding outdoors after all, everyone exploded into a flurry of activity. There was much pounding up and down stairs, or in the case of the part-Veelas much gazelle-like bounding, and several ear-splitting pops as people Apparated as much to get out of each others' way as to show off. The animals had to be herded out of the way and the grass cleaned (and combed, if Harry had heard Estelle Delacour correctly, although he wasn't at all sure of this). Tree-boughs had to be arranged just so, to form arches. The kitchen had to be extinguished after Madame Delacour chose a supremely unfortunate moment to observe that it was traditional for the bride's family to take charge of the wedding, although the food was miraculously undamaged and the other repairs fairly minimal. And with two hours to go, everyone vanished into comparative privacy to put on their dress robes.

Harry's dress robes were dark green, as he had been growing -- again -- and had been informed in no undertain terms that nobody, witch or wizard, wore black to a magical wedding. "Except maybe Professor Snape, Harry," Ginny had added in tones of scorn, "if he were ever invited. Not that his clothes would make any worse luck than he would himself!" He'd been informed of a number of other interesting things about magical weddings, but somehow he was more inclined to believe that black dress robes were forbidden than that, for instance, Fleur would be required to wrestle a troll.

Ron's dress robes were a deep midnight blue, and he was very glad that they were not maroon, although it troubled him that they flashed a luminescent, electric shade if the light caught them right. He said that they'd been a gift from Fred and George and wondered morosely if they concealed any hexes. Harry smiled to himself and peered cautiously out the door before suggesting that they illicitly practice the curse-detecting spells Bill had been demonstrating. The robes turned out clean, as he'd hoped -- most of their products were pretty good fun, but he'd have been really annoyed if the twins had tried to turn the dress robes toward doing something embarrassing.

When Harry made it outside to the area designated for the wedding, he had a brief and very nasty shock. The grass was smooth and neat and green, and on it were arrayed delicate conjured chairs in two blocks. At the front, though he had no idea where it had come from, stood a low dais and a shining white stone altar. A broad ghost -- he thought it might be the Fat Friar, and looked around for Nearly-Headless Nick -- was glimmering faintly in the sunlight.

It all looked distressingly like Dumbledore's funeral.

But nearly everyone was smiling, even those in tears, and the few who weren't looked sick with nerves instead of horrified and sad. Fred and George had an enormously long scroll with no visible writing on it and were cheerfully and with much animation directing various guests to one bank of seats or another. Nearly everyone was technically considerably closer to the groom's family than the bride's, but for the sake of symmetry assorted Order members and other guests were shunted off to separate sides via some obscure system the twins were probably making up as they went along. Fred handed him a bell, which Harry started to shake experimentally. Ron reached hurriedly over to muffle the clapper, muttering, "Later," and led the way to sit behind Mrs. Weasley. Percy was protectively ensconced between her and Charlie.

Bill stood with his father beside him, the wounds on his face angry red but clean. His fang earring looked fiercer than usual; the tip of it hung just at the end of one red furrow, as if it had been the one to bite him. Harry had to blink a few times when a bright sunbeam caught the white stone and Bill's white robes at the same time.

He leaned across Hermione to Ron and whispered, "Do the bride and groom always both wear white?"

"Sure," Ron whispered back, looking puzzled. "Well, usually. They're both getting married, aren't they?" He darted a slightly wary look toward Hermione. "What, don't tell me Muggle grooms wear maroon or something?"

Harry smothered a laugh. "No, and I'm sure--"

"Shh!" Hermione hissed, and they stood as music came from nowhere to herald the arrival of the bride.

Fleur was also in white, her silver hair streaming from a resplendent tiara which was presumably the one belonging to Great-Auntie Muriel. Harry didn't know where her father was, but her mother escorted her between the two banks of seats -- almost too much unearthly beauty in one place. Not that they were dancing -- Harry hoped that after that first encounter at the Quidditch World Cup he'd have better sense than to go mad over it anyway -- but they were still riveting. Fleur fairly floated, and her eyes were rapt and fixed on Bill. She was already reaching out one hand to him as she handed off her bouquet to her mother without looking.

Gabrielle, now, Gabrielle did dance, as if she couldn't quite contain her excitement. In pale gold, she looked like a young and energetic piece of jewelry. Harry's mind flickered to Horcruxes, but his eyes fell on Ginny and he pushed the hunt aside one more time.

