The Wilderness Years

Chapter 9: The Dinner Party

The dinner party had been Chester's idea. Artemis would have been happy spending her birthday having a few drinks at the Three Broomsticks or the underground nightclub in Charing Cross that Andre had introduced her to, but she was hardly going to say no to Chester offering to cook for her and her fiends.

"It's too special an occasion to do what you would do any other weekend," he had said. "After all, there is a lot to celebrate."

This was true. Not only was it Artemis' birthday, but Chiara had just finished her final exams for her Healer training, Tonks had reached her six-month anniversary of being a fully fledged Auror, and Penny's boyfriend Lewis Parkin had recently proposed to her during a weekend in Paris. The last of these pieces of good news had been the one that had so far dominated the evening's conversations.

"Seriously," Tonks muttered to Artemis, once the pair of them had slipped into the kitchen to clear away the plates and fetch more wine. "If I ever become that nauseatingly mushy over anyone, you have my permission to do me in."

"Yeah, okay."

"I mean it. Just put me out of my misery."

Artemis picked up a piece of chicken from an otherwise empty plate and fed it to Fergus, who was sitting on the countertop looking hopeful. She shrugged.

"I dunno. She doesn't seem miserable," she said, with a glance over her shoulder. "I think she's just really happy and excited."

"Exactly, it's sickening." Tonks grinned. "I'm joking, obviously. I'm happy for her, it would be just nice to talk about something else for ten minutes, that's all."

"Is everyone like this about weddings, do you think, or is it just Penny?"

"Might just be Pen. You know what she gets like about organising parties, and this isn't just any party. This is the party."

"I guess," said Artemis. She grabbed two wine bottles - the fancy red one that Chester had brought and the cheap pink one that was Tonks' favourite - and nodded her head at the door. "Come on. We should go and be excited with her."

"I'll try, but if she starts talking about writing her own vows again, I might actually spew."

Thankfully, Penny was not talking about her vows, nor any other part of the wedding ceremony itself. Instead, the discussion had turned to aesthetics, with Chiara listening politely and Jae looking incredibly bored as Penny chatted away.

"Well, I still haven't quite decided what colour I want you all to wear," she told Chiara, her engagement ring sparkling in the light as she moved her hands, "but it will either be pale pink, sage green, or maybe sky blue. In any case, it will definitely be a pastel shade. Bea won't be happy, if it were up to her you'd all be wearing black, but she always looks so pretty in lighter colours, and it will be a summer wedding, so pastels make far more sense. I much prefer them, anyway."

"And that's what matters," said Chiara. "It is your wedding, we will just go along with what you want. Don't mind us."

"Mind me!" Tonks blurted out. "I definitely want some kind of say in what I wear. What if it doesn't suit me?"

Penny giggled. "You can suit anything, Tonks. You're a Metamorphmagus."

"Yeah, but-"

"I'm going to go looking at options with Andre next weekend, but I think I know what style I want for you," Penny continued. "Probably mid-length, strapless-"

Artemis wrinkled her nose. "Won't the dresses fall down if they haven't got any straps?"

"- with a little bit of tulle under the skirt to give it some sort of shape. And then you all will have little bouquets of daisies to carry, because daisies are my favourite flowers."