black and white ✰ g.w.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

"Do you want to?" George asked her, a drunken grin on his face.

"Of course I do," Olivia answered, a huge smile on her face. "I said yes for a reason, didn't I?"

"I feel like this might be a good time to mention that I'm ordained," Fred announced.

His friends all looked over at him; this was the first they were finding out about this.

"Since when?" Angelina asked him.

It seemed Fred tried to think for a moment before giving up. "Oh, I can't remember right now."

"And why would you...?"

"Thought it might be useful one day." Fred looked over to his brother. "And it can be right now, if you want it to be."

George once again looked over at Olivia, and when she nodded, he looked back to Fred. "Will you?"

Fred smiled. "I'd be happy to, brother."

"Ooh, I call bridesmaid!" Alicia blurted.

A few minutes later, after much stumbling, falling, and laughing, the group of six were finally getting into the positions of a normal wedding ceremony (though this was nothing of the sort). George and Olivia stood before Fred, their hands intertwined, and Angelina had joined Alicia in being a bridesmaid while Lee had taken the position of best man.

"Alicia," Angelina said in what she thought was a whisper, "you should really get drunk more often."

"Well, no," Olivia interjected, "that could potentially cause some problems..."

Lee backhanded Fred's arm. "Get on with it already before her Healer self goes off on a tangent about excessive drinking," he told him. "Like she's got any room to talk."

"Right, right," Fred said. Then, after clearing his throat, he began saying whatever the officiant says during a ceremony; George and Olivia weren't listening, their focus solely on each other before impulsively pulling one another into a kiss.

"This feels strangely familiar," Lee muttered, the memory of what had occurred after the Yule Ball appearing vaguely in his mind, muddled by the alcohol in his system.

"Hey! I haven't gotten there yet!" Fred interrupted the moment, pulling the couple apart.

"Hurry up," George told him, a goofy grin on his face.

Fred looked from Olivia to George and a grin grew on his face as well. Any other officiant - a sober officiant of no relation to either bride nor groom - would have probably become extremely annoyed by now, but not Fred. He had been there from the beginning, when George first realized he had a crush on a girl he had known since he was eleven, a girl who had been right there for years yet he had never truly noticed her until that fateful summer three and a half years ago. He had been there when George asked her to the Yule Ball and he had been there when they began dating. He was the first person George had told after he told Olivia he loved her, and he had been the first person he had come to when he was thinking about asking her to marry him. And now he was standing there - in their flat above their joke shop, of all places - about to pronounce them husband and wife (as soon as they allowed him to get to it, at least). So no matter how drunk and impatient they were, this was almost as much of a special moment to him as it was to them, and he wasn't going to allow frustration to be something he felt right then.