Confident | Fred Weasley

Chapter 123 | The Dress

Sarah spent the following week sending letters. First, she hired a wedding planner, much to Mrs Weasley's annoyance. After initial contact, her and Fred met with Mina and Irene for lunch in Diagon Alley, two business partners who specialised in event planning.

"A winter wedding planned in eight months?" Mina, a tall, thin woman with frizzy, dark hair muttered as she scanned her notes.

"Is that too soon?" Sarah asked, grasping Fred's hand.

"No, no, not at all," Irene, a blonde woman in her forties, answered, "We've done much shorter deadlines."

"Yes, exactly," Mina agreed, nodding firmly, "Okay, next steps...we'll get the 'Save the dates' to all your guests. We'll also organise some tours of potential wedding venues. If you want to lean into the winter idea of the wedding, then I'd suggest venues in Scotland. It would be lovely in the snow."

Sarah thought of Hogsmeade village, buried under snow during the wintertime. She could see herself adorned in a white dress, pleasantly matching in with miles of snow all around.

"I like that idea," Sarah said, and Fred nodded in agreement.

"Okay, great!" Irene said cheerfully, "Now, all you two need to do is decide on what you're going to wear, especially you, Sarah. Wedding dresses take much longer than men's dress robes."

Sarah nodded, "Yeah, I've just made plans with my friends to go shopping."

"Fantastic! I'll send over a list of boutiques across the country that are worth checking out," Irene said, scribbling something in her notebook, "Once that's sorted, we'll meet up again for our next steps. Keep me posted by owl."

The following day, she scratched up a letter to Betsy. The floor of the office was littered with scrunched up balls of parchment. It ended up being a relatively short letter, as Sarah didn't really know exactly what to say. It felt like she was begging for her job back, something that made her skin crawl.

With the letter sent, and her wedding in the process of being organised, it left Sarah with little else to do but work at the shop. Now that the building had been returned to its former glory, the team were working on stock replenishment. The task initally seemed quite daunting considering it was the only the three of them, especially with George's desired opening date of mid-July. However, their old staff members, Verity and Cora had returned to work there. Lee had chosen not to return, as through his work on Potterwatch, he had secured a position at the British Wizarding Wireless network.

Sarah was often confined to the basement, which had been cleaned of any lingering chemicals by George, overseeing all five stovetops simultaneously. Still, she didn't complain, even when she returned home with aching feet and tired eyes. She had nothing else to do after all.

She found herself eagerly looking forward to wedding dress shopping, which she had organised to take place that Saturday. She had rolled her eyes at the effort of wedding planning initially, but had grown to find it quite exciting. Fred felt betrayed by this development.

"I thought we'd be able to scoff at this stuff together," Fred huffed jokingly after she had expressed this excitement with him.

"Think about it this way," Sarah said as she slipped into bed beside him, "All of this stuff will lead to our perfect day this December."

Fred shot her an amused expression, "D'you want to just get eloped?"

"No," Sarah laughed slightly as she pulled the duvet up, "Not now I'm having a good time."

Fred's teasing smile softened, "As long as you're happy."

Fred slipped off for work the next morning adorned in his magenta robes, the floo flames shining emerald in his wake. They had recently reopened their home to the Floo network, something which Sarah was rather thankful for now.