Lady Tonks, Lord Potter

The match that set the blaze

"I understand the wine, now." Effie held her teacup up.

"Thanks." Ted took a look at his watch. "So, four and a half hours until the ceremony, two hours until they start letting everyone in, three hours until Dora and the rest of the wedding party arrive, that leaves..."

Effie leaned forward once again and rang the bell. This time when the goblin entered he looked confused, as the tea had been provided previously. Effie raised a finger. "Thank you, Erknpot. I believe Mr. Tonks and I could each use a glass of wine, I believe the house elf wine from Kent. Small glasses, thank you." After the goblin left she looked over to Ted. "To keep up our spirits, of course."

Ted smiled broadly. "Of course."

-ooo-

"I hate you."

Daphne Greengrass rolled her eyes and shook her head. After today she knew that whatever her future plans held for her, becoming a wedding planner would not be on the top one hundred jobs she would ever consider. "Just put the bloody thing on, Nymph."

"Screw you, Daph." Tonks stood by the wardrobe in her bra and knickers, both of them in an eye-watering orange hue, and stared at the garment in question. Up until three days ago all the dress things had been sorted; she'd selected a rather conservative white dress with long sleeves, a discreet amount of lace and sparkly things and had only argued with her mum about the amount of cleavage she should display. Then Daphne came in with that sodding book and said that since it was the bloody 'joining of houses' that she had to wear something that said House of Black. The goblins went searching through the vaults and found a trunk buried under decades of junk and brought up four dresses, each of them fashionable when Merlin's mum was a child. The first two she dismissed immediately because they smelled horrible and no amount of magic could fix that, even after ol' Dromeda gave it her best. The other two...well, it was like trying to decide if you wanted to die by drowning or by fire, both unpleasant. The best she could think to describe them would be as if you took the imagined portraits of Helga Hufflepuff or one of those hilarious movies that Muggles did about witches and said 'yeah, that's it.' Long, rediculous sleeves, a lace-up bodice that shoved her tits together and made out of stuff that seemed like you took itching powder and sandpaper and mixed them together. That was bad enough, but both of them were, unsurprisingly, black in colour.

"I can't wear black to my wedding!"

Sitting on the bed, cross-legged, Jack looked up from a magazine. "I dunno, it's kinda punk rock."

"Wot?" Tonks turned to her. "You're taking the piss, right?" She pointed to Daphne. "You two are in on this together, aren't you?"

Daphne sighed and closed her eyes. After a few steadying breaths she looked back at Tonks. "I can make them fit perfectly, adjust them so they don't itch or bunch up in the wrong places and put other charms on them. Honestly, don't you know any fashion spells?"

Tonks began laughing. "Fashion spells? Me? Right."

"Obviously." Daphne rolled her eyes. "What spells are needed for Rolling Rocks t-shirts."

"Rolling Stones. Stones. Merlin." Tonks picked one dress from the wardrobe and plucked the hat off of the hanger and tossed it aside. "There's no fucking way I'm wearing the hat. It'd hide all my hair and give me a forehead three meters high."

Daphne walked over, picked up the hat and sat it on a dresser. "High foreheads were seen as signs of...look, fine. It's not the dress you wanted to wear. I know it's not as pretty as the dress you picked, but you've put this off as long as possible and, let's face it, you have to make a decision unless you want to go out there in front of the entire wizarding world and marry Harry in your bra and knickers." Her eyes went wide and she held up a hand. "That is NOT an option. We'll skip the hat, does that help?"