Enchanted by freckles - short stories

Story 39, Part 2/4 - Growth

And then came the day of the wedding. First Eddie helped Venia to shower, before the three of us went into the bathroom. We helped Caelie to shower too, and along the way Garreth and I trimmed our beards and washed as well.

When we came outside, Runa was sitting next to Venia doing her make-up while Sebbi and Eddie made breakfast for all of us.

They were really independent by now.

We had already set up the party tent yesterday and prepared the meals as far as possible. Some guests had also already arrived and were sleeping at Yvain and Gwen's, as our house was already full of children.

Koody was already setting the tables outside and got some help early in the morning from Veeky and Kolmy, a house elf lady who had freed Venia from the Malfoy estate and who was now living at Hogwarts.

Of course, we didn't let the elves do everything on their own, but they were, as elves are, very eager to do as much work for us as possible.

Garreth, I and the elves scurried wildly back and forth between the house and the tent to make everything perfect before we threw ourselves into our festive clothes.

We wore the same dark green ties, at Eddie's request, while Caelie's dress was the same shade of green.

For not only did Eddie want to keep his outfit as simple as possible, Venia wanted everyone to be dressed as simply as possible. She didn't like this perfectly coiffed and as expensively dressed as possible show, and didn't want that at her wedding either.

And so, the only rules they wanted were that no woman could wear white, and none of the men could wear a bow tie and a flat cap, so that the two of them would stand out sufficiently.

One by one, the guests arrived. Since it was almost exclusively the entire Weasley family, everything was quite relaxed. But suddenly a young, light blond man appeared from our shed with a large bouquet of white roses. He looked around a little uncertainly before he began to grin, "Professor!" he called joyfully and hurried towards Garreth.

"Ah, if it isn't young Mister Malfoy! Good to see you here, Maeron.", Garreth replied. I walked over to the two of them. 

"Seb, this is Venia's eldest brother. Maeron, this is Sebastian, my husband.", Garreth said with a smile and put his arm around my waist. "Do you think your parents will show up?" asked Garreth quietly. "I have no idea. I only see them at Christmas myself. I emigrated to the United States with my wife after I finished school. And we never write letters to each other. Only after you took Venia away. That's when my mother had quite an outburst because of you, sir," he said, laughing a little.

"You don't have to address me so formally here. I am simply Garreth. One of your almost-brother-in-law's fathers.", Garreth said as he was called by Caelie and hurried over to her.

"You can sit down already if you want," I said pointing to the chairs, "Unless you want to see Venia, then I can take you to her." "No, I don't want to see her until she comes outside. Is there anything I can do to help?" "Not really, our three little friends are quite effective." "You own house elves? Aren't you guys so notorious precisely because of your friendly view of house elves?" "Yes, we are, but we don't own these elves. They help us because they are friends of Eddie and Venia. And one is my work colleague." "You're pretty fascinating people, but I think it's better if my parents don't show up here. If they see Venia being friendly with house elves, they won't be happy," he said with a laugh, continuing to look around.

"But Venia is just as open-minded as Eddie. Otherwise we wouldn't be here today, I'd say." "That's true enough. How's Venia doing? I haven't heard from her since she moved out of our parents' house," he said, also looking a little sad.