If Gabrielle danced, Ginny strode, and she looked like a flame or a Gryffindor flag, red hair streaming down over gold. Harry sighed, and thought about holding her, and the way she flew, the set of her jaw when she was solving a problem and the look in her eyes before he kissed her, before he said he had to leave her, when he would be standing with her in white instead of green and gold --

--All right, he really had to focus. Harry sat up straight, cheeks warm, and hoped everyone else was looking at the bride and groom. ...Ginny wasn't, but he didn't mind that. She gave him a wry little smile at the call for objections, which nobody made.

The words "Till death do you part" sent a chill through him; Bill and Fleur had their hands joined, white skin and freckled, in a grip that looked as if death would have its work cut out for it. Bill's voice was low and warm and fervent when he said, "I do"; Fleur's rang out across the fields as if she dared anyone to challenge her.

Mrs. Weasley began the bell-ringing, and it spread rhythmically and joyously throughout the guests in a melodic clangor, every note in clear and brilliant harmony. Bill and Fleur kissed and started back down the aisle between the chairs, grinning fit to split their faces.

When they were halfway along, the bells' tones shifted to a sudden cacaphony, some of them transformed into honking or buzzing noisemakers, and the ones that stayed bells started spewing fireworks, streamers, and artificial birds that all dived instantly toward the newlywed couple. They deflected the nearest wave, then broke into a run and pelted, laughing wildly, for the front door.

-----

They had a dance, although they very nearly didn't. After the residue of the magical bells had been cleaned up and the chairs moved aside, Charlie took his life in his hands and went to look for Bill and Fleur inside. They hadn't gone far, he said upon emerging, only as far as a doorway, but he also suggested that someone else could try to pry them apart, as he'd rather try to part a mother dragon from her eggs. Madame Delacour extracted the somewhat disheveled pair, and the dance was on.

The sun was sinking slowly toward the horizon before all the guests who weren't staying overnight had gone home, Neville Longbottom still without his toad. Harry found himself oddly worried about Trevor, but he told himself that after all this time and all the occasions he'd been on his own, there was surely only so much trouble a toad could get into. Crookshanks would have brought back a pet, generally speaking, but hadn't turned up with Trevor; and it seemed unlikely that anything else had caught and eaten the toad, as Crookshanks wasn't likely to let some other predator run off with prey that smelled like one of Hermione's classmates. Maybe Trevor had sneaked off and stayed home.

Twilight came very late in June, but much of the family and several of the remaining guests were still outdoors. Madame Delacour had gone up to sleep, as had some of the other adults. Harry was still sitting outside with Ron and Hermione, breathing in the warm Dementor-free twilight and trying to ignore an odd restlessness. That kept him outside as much as did a certain embarrassment about entering the house while Bill and Fleur were... celebrating. Even if he'd been assured that there were silencing spells on their room, going both directions.

Ginny was catching up with Charlie nearby. Fred and George occasionally meandered past with their hands fixed to each other, courtesy of Bill -- they hadn't had many partners at the dance. Gabrielle was dancing by herself next to the vegetable garden and humming; she liked the way her gown shimmered in the moonlight, she said.

"That was lovely, wasn't it?" Hermione said, breaking a silence of several minutes. "Well, up until the bells went wrong...."

"Oh, that wasn't wrong," Ron tossed in. "I doubt they put it in the books, Hermione," he said, grinning, "but there's always something a little mad going on. Usually later on, but not always. It's traditional. Fred and George were pretty restrained really; some of the tricks are a lot messier."

"Oh." Hermione frowned. "Then why did Bill hex them?"

"That's traditional too."

"...Had you been to many weddings before? Either of you?"

"Some." Ron shrugged a little. "Cousins and such."

"I don't think I had," Harry said. "I don't think the Dursleys would have wanted to take me to any, even when I was too small to remember. Besides, imagine Dudley at a wedding!"

"Speaking of imagining," Ron said, "just what were you thinking about when you were staring at -- off into space during the ceremony, anyway, Harry?"

Hermione raised her eyebrows. "Ron! You were watching Harry instead of the ceremony?"

"I just looked over at both of you a few times. I was paying attention, mostly." Ron turned his gaze expectantly on Harry, who suspected Ron had noticed that "off into space" hadn't been quite accurate.

