The World and Her Stars

Chapter Fifty-Three

ROSE POV

I tossed and turned, much to Ginny's dismay, for nearly the entire night. I was restless. Excited. Jittery.

Staring at the ceiling with butterflies in my stomach.

Finally, my mind stopped racing for long enough that I caught a few hours of sleep, but still, when I woke, it was early morning.

I liked the mornings. They were peaceful. There was a cool sense of calm as everyone lulled out of their sleep.

But not this morning.

"Rise and shine, Rosie!"

The door burst open and the lamps were flicked on. I immediately shielded my eyes from the light.

"What the hell—" I squinted.

"While it might not be a traditional wedding, today is still a special day, and I'll be damned if we don't try and give you a bit of normalcy." Celia waltzed in, already completely done up and ready for the day.

Hermione and Daphne walked in behind her, followed by a half-asleep Leo that looked positively thrilled to be awake at such an hour.

"Why are you all up so early?" I yawned, propping myself up on my elbows.

"Did you think the two of you were just going to exchange some words, hold hands, kiss, and call it a day? Please! With the lot in this house?" Celia scoffed, "While I'm sure you'll have some beautiful, extravagant, official wedding one day...today should still be memorable. So, come on. The boys aren't waking Draco up until you've eaten and you're back up here. Molly has breakfast cooking."

"Am I not allowed to see him or something?" I scoffed, half-way joking. The look on their faces told me that I was correct. "Don't tell me you're going to whip me up a dress out of tissue paper now as well."

"Merlin, no." Hermione laughed, "We are refashioning one of Fleur's dresses for you to wear. You can see it after breakfast."

Well...shit.

They shuffled me downstairs and we all ate breakfast, chatting away and making fun of Leo's bed head.

I was so nervous I could hardly eat. It was easy to occlude the feelings away, but the butterflies were rather stubborn this morning.

"It's supposed to be rainy again today, but I guess that's a plus, considering I heard you are quite fond of the rain." Molly smiled at me.

I nodded.

"Great, well. Arthur said he will have all of the documents prepared by 1. Ceremony at 2 and then we celebrate as best we can. Does that sound alright, my dear?" Molly asked.

"That sounds wonderful, Molly. Thank you so much."

She touched my cheek softly and smiled again before going to sit down in her chair to eat.

"August...what are you doing up so early?" Celia asked, surprise in her voice.

"Yeah, I thought you'd be sleeping off that knock to the face for at least another few hours." Leo chimed in for the first time this morning.

August glanced over to me for a second before looking down at his feet with an expression of embarrassment and tension.

"Was just heading to the study." He said lowly, before continuing on his path.