On This Wild Night

VIII. Artemis

The sun had set now, and the sky was dark. The music from the marquee could be heard all the way across the garden to the house.

Artemis, still angry with Charlie, had tried getting back into the party spirit, but once Ginny and Harry had finished their first dance, she had found herself unable to engage in small talk. She would have liked to have joined in the dancing herself, but she didn't want to give Charlie the satisfaction of knowing that he'd actually done a good job picking the music without her help. She tried to get herself a drink, but Molly appeared as if from nowhere and forcibly removed the bottle of Firewhiskey from her hands.

He still hadn't spoken to her, then.

Frustrated with herself, with Molly, with Charlie, and with life in general, Artemis had left the marquee and returned to the house, where at least it was a bit quieter. She made her way into the sitting room and threw herself down onto the rug in front of the fireplace, where she used her wand to light a fire. As she watched the flickering flames, she slowly started to feel her temper melt away.

After several minutes, the sound of footsteps on the stairs and the swishing of fabric on the floor alerted her to the presence of someone else in the building. She sighed. She had come here to be alone.

The footsteps stopped outside the door of the living room, which Artemis had left ajar, and a woman's voice called out from behind it.

"Hello? Is someone in there?"

Artemis recognised the voice instantly. She called back, "It's just me, Gin."

"Oh." The door opened, and Ginny Weasley — no, Ginny Potter — walked into the room, the train of her dress brushing the floor behind her. "How come you're not at the party? Are you okay?"

"I'm... I just needed a bit of quiet, that's all," replied Artemis. Ginny came and sat down next to her.

"Me too."

"But it's your wedding!"

"I know. It's just been a really busy day. Tiring, you know. And it's a lot of pressure, everyone watching you all the time, and I just needed a moment to be just me, Ginny, rather than 'The Bride' or Mrs Potter, if you see what I mean."

Artemis nodded. She'd spent much of her youth unwillingly in the spotlight. She could hardly blame Ginny for wanting to get away from it all.

"Have you been having a good day otherwise?" Artemis asked, uncrossing her legs and poking the fire with her bare toes.

"Yeah, mainly," Ginny said. "Obviously, Dad's speech made pretty much everyone cry, but I'm glad he made sure people weren't forgotten."

Artemis made a noncommittal noise. It had been inevitable that Arthur would have made reference to the missing members of the wedding party, but it had still made her feel dizzy when he'd started to reel off the names. She could only imagine how the Weasleys had felt. She had lost friends. They had lost a member of their family.

Their family.

"And Mum's been flapping around all day, but I knew that was going to happen," Ginny continued, with a little laugh. Artemis raised her eyebrows. "But otherwise it's been a good day, once I got over my little wobble before the ceremony."

"What wobble?"

"It was nothing, just a bit of a last minute panic about stuff. Fleur calmed me down, said she had the same thing when she married Bill."

"Did she?"

"Yeah, she was actually really lovely about it. In a Fleur sort of way." Ginny raised her eyebrows, and Artemis laughed. Ginny and Bill's wife didn't always see eye to eye. "But she talked me through it, and made me see sense. And I just thought, she was even younger than me when they got married, and she did it, so why couldn't I? What was I so scared of? So, I pulled myself together and I was okay after that."