"I was just," Harry said vaguely, "thinking. Distracted."

"Not by all the Veela, I hope," Ginny called over.

Harry grinned at her and gave up on any pretense. "Ah, you know better, you caught me looking at you!"

And then, before Ginny could answer or Ron could say anything, they were all distracted by Veela. Gabrielle let out a piercing scream and was backing away from the lush vegetable patch when they turned. She tripped over her skirts, the first ungraceful thing Harry had seen her do, and went down.

Fenrir Greyback burst from amongst the leaves. His foot came down on a squash, which exploded. "Greyback!" shouted Harry, and he heard an echoing wordless scream from somewhere, but his hastily aimed "Stupefy!" and whatever spells Hermione and Ron had shot at him passed just in front of the werewolf's face. "Impedimenta!" grazed him, but he was close to Gabrielle, too close, even though Harry was running full-tilt toward them.

"Stupefy!" roared from another direction entirely, in Lupin's voice, the red jet of light striking Greyback on the shoulder as he dived sideways. It spun him halfway around, dazed, but he was still on his feet, if badly off balance, and one clawed hand still reached toward Gabrielle.

At the same time as Lupin was casting his spell, from a higher window, a white figure was diving. Its inhuman shriek gathered volume; it had barely registered on the edge of Harry's consciousness at first, but it grew to a deafening pitch that made his ears ring and his teeth ache.

Something that was not quite a bird, but had wings and a wickedly hooked beak, drove down on Greyback and caught him in curved talons as he fell, jerking him around to face it. His reaching hand flailed and spasmed, and a thin line of blood appeared on Gabrielle's ankle before a beat of angry wings jerked him upright again. Harry checked his headlong run briefly, then dived for Gabrielle to pull her away. She clutched at him. Greyback raised clawed fingernails and bared his teeth at the not-bird, trying to snarl, but his mouth was slack and drooling. The white thing dipped its curved beak downward and ripped out his throat.

Estelle Delacour staggered back from the corpse of Fenrir Greyback, letting him fall as the blood gushed. Blood streamed from her mouth and down her front -- which Harry tore his eyes away from, as she was not dressed -- and a great splash of it decorated her hair.

Harry just held still for a moment, as he became aware again of everyone else who had run toward the fight, just now letting their wands fall.

Gabrielle clung to him for a moment longer, then broke away and held out her arms to her mother. "Maman! Magnifique!"

Madame Delacour caught her daughter up in her arms and held her tightly. Then she set the girl back from her a little and said briskly, "We will go and put your gown in cold water, to take the blood out," set Gabrielle on her hip, and strode inside.

"That," said Professor Lupin, from somewhere a little behind Harry, "was not quite how I would have expected him to die."

"Particularly as he was supposed to be in Azkaban," Tonks added. Harry turned and saw that she was scowling. He couldn't tell what color her hair was in the low light. There wouldn't be much moon, tonight. She shot Harry a glance and added wryly, "And unlike Stan Shunpike, he really was supposed to be in Azkaban. Stunned him at Hogwarts."

"I know," Harry said. "Well, I knew he'd been stunned at Hogwarts." He frowned at the corpse. "What did they do, forget to make sure he couldn't get out as a wolf, last full moon? That'd be the worst time...."

"If by a smaller margin for Greyback than for most," Lupin said dryly. He tapped his wand thoughtfully in his hand, his frown mirroring Harry's. "With the Dementors gone, they have to have human guards, who shouldn't be deceived into thinking an animal simply doesn't exist, as they were with Sirius. On the other hand, human guards would still have trouble with a transformed werewolf." Lupin's voice was steady, but there was a strain to it.

"I'll have to check on that," Tonks said quietly. "I'd be interested to know when Greyback did escape, and if anybody else did. And why the Aurors weren't notified."

"At least Madame Delacour is not likely to be charged with murder." Lupin's smile was mirthless. "Perhaps she'll be made an honorary member of the Werewolf Capture Unit. If ever any werewolf was scheduled for termination...."

"Tonight, actually." Everyone looked at Tonks in surprise. She shrugged. "He was officially scheduled to be executed tonight. I object on principle to the lack of a proper trial, but I did sit in on his confession." Her eyes were cold. "He bragged. And now I think you should probably all go back inside. I'll deal with...." She waved a hand. "All this."

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