The Great Escape

The Great Escape

It was later thought that the wedding of Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger was the most publicized event since the fall of Lord Voldemort. And why should it not be? They had been Harry Potter's best friends during his school days, his most trusted confidants as tensions between wizarding factions escalated into open warfare, and the principle mourners at his funeral (which was the only event more publicized than this). But their wedding, nonetheless, had been an unlikely event - that they survived to see such happiness after the years of Voldemort's terror was remarkable enough, and that they could stomach one another was an entirely separate thing altogether. The bickering that occurred between these two icons of the Light was well-known enough.

Despite rumors circulating about that the wedding would occur in a public square, the affair would indeed be a private one. Invitations were limited in circulation to those most intimate with the would-be newlyweds. It was one such invitation that George Weasley held in his hand as he stood in one of the many pews of the wizarding chapel, sighing impatiently.

"My dearest Fred, do tell me again why we're here," he said, crumpling the festooned card - the rose appliqués had, at this point, begun emitting a rancid perfume - in his hand.

"Ickle Ronniekins is getting married, my dearest George." Fred snatched the crumpled invitation from his brother and aimed it at the blonde head in front of him. His sister-in-law, Fleur, turned around to glare at him. He innocently blinked at the ceiling. "This is a - " Fred affected a blissful expression " - 'happy day,' according to our darling mother."

" 'Happy day,'" George snorted. "That's bollocks. Boring day, more like, and we had to turn the shop over to the assistants to be here?"

Sitting nearby, Ginny hushed them. "Could you not be so rude?"

Fred made a face. "Ooh, hey, we're being rude!"

"Oh, are we really now?" George clapped his cheeks in mock alarm. "I had no idea that we were being rude. Did you?"

"You know me, George. I am never aware of anything; therefore, I definitely did not know that we were being at all rude."

"Well, you are," a woman snapped at them from across the room, "and you'd better be quiet because they're coming!"

And so they were, dressed in their finest and sweeping through the open doors to applause. From somewhere near the altar, a band appeared and struck up a pulsating march. The joyful leaps of the violin and expansive tones of the trumpet captured all that was worth remembering about that day: Ron and Hermione, the latter blushing somewhat uncontrollably, and their family and friends on their feet, sharing in the young couple's euphoria.

Behind the beaming faces of Fleur and Bill, who were doubtlessly reliving their own wedding, the twins clutched their stomachs and gagged. They heard a huff nearby, and suddenly, George's head shot forward. "Damn it, Ginny," he hissed, "what was that for?"

"For being a git, that's what."

"But - why did you hit me? Why couldn't you have hit Fred?"

"Yeah," Fred challenged, cracking his knuckles, "why couldn't you have hit me, eh? I feel that I have been treated most unjustly."

"Precisely. You should have hit us both - anything else would have been discrimination, plain and clear, and we could have taken that to the Ministry, you know."

Ginny rolled her eyes, supremely indifferent. "Shut up."

"Do I sense some hostility from our little sister?" George asked, toying with the hint of a beard he had developed.

"Perhaps, perhaps."

Most unfortunately, the bride caught wind of the argument brewing amongst the pews, and in a further occurrence of misfortune, she knew just where to look for the source of said argument. Her face instantly adopted the half-exasperated, half-infuriated expression she had used so often as a prefect policing the Gryffindor common room, but it was as it had been back then: any admonitions she might have bestowed among the twins affected them about as much as a Hogwarts-issued detention.

Hermione, however, in that unflappable way of hers, managed to smooth her face into more peaceful lines as she and Ron approached the altar and the crowd took their seats. Arthur Weasley, still alive as patriarch of the family, grasped a hat humbly within his hands, and he stood to face the crowd. Fred gaped and whispered, "Is Dad presiding over the ceremony?"

"That's - that's - " George groped for a word forceful enough to capture the farce he saw unfolding before him " - mad."

"We talked about this at dinner that one night," Ginny informed them. "Don't you remember?"

"Oh, uh, hang on, was that the night you and I went to the pub - "

" - and were totally pissed - "

" - I mean, really pissed - "

" - yeah, well, we had made a lot of money that week - "

" - and we saw those girls with the really big - "

" - they were gorgeous and, better yet, real - "

Fred looked stupefied, his face clearly showing the difficulties of processing what had just been said. "Wait a moment. Did you touch them?"

George massaged the back of his head. "Ginny, for Merlin's sake, will you stop doing that?"

Mercifully for those in attendance, any impeding brawl was prevented when Arthur opened his mouth and began to speak. "Good morning, everyone!"

"Good morning," the crowd replied.

"Can you hear me? Yes? Excellent. Well, I know all of you - " His eyes flickered to where his family sat near the front " - most of you were expecting a formal, traditional service, but after some inter-family deliberating, we thought it would be most fitting if we did matters a little differently, if you wouldn't mind." Excited whispers threaded through the crowd, and they all looked expectantly at him. "Well, we thought that it would be a very cute thing to do if, instead of a traditional speech and vows - if there are those inclined to do this, you may walk to the front here and share a little memory, a little anecdote, maybe even a poem or two - " Everyone chuckled appreciatively " - anything to commemorate this happy, happy day."

Fred and George, surprising no one, gagged again. "Sweet Merlin, Dad is in one of his sentimental moods."

"Oh, oh!" Fred exclaimed, his voice rising with each syllable. "I think I shall swoon with happiness on this happy, happy day!"

George caught his brother as he fell and faked a sob. "Oh, oh, how happy! Except for us, of course. We are stuck here because we are family."

