The next few days felt a bit disorienting. Losing Mad-Eye was a shock that I didn't feel I could quite grasp; Alastor Moody, the war hero, had been such a prominent force in the Order that I kept expecting to see him brooding in the corner of meetings, or limping through the back door and yelling at one of us about our lax security efforts.

I missed the old codger.

I was only able to think of Mad-Eye every now and then, though. Most of my attention was focused, probably predictably, on an injured George.

Apparently to an extent that bothered him.

"Will you stop fussing over me, woman!" He snapped for perhaps the dozenth time.

"Well excuse me for caring!" I sniffed, crossing my arms.

"Bree," he said exasperatedly, trying to take my hands and rolling his eyes when I kept my arms firmly crossed. He instead chose to wrap both of his arms around my shoulders, pulling me, folded arms and all, to squish against his body. Despite hearing him mutter something under his breath that sounded suspiciously like "stubborn", I reluctantly uncrossed my arms and wound them around his waist to return the hug after a long moment.

"You know that I love you so much," he begun, his lips pressed against my temple. "But if you keep hovering and fussing over me like an invalid, I'm going to go insane."

I tried my best not to snap back. Instead, I took a moment to breathe in deeply and calmly, before muttering back, "well, that wouldn't be the worst thing. You could share a room with Gilderoy Lockhart."

George laughed against my hair. "Ah, so that's your dastardly plan! Drive me into a mental institution to get closer to Lockhart, and then dump me for the famous prat!"

I rolled my eyes, but couldn't help a small smile. "I'm not trying to drive you anywhere," I mumbled. "I'm worried about you, Georgie, I…" my words stumbled when my voice hitched, "…I almost lost you."

His arms tightened around me. "But you didn't, and I promise that you're not going to," he murmured. "I love you. You couldn't force me away, even if you wanted to."

George's voice lightened, "besides, it really was a blessing in disguise."

I pulled back and raised my eyebrows. George shot me a grin and gestured to his missing ear. "You cannot deny how much more attractive this makes me, now that I've got an air of danger around me. You're dating a battle hero, babe."

"I mean, I don't know if I'd call you a battle hero, but-"

Waving off my words, George took my hand and pulled me towards the kitchen, where everybody was gathering for dinner. "Can't hear you over my battle hero status, sorry, love."

"Didn't you almost fall off your broom?"

"Still can't hear you over all the people calling me 'the new, handsomer Chosen One', sorry!"

I did my very best over the coming days to fuss over George less than I had been in the wake of his injury. This wasn't particularly difficult, given that I barely saw him. Everybody staying in the house was recruited by Mrs Weasley into assisting in preparations for Bill and Fleur's upcoming nuptials. This included, but was not limited to, the nonstop cleaning of cutlery, colour-matching favours, ribbons, and flowers, the de-gnoming of the garden, and helping Mrs Weasley cook vast batches of canapés. I mostly got thrown on cooking duty (which was fair since I was a professional chef), which frustrated the twins to no end because they mostly got thrown on de-gnoming duty, which they both hated with a passion.

"You just had to get married, didn't you?" Fred snapped at Bill one morning as he left the house for work.

"Yeah, it's your bloody wedding and I don't see you slaving away for hours to perfect the nuptials," Ron added furiously.

Bill grinned, ruffling his youngest brother's hair and ducking out of the way when Ron moved to smack him. "Some of us work for a living, little brothers," Bill sung. "Besides, Fleur and I are just so grateful to all of you for working so hard, without complaint, to make this wedding perfect!"

He managed to avoid a second belting from Fred as he ducked out the back door, laughing.

"It's like being a house-elf, except without the job satisfaction," Ron complained. "I can't wait for this stupid bloody wedding to be over."

Frankly, I didn't know what any of them had to complain about. They helped out around the house and that was it. I, however, had made the choice to befriend Fleur months ago and now had to spend my time not only helping to prepare the house, but to also put up with the bride-to-be going completely and utterly bonkers over her upcoming nuptials.

