Chapter One: In Which Our Story Opens, in Gretna Green …

The Outlander Inn was a hostel of no little popularity in wizarding Britain, especially for its location in Gretna Green, just over the border from England into Scotland. The village itself had been infamous in olden times as the location to which one would flee to achieve a runaway marriage. In modern times, the Muggles in the United Kingdom had made Gretna Green one of the most popular wedding destinations in the country, and weddings and all their attendant gaiety was the main industry of the town.

Wizards loved the old traditions as well, and the Outlander Inn was the only wizarding establishment in Gretna Green to accommodate the brides and grooms desirous of being married 'over the anvil'.

On this crisp September morning, the fireplaces of the lobby of the inn were busy with the arrivals of the guests for the Granger wedding. The entire second floor had been reserved to lodge the wedding party and guests, and a full week of festivities awaited those who chose to attend. Not all invited guests could be there for the full week, but invitations had declared all were welcome to arrive at the time of their convenience, up to Sunday, 19th September, 2004, the actual wedding day.

In a lull in the afternoon, the receptionist, Joe Macgregor, was summoned from his tea and cake to assist a new arrival. The newcomer stood in the middle of the lobby, surveying his surroundings like a royal duke at Balmoral, standing as if he wore a cape blowing behind him in the wind.

Minus the flights of fancy, the man stood over six feet tall; he was slender of build and long of leg, wearing a finely tailored set of black robes over an austere black suit and an impeccable white shirt. Hair the colour of India ink was held at his nape in a tie, and arresting black eyes glared out of a supercilious face graced with a ridiculously large hooked nose and a thin, sneering mouth.

'May I help you, sir?' Joe inquired deferentially.

'I am here for the Granger wedding,' the man replied.

'Of course, sir,' Joe said, slightly nervous of the silky, threatening voice. 'Do you have a reservation?'

The sneering stranger stared into Joe's eyes for a long moment, and then replied in a voice of ice, 'I am the groom. Where are the wedding party now?'

Joe blanched. It was his job to be particularly helpful to the bride and groom! 'Most of them are in their rooms, sir, dressing for high tea in the Grand Salon at four o'clock,' he said.

'Excellent,' the self-proclaimed groom responded smoothly, placing a sack of Galleons on the polished oak counter. 'May I have the key to the bride's room, please?'

Joe forced himself to keep his eyes away from the sack of gold coins—a cool hundred, he reckoned—a week's pay!

The groom's icy expression melted into that of a sheepish man; he leant forward and added in a conspiratorial tone, 'I was out too late last night, and she's … not happy with me.'

Joe, a married man of many years standing, nodded sympathetically—his missus was not best pleased if he stayed down the pub with the lads for too long, either!

The dark man produced a piece of parchment from his inner pocket—no, it was a black velvet jeweller's box. Joe blinked. How could he have mistaken white parchment for a black box?

A slender white finger popped the box open, displaying the red satin lining, embossed with 'Grundell and Ridges Jewellers', and the dazzling emerald pendant nestled within. 'I've brought a small gift for her,' the stranger said.

Joe grinned conspiratorially. 'Ach, sir, she'll like that!' he said, slipping the requested room key to the wizard in black, scruples eased by the predicament of a fellow sufferer of the unreasonable wrath of women.

The stranger's mouth quirked up on one side, and he slid the largesse to Joe's side of the counter. 'Good man,' he said. His eye fell upon the pieces of pink parchment artfully fanned out on the far edge of the wooden surface. 'Is this the … schedule of events?'

Joe swiftly palmed the sack of Galleons and nodded amiably. 'Aye, it is, sir—you've certainly provided for the entertainment of your guests, if I may say so.'

One of the pieces of pink parchment disappeared into the stranger's coat pocket. 'Indeed,' he said, a bit of his hail-fellow-well-met manner sliding from him like ink from the feathers of an Augurey. 'Of course,' he added with a sardonic lift of one black brow, 'I'm more interested in properly entertaining the bride, eh?'

Joe grinned outright. 'As you say, sir!'

The dark wizard nodded once and turned to stride through the double doors of the lobby into the marble-tiled hall, where his steps were heard upon the grand staircase. Joe put his hand in his pocket, fondling the bag of gold and thinking of ways in which he could surprise the wife with a special night on the town … or ways he could hide the windfall from her and use it as he wished.

Lost in these happy thoughts, it was not until he heard the shouting that he was brought back to a sense of time and place. Rousing, he darted his eyes about the lobby to see if he had been observed wool-gathering. Relieved to see that he was still alone, he tidied the area, putting away a stray quill, straightening the Guest Register until it aligned perfectly with the edge of the desk, and neatening the fan of schedules for the Granger wedding. He paused for a moment to admire the neatly arranged document, complete with photographs of the venues for the various parties and outings for the week—and, of course, a large photograph of the bride and groom at the top of the page. The happy couple stood arm-in-arm, alternately smiling soppily into each other's eyes and waving out of the frame.

The bride was a bushy-haired, no-nonsense sort of young woman, undoubtedly the type to rule her man with a will of iron. The groom, on the other hand, was a happy-looking young man with a round, friendly face.

Oh, no—what had he done?

A/N: More to come very soon!

Gretna Green was forever immortalised in the novels of Georgette Heyer, as well as other Regency Romance authors, as the place where elopers were married.

From the HP Lexicon:

Augurey (Irish Phoenix) - Thin and mournful-looking bird somewhat resembling a vulture, greenish-black in color, native to Britain and Ireland. Normally remaining hidden in its nest in brambles and thorns, flying only in heavy rain, the feathers of the Augurey repel ink. Its distinctive cry was once thought to be a death omen, but it is now known that the Augurey's cry foretells rain. The Augurey eats insects and fairies.