At this point, Ginny was not the only one giving her brothers a distinctly disapproving glance. People all throughout the chapel were taking note of the disruptive boys and their unruly mops of red hair, and they displayed their condemnation through a low-running whisper, punctuated only by the occasional tsk-tsk. Hermione had once again assumed an authoritative air, and as he was wont to do in stressful situations, Ron had turned the color of Luna Lovegood's radish earrings. Even their father, anxious to keep the peace on such a fine day, was nervously stirring in front of the altar. Then, a ringing and petulant voice from the crowd: "Why, back in my day, children like that would be jinxed out of here! Immediately!"

The suggestion was met with more than a few muttered agreements and the twins exchanging meaningful glances among themselves.

"Now, then, I think I will begin," Arthur said, nodding, reassured, to both the crowd and himself. "I remember the first time I ever met Hermione Granger here. She was much the same then as she is now - obviously, she was a little younger then, but weren't we all? What I admired about her was her generosity. While everyone else seems to treat my fascination with the Muggle world as plain lunacy - "

"Arthur, you know it is!" his wife, Molly, called out, much to everyone's amusement.

"Darling, can we talk about this later?" Arthur pleaded, fiddling with his glasses. "But, well, as I was saying, while everyone else rather disregarded my interest in Muggles, Hermione here was a great help in explaining some of the concepts I found more difficult to comprehend. Take eclectricity, for instance - no, I mean 'electricity'!" He spun around to look at Hermione, who nodded. "Yes, 'electricity' it is. Now, we wizards each have our own wands, which we can use to easily conjure light or fire, but Muggles, on the other hand, seem to conjure their own light in one great big collective quantity, and I had never quite understood how every Muggle received their own bit of light from that collective. Oh, but it truly is amazing, how the system works! Imagine this: lines. Yes, my friends, lines carry light in the Muggle world, and..."

Molly gave him a particularly ferocious glare, and he quickly stopped speaking.

"Erm, yes, my dear. Moving on, shall we? The point is that I would never have understood any of this without dear Hermione to show me the way."

Applause filled the chapel, and Hermione flushed. Fred and George were found to be so deep in hushed deliberation that they forgot to gag.

"Meester Weasley!" an undeniably French accent called out. Beside the twins, Ginny now gagged. "May I please say a few words?"

"Of course, Fleur."

Arthur stepped aside as his enchantress of a daughter-in-law swayed up the aisle and pivoted gracefully upon reaching the altar. "Meester Weasley 'ad some very nice things to say about 'ermione, soon to become ze next member of zis family, but I must admit zat I do not know 'ermione very well. Instead, I shall speak of dear Ronald." Ron turned yet a darker shade of red and he dared to glimpse at his bride, only to find her tight-lipped. "When I was ze Beauxbatons champion during ze Triwizard Tournament, I was attacked by ze grindylows during ze second task, and I could not save my leetle sister. But Ronald 'ere - he was ze 'ero of ze day, 'elping to rescue dear Gabrielle, even though 'e, too, was an 'ostage of ze mermaids! I shall remain grateful to 'im forever."

Further applause, and thus was how the ceremony proceeded. It seemed that many people felt impelled to speak that morning about Ron, Hermione, or the two of them as one. Others commented upon the Weasleys at large, and Neville Longbottom, another friend from their school days, delivered a moving if stuttering eulogy in Harry Potter's honor and lamented his absence from so joyous an occasion. At the end of his speech, which had been at least three times as long as anyone else's, he requested that they all observe a moment of silence in deference to the man who had given them the opportunity to see all of this happen.

It was during the middle of this moment of silence that Fred raised a finger and cleared his throat. The congregation, naturally, could not have been feeling too happy at this point. "George and I would like to say something."

Without waiting for a reply, they extracted themselves from their pew and sauntered down the aisle, wholly nonplussed towards the looks they were receiving. A man muttered something to George, who spat back, "Well, sod off - we're family too, you know."

Such was the atmosphere in which they assumed the role of speaker before a somewhat suspicious, largely antagonistic audience. They gestured among themselves, apparently attempting to decide who would speak first. The responsibility, it seemed, fell to Fred, who brought his hands together in front of him before beginning. "Right. Well, first, my brother and I wish to commend Mr. Longbottom's very - very emotional tribute to the Boy Who Lived. We knew Harry from his days as a baby first year, and he - well, let's just say that he helped us out in a few, ah, difficult situations. So, while we were observing this silence, we found ourselves fondly remembering him, our dear ickle Ronnie's best friend."

"And what little memory did we suddenly stumble upon," George continued, "but that of the singing valentine our Harry received during his second year? Those who were at Hogwarts at the time - surely you remember my brother and I singing it proudly through the hallway? We would now like to propose a slightly updated version of that same valentine in honor of our little brother, musical accompaniment provided. Fred, will you?"

"I shall, George." Fred pulled out his wand and gave it a wave. As he put it back in his pocket, a small harp materialized in the air. He took hold of it and trilled a trilling little arpeggio upon its strings. "Ready?"

It was later thought that the wedding of Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger and the happy day on which it occurred were sadly overshadowed by the antics of the groom's older brothers. In fact, the wedding itself was temporary shelved as the well-wishers, immediate family, and Ron and Hermione themselves thought it best to drive them out of the chapel before they, say, started reenacting crude Muggle pornography films in this sanctuary of calm. Witnesses at the time report two boys, each sporting an identical set of freckles and their hair an identical shade of red, sprinting out into the streets, trailed by heckling and the off-key melody of a harp. Somewhere in the middle of this farce, those same witnesses remember a peculiar song:

His eyes are as dull as clock;

He is as sensitive as a rock.

His passions are below par

And too easily would he mar

A wedding night with his -

When questioned about the last word of this set of lyrics, the witnesses stated that it was obscured by a very loud, very obnoxious cry of, "Marvel and appreciate, ladies and gentleman, the great escape of Fred and George Weasley!"