I had just begun to wonder if perhaps I'd been too hasty in befriending Fleur and subsequently getting myself into this mess, when I finally got some benefit out of the entire situation when Fleur asked me to accompany her to pick up her designer wedding dress.

I admit that when Fleur initially showed me her wedding dress design many months ago and told me that she'd based it off a dress belonging to Marie Antoinette, one of her favourite historical figures (which felt on-brand for her), I'd been a little sceptical. Mostly because the dress design both looked and sounded hideous. But Fleur had been fairly adamant that she had a "vision" and she'd recruited one of the most ingenious minds in fashion back in France to make her dream a reality, because she really couldn't trust anybody but the best of the best to turn her abstract dream into art.

(This, it turned out, was an accurate estimate.)

Not being an idiot, I wasn't going to be someone to turn down a trip to Paris – even if said trip was just for the day to pick up a dress – so when Fleur asked if I wanted to come along to the dressmakers, I excitedly agreed. We set off early, arriving at the designated international apparition zone at approximately 8am, stopping for coffee and a crepe at one of Fleur's most beloved bakeries in the city, and ended up waltzing into the dressmakers with our arms linked and grins on our faces at about 9:30am, right on opening time.

"Ah, you must be the future Mrs Weasley," a pretty shop worker called when the bell chimed behind us to announce our arrival. Beside me, Fleur flushed in delight.

"Oui!" Fleur replied excitedly, "I am here to pick up my dress!"

"Excellent!" the girl, whose nametag read 'Camille,' replied. "If you'll come right this way ma'am, you can try it on. Your friend is welcome to take a seat in our waiting room."

I gave Fleur a thumbs up as she followed Camille, and I took the time to survey my surroundings properly for the first time. There was no doubt from the decorations that this was an expensive shop that frequented high-class customers; I subconsciously glanced down at my scuffed-up sneakers and winced at how out-of-place I likely looked.

I spent some time browsing the beautiful gowns on display, mentally picturing myself in a couple of them and imagining what the reaction would be if I showed up to Fleur's wedding in a dress this flashy. She'd probably beat me to death with her bouquet for daring to try and upstage her.

I'd just settled myself on a couch I estimated cost more than my apartment when a scream sounded from the room Fleur had disappeared into.

Springing to my feet, I bounded through the door and into the room with my wand drawn, only to find no immediate source of threat. Not lowering my wand as my eyes continued to dart through the room, I called out, "Fleur, what's wrong? What happened?"

"My dress!" she screeched, and I finally lowered my wand and untensed my entire body.

"Oh, Merlin's beard, you've got to be kidding! Where do you get off yelling like that, I thought you were being attacked! What could possibly be so wrong with your dress that-" My eyes finally came to rest on Fleur where she stood in front of a series of full length mirrors, and seeing her dress from several different angles kind of made me want to scream, too. "Oh."

"What is this?!" Fleur cried at a wincing Camille. "Did you people not understand that I asked for Archambault to be in charge of my dress design?!"

"Archambault was in a, er, position of influence throughout the project-" Camille stammered.

"Don't lie to me!" Fleur thundered, and I almost took a step back out of nervousness. "I 'ave been a loyal customer to Archambault for years, and 'e would never create something so hideous!"

Hideous was potentially too kind for the monstrosity that I was looking at. I could kind of see the influence of Marie Antoinette, but it was more like somebody dressed up like a terrifying version of Marie Antoinette for Halloween. The dress had enormous ruffles, distinctive for the time period, making her look like her skirt had a beach ball shoved underneath it. The arms and chest had similar ruffles, there were a number of floral patterns attempting to grab attention, and the colour scheme which could have been a tasteful mix just ended up looking like somebody had thrown up on the fabric.

"Alright, well, Archambault created the initial sketches, but he – er – left our shop just before Christmas, so another of our top designers took over the creation," Camille finally admitted nervously.

