Dance Lessons - Scorose

Madam Malkin's Robes For All Occasions

It was the penultimate week of the year and the sun was high in the sky. Rose had just finished her History of Magic exam and went to join Albus and Scorpius outside under their tree. She threw her school robes down on the grass and laid out on them, closing her eyes as the sun shone down on her.

For a moment, none of them spoke. It was just the three of them. Scorpius. Albus. Rose. The way it had always been, how it always would be.

"How was your exam?" Albus asked as he looked up from his charms textbook.

"It was alright. I completely forgot the name of that witch who escaped being burnt in the seventeenth century though." she sighed.

"Well, don't ask us! We didn't take History of Magic. Too boring." Albus replied. "How many exams do you guys have left?"

"Only three - thank Merlin." Rose answered.

"Lucky! I have five. Why I took advanced potions on top of everything else I will never know." Scorpius said.

"Because you want to be healer, that's why." Rose reminded him. "I know I'm going to regret asking this but how many do you have left Al?"

"Just the one. Charms."he said and he held up his textbook.

Rose gave an annoyed sigh. She had barely revised for the charms exam yet. It was in two days but she had been too busy trying to learn last minute things for her other subjects. "You would have two left to do if you hadn't failed Divination last year."

"Well, I hated the subject anyway. Complete waste of time. Plus, I think that is the only time my Dad has ever been proud of me failing at school." Albus replied cheerfully. They all laughed. All of their parents had hated Divination when they were at school. Rose thought back to the time that her Dad had told her the story of how her mum had stormed out of one of the lessons once and never came back to it.

Since their parents' adventure in the Ministry of Magic over twenty years ago, few prophecies had been made and stored there. Real ones and not ones that just predicted that it was going to rain next Thursday or that the next Quidditch World Cup would be won by a team with seven players.

Suddenly, Rose felt something land next to her head. She opened her eyes and saw a barn owl standing on the grass with a scroll tied to its foot. She pulled the scroll off and read it.

Dear Rose,

Hope your exams are going well! Don't get too stressed out about them, you'll be great. I don't know whether your mum told you the details about the wedding but I'll let you know anyway. We've decided that we'll get married the second week into your summer holidays so that we can go somewhere nice and hot for our honeymoon! Obviously, I want you to be my Maid of Honour but I'll spare you all the planning what with your OWLs. Anyway, mum has gone a bit overboard even though we're having basically exactly the same wedding as her!

I'll see you in a fortnight and we'll go dress shopping.

Lots of love,

Vic xx

"Who is it from?" Albus asked.

"Victoire. They're having the wedding only a few weeks from now so I'm assuming everyone will be nice and stressed out when we get home!"

Albus sighed and threw a nearby pebble into the lake.

"Are you a bridesmaid then?" he asked.

"Maid of Honour actually." Rose replied smugly.

"Ooh get you, all fancy." Albus said, "Anyway, you two had better get off to your hippy dippy exam revision session."

"Divination." Scorpius corrected him as he and Rose stood up and headed off towards the castle to get into their 'hippy dippy' modes.

* * *

It was summer at last. Rose had only just got through the barrier back into King's Cross when she suddenly had a face full of silvery blonde hair.

"Hey Vic, how are you?" Rose asked as she pulled away from her cousin.

"No time for that! I know I said I didn't want to be one of those obsessive brides but we need to go now."

"Go where?" Rose asked, bewildered.

"Dress shopping. Come on! Your mum and Dad said they'd take your stuff home. We need to get to Diagon Alley." and she walked off swiftly in the opposite direction. Rose turned to Scorpius, who was standing with his parents behind her.

"Sorry, Scorp, I need to go with Victoire. I'll see you soon, yeah?"

"Of course, love you." he said and he gave her a quick kiss.

"Love you too." she replied as she ran off after her cousin.

"Right so what I'm thinking is you in a pale green dress, it'll compliment you're hair nicely. Fitted at the top and then a flowy chiffon skirt down to the floor. Maybe some sort of sequined embellishments? I don't know, obviously we'll have to wait for mum to get here with the ribbon colours for the table centre pieces so you match -" Victoire spoke very quickly and trailed off to herself. Rose was only half listening. When Victoire when into conversations like this, she didn't actually want anybody to reply but just nod along when she paused for breath, which wasn't often.

They met Fleur and headed into Madam Malkin's. Victoire ran over to the white dresses on the left while Fleur pulled out a green ribbon and went to talk to the lady at the desk. Rose lingered in the middle, unsure of what to do. She sat down on one of those fancy pinstriped chair that only ever seem to be wedding dress shops.

After ten minutes, Fleur came over and handed her six dresses all exactly the same colour and, in Rose's opinion, exactly the same all over. She tried them on one by one, showing them each time. In the end, they settled on one that was almost exactly as Victoire had described on the way there.

Choosing the wedding dress took a lot longer. Mainly because there was so many different styles of dress in the shop and Victoire couldn't make her mind up. As she was changing into what Rose hoped was the last dress, she heard her phone bleep in her bag. It was Charlie.

Hey, you're off school now, right? Do you mind coming over to help me paint my flat tomorrow afternoon? C

Rose replied.

Yeah, sure. I'm helping my cousin choose a wedding dress atm but I should be free tomorrow. Text me the address. R

Rose looked up from her phone just as her cousin opened the changing room curtain. Both Rose and Fleur gave a small gasp. Victoire smiled broadly. This was the one. The skirt came just down below her knees and was layered with white netting and petticoats. The bodice was fitted with a sweetheart neckline that was attached to a white mesh that went all the way up to her neck. It had small pearl beads all over the bodice that travelled down to the skirt until they seemed to disappear into the fabric itself.

"This one's perfect!" Victoire cried.

"Belle fille, très belle." Fleur said and pulled her daughter into a hug.