Funkytown : Fred Weasley

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~  Little lost lamb ~

//

July 30th, 1989

"Drop the misbehaving act Aurélie!" my mother hissed in a whispered tone as she lightly swatted my hands away from the blue silk gown they were tightly holding. My smile, along with my rose-tinted cheeks, fell to a pit of gloom: my hands ,however, magnetised back to the smooth fabric floating around me.

I skipped off the low carpeted platform, my ballet-slipper-shoes clicking and clacking softly against the cold stone floor of the old seamstress's shop. I flung the crushed velvet curtain of my changing suite open, the metallic rails scraped against the top connectors as I did so. My face scrunched up in retaliation: my hands suddenly dropping the skirt of the dress to clasp my ears in discomfort. 

The large, golden-coloured, ornate mirror swarmed my view as I snapped back my concentration; I puffed out my chest in delight before grasping my hands to the dress once again and twirling around the boxy suite.

"Oh mon chéri, there you are!" Madame Toussaint said from behind me, a cheerful ring sounding as she spoke. I turned around to face her, a large grin wiped across my pale face. "My, my! Such a gorgeous young lady you are Miss Dumont. Now, come along and lets get this dress fitted to you." My head dropped lower in embarrassment from Madam Toussaint's kind words, my eyes glued to my feet as I swung forwards and backwards on my heels. I took the kind lady's outstretched hand and skipped off back to the front of her shop, her aged hand still clasped gently in mine.

...

"Calm yourself child," my mother jeered at me as the seamstress began to place pearl-headed pins into the soft fabric falling from my shoulders to my knees. She had always been an impatient women, my mother. She held a strong presence everywhere she went, perhaps it was because of her jarring, icy blue eyes and her sharp looking face that made me think this. She radiated an aura of attitude as she went about her everyday life, yet such grace and elegance thrived in her soul with her every movement. Oh, how I longed to grow up with such femininity and class as she did... but I could never wipe my stupid, toothy grin off my awkward-looking face.  

A swish and flick of Madame Toussaint's wand later and I was hurriedly putting my uniform, that was now wrapped up neatly in brown paper and decorated with a pale blue ribbon bow, into my floral purse that my mother had just then placed an undetectable extension charm on.  My hand fiddled in my pockets finding the cold coins I needed to pay and placing them down onto the wooden counter.

"Au revoir Madame!" my mother said as she opened the door to the seamstresses shop, the small bell chiming as she exited. 

"Merci beaucoup," I sung just before I left the shop, waving back to the kind lady in adorance with a beaming smile shining out to her like a thousand sunrays on a warm July day. 

The warm, earthly smell of cinnamon wafted through the bustling street as I skipped past the Patisserie. Delicacies of every sort lined the windows and the counters of the shop: eclairs, macarons, fruit tarts - the type of food to make your mouth water. 

A pink shop was on the right of it, "Le Fleuriste" was carved in swooping cursive letters into a swinging sign that dangled down from the over-hung roof. Large boxes of mixed flowers and smaller bouquets of every colour imaginable were displayed in wooden crates outside the large stained glass windows of the shop front. I strolled up to the old, cheery man with thick-lensed glasses around his neck on a golden chain. He held a sign reading: "A bouquet of your choice - 20 sickles"; I picked up a collection of vermillion tulips, holding them to my face to take in the sweet, refreshing scent. "Bonjour Monsieur, passe une bonne journée!" I said, placing the coins into his hand. He drew his wand from the pocket of his red and blue striped apron, holding it up to my neatly styled hair and leaving a flourishing daisy balanced just above my ear.