In the end can they just pretend?
Ronald Weasley had hit rock bottom, his life as he knew it was over. He had lost everything. Well not everything, but it felt like the life he had imagined for himself was over. And his family wasn't helping him. Th...
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Ron never knew that a rehearsal dinner could be so complicated. Nor take so long. All the weddings he had been to for his own family, none of them seemed this intense. If he was being honest, he wasn't sure any of them had even had a proper rehearsal dinner. Not to the scale of the one he was currently attending.
He had first had to watch them mock perform the altar walk before they had finally moved onto sitting down and starting the dinner. The main issue had been that whilst they had been rehearsing the aisle walk, Ron had been left alone at the table with nobody around him which he knew. Well he didn't think so, he knew the seat left vacant next to his own was Claudia's but he was unsure who else was sat around him. Any small talk would have been manageable no matter how awkward so at least he wasn't sat in silence. There was one thing he often couldn't stand, and that was the silence. Having come from such a large and loud family it was not often that he found any quiet when sat at the table. Even when he was home alone he would leave the radio on so there was something in the background rather than just nothing. But this time, he was stuck alone, and with only the real quiet sounds of the procession practising in front of him.
Therefore, when a hand lightly touched him on his left arm and a familiar citrus smell came into close vicinity, Ron knew that the silence would be gone.
"Is everything alright?" Her voice was low as it was clearly directed so only he could hear. Well intended only for him to hear, Ron knew that the others on the slightly cramped table could also hear her words due to the close proximity.
"I'm fine Claude, don't worry about me."
"I'd be a horrible person to not check in on my special guest." Claudia wiggled her eyebrows with her words and it had its intended effect as Ron let out a huff of laughter. The chair beside him scraped slightly as it was pulled out and soon enough it would scrape slightly as it was pulled in beside him.
"Have fun?" Ron questioned and the look he got in response was enough to tell him that the answer was no. Claudia seemed to have hated the number of time she had to walk up and down the fake aisle they had created. Something he would have to raise and talk to her about later, wonder just why she disliked it so. From what he had gathered something like that was quite common place in the world of the high wizarding society. They practised and practised and practised before every big formal event. Maybe his post lady wasn't that posh after all.
The meal was served, and Ron had to admit he had probably never experienced something so nice. It was possibly one of the best meals he had ever eaten, even beating his mums best attempt at Christmas dinner. Everything seemed to just be cooked to perfection, left him incredibly full and never seemed to be poorly seasoned. He would have to honestly ask someone about who was doing the catering for the event, even though he knew deep down he probably would never be able to afford them. He never knew how the Weasley family, nor the Prewett family which his mother came from, had lost all of their accumulated wealth over the years. But he knew that they had lost enough that his generation of the incredibly large family struggled. Well, struggled more than they should have done considering the lineage of the family. That the children should never had to share resources or clothing but they had. And it wasn't by choice that they had. Perhaps he would have to talk to his dad more about that.
