Chapter 158

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Three o'clock on the following day, we were all ready to go down to Bill and Fleur's wedding.

         Harry had taken a Polyjuice Potion under Mad-Eye's order to take the form of a red haired boy who Fred had gotten the hair of from a ginger Muggle boy in the village. That way, they could introduce Harry as a Weasley cousin named 'Barny' so no one could recognize him at the wedding, for his own safety.

       I got ready in the room with Ginny and Hermione and so we went downstairs, but we were unfortunate to come across the Weasleys' Aunt Muriel while she was giving Fleur her tiara.

         She gave Hermione a glance before whispering audibly to Mrs. Weasley, "Oh dear, is this the Muggle-born?" and then she looked her up and down, saying, "Bad posture and skinny ankles."

       But I gulped when Aunt Muriel's eyes then fell upon me. "Are you the girl who's now dating Fredrick?"

       "Er... yes, ma'am," I said, clearing my throat.

       She scoffed to herself before turning away, mumbling under her breath, "A lunatic, this one must be."

       Chuckling, Ginny and Hermione went to help Mrs. Weasley around the house while I went downstairs and left the house.

        I walked toward the marquee's entrance, where Fred, George, Harry, and Ron were standing, ready to greet the guests and to show them their seats.

        "Hey, guys!" I said, waving at them with a smile as I reached them.

        "Woah, you look —" Fred started with a grin, but didn't really finish his sentence and only cleared his throat, looking away awkwardly.

        "Not bad, Snappy. You look nice." George winked at me, making me chuckle.

        "You don't look too bad yourself, Holey," I said with a grin, causing George's smile to drop.

        "When I get married," said Fred, tugging at the collar of his own robes, "I won't be bothering with any of this nonsense. You can all wear what you like, and I'll put a full Body-Bind Curse on Mum until it's all over."

        As if only just realizing what he had blurted out, he caught my eyes but quickly looked away, his ears going red.

         "Mum wasn't too bad this morning, considering," said George. "Cried a bit about Percy not being here, but who wants him? Oh blimey, brace yourselves — here they come, look."

       Sure enough, when we looked ahead, we saw brightly colored figures appearing in the distant, walking through the yard and toward us.

       "Excellent, I think I see a few veela cousins," said George, grinning. "They'll need help understanding our English customs, I'll look after them..."

       "Not so fast, Your Holeyness," said Fred, darting past the gaggle of middle-aged witches and reaching the French girls, saying charmingly, "Here — permettez-moi to assister vous." The girls giggled and allowed him to escort them inside.

       Before I knew what was happening to me, I felt my face heat up with anger, which could only have been caused by jealousy as I folded my arms grumpily.

       But trying to ignore it, I went to help everybody else around. When the guests were all seated, Fred, George, and I joined Harry and Ron. Hermione was there too, telling then how Aunt Muriel had insulted her.

       "Don't take it personally, she's rude to everyone," said Ron.

        "Talking about Muriel?" George inquired when we reached them. "Yeah, she's just told me my ears are lopsided. Old bat. I wish old Uncle Bilius was still with us, though; he was a right laugh at weddings."

        "Wasn't he the one who saw a Grim and died twenty-four hours later?" asked Hermione.

        "Well, yeah, he went a bit odd toward the end," George admitted.

        "But before he went loopy he was the life and soul of the party," said Fred. "He used to down an entire bottle of firewhisky, then run onto the dance floor, hoist up his robes, and start pulling bunches of flowers out of his —"

       "Yes, he sounds a real charmer," said Hermione, while Harry and I roared with laughter.

        "Never married, for some reason," said Ron.

       "You amaze me," said Hermione and we all laughed.

        The beautiful ceremony soon started when Bill and Fleur arrived and after that, the party went on and the music started playing, everyone dancing and enjoying themselves for the night.

       Although when I had gone to get myself something to eat as always, I came back to see that Fred and George were surrounded by four French girls, talking and laughing.

        Rolling my eyes, I started walking toward them, giving Fred a fake sweet smile as I reached him. "Enjoying ourselves, are we?"

        "Just having an innocent chat," Fred said with a grin, shrugging.

         "Hmm... wasn't it you two who had told me a few years ago that there's no such thing as an 'innocent chat', when I was talking to that Durmstrang guy?"

        The girls thankfully weren't listening to us as George had busied them with a little joke, making them giggle again.

        "That was different. He had other intentions in mind," Fred said bitterly. "I'm just chatting these ladies up with George. They're our guests. It's rude not to talk to them."

       "You're right," I nodded sincerely, before grinning when my eyes caught a handsome tall boy across the place, who looked to be a relative of Fleur's. "Oh how rude of me not to have talked to him until now. He's a guest after all."

        So with one last wink at Fred, I started walking away from them and toward the blond boy.

       Fred made an angry move to follow me and to protest, but he was stopped by one of the French girls who gently grabbed his arm, which gave me a bigger motivation to go on.

        But right before I could reach the boy, I was stopped when a soft voice behind me said,

        "I wouldn't do that if I were you."

        Turning around, I saw the same woman I had seen often lately, who was Sirius's friend. Or more than a friend, perhaps.

        She had a drink in her hands as she grinned at me cooly, looking like she had been observing my talk with Fred.

         The previous times that I had seen her, she was always somehow hurt and was after a battle, but even then she looked pretty. But now, with her beautiful dark brown hair falling down her back and wearing a long golden dress with matching high-heels, she looked absolutely stunning.

        "I'm sorry," I started out-of-the-blue, "not meaning to be rude or anything, but... who are you?"

"You — you don't know who I am?" She blinked a few times in confusion. "I just assumed you knew everybody, which is why I didn't bother to introduce myself."

"Yeah, I thought I knew everybody too, but you seem to be an exception."

"Then... why didn't you just ask me before?"

"Well, it was never the right time," I said earnestly. "The first time we met, you were attacked by Greyback. Then when I saw you again at hospital wing, you were unconscious for most of it. At Dumbledore's funeral you and Sirius seemed to be having a moment so I didn't want to ruin it. And last time I saw you at that safe house, we had to leave immediately if we wanted to catch our Portkey and didn't have time for a chitchat."

"Oh, I see..." she grinned, and then she raised her hand for me to shake. "So I guess introduction is in order."

"Okay." I giggled, shaking her hand. "You probably know me already, but my name is Lexi."

        "Well, it's nice to officially meet you, Lexi." She smiled. "I'm Jenna."

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