"Top designers?" Fleur demanded, nearly hysterical. "Top designers?! Is he an idiot? Is he blind?! My wedding is in four days and I look like a monstrosity!"

"I'm so sorry that you don't like the dress, Mrs Weasley, I can promise you a full refund-"

"Oui, you most certainly will! I refuse to pay for this hideousness! But did you not hear me, my wedding is in four days! What am I supposed to wear?!" Fleur screeched.

"Listen, Fleur," I spoke up, sensing that I needed to step in and calm Fleur a bit before this spiralled out of control. "Take the refund but take the dress, too. Molly and I are both fairly creative and good with our hands, we can strip it of all the ugly frills and turn it into something beautiful."

"Oh, well, if you take the dress then I'm not sure I can organise a refund, too," Camille begun, but cowered when Fleur shot her a fierce glare and screeched "You most certainly will be refunding me!"

As Camille scampered off to escape Fleur's wrath and organise that refund, I stepped forwards to help unzip Fleur and help her out of the dress. Fleur kept up a steady stream of blubbering as we got the dress off, got our refund, and carried our boxed monstrosity of a dress back to the Apparition zone and back to the Burrow.

The boys were smart enough to clear out of the living room when a crying Fleur made an appearance, until it was just me and Molly left. I explained the situation to her before unfolding the dress from the box, and the woman winced disgustedly when she laid eyes on it.

"Oh, Merlin's beard," Molly breathed, aghast. I nodded my head, silently agreeing. This was one hell of a job, and I wasn't sure that we could handle it on our own. So I headed upstairs and called in the troops, and less than half an hour later they were hustling into the Burrow from the front door.

"I bought my Mum's sewing kit," Alicia chirped.

"I bought snacks," Katie said brightly.

"I didn't actually bring anything, but… I'm here and ready to help," Angelina shrugged.

"I didn't bring anything and I'm not here to help, but I'm going to go hang out with the twins. Good luck, guys!" Lee said jovially, pushing past us all and heading up the staircase to the twin's bedroom.

"Thanks for coming, you guys," I said thankfully. I called out to Fleur to come back into the living room, and a moment later she shuffled shamefully back into view from where she'd been eating her feelings in the kitchen.

"Oh, Christ!" Katie jumped as the other girls recoiled in horror, and Fleur looked distraught.

"It's awful," she wailed.

"But we're going to fix it!" I chirped optimistically. I strode forwards and lifted the ruffles at the front of the dress, directing my next words back to the others. "I think our first job is to remove all this nonsense, but try and do it neatly in case we decide to repurpose it later."

The others nodded and set to work. Slowly, we managed to strip the dress of all the hideous frills and lace (which took an eternity considering the thing must have had about fifty bloody layers of the stuff), until we were left with the thin slip that made up the under-dress. Whilst certainly an improvement, the under-dress had a bit of a lingerie look about it, so Katie suggested draping it in sheer lace to create a bit of a layered look.

This was a great idea in theory and sounded lovely, but in reality, trying to mishmash together the scraps of lace we'd removed from the original dress gave the entire thing a bit of a… well, shapeless look.

When we were done, Fleur stared at herself in the full-length mirror that Molly had pulled into the room in pure dejection.

"Well, you definitely look better than you did," Katie said bracingly, which was just about the only compliment we could really give.

At that moment, Fred stuck his head into the room. "Hey, everyone," he greeted. "Er, this may not be a good time, but we were messing around and spilt some spaghetti sauce on my vest for the wedding, and-"

All of a sudden, Fleur burst into tears.

Fred looked horrified, and we all waved him out of the room. Molly bustled out after him, undoubtedly to deal with the vest incident, and I stepped forwards to wrap my arms around Fleur.

"Oh, Fleur, it's okay," I tried, but this just made her wail louder.

"It's not okay!" she wailed. "Everything is wrong! I don't have a dress and the decorations for the marquee were supposed to be white and they're a dark cream, and most of the flowers haven't arrived yet, and now the vest!"

"But those things are all fine, Fleur! It's not the end of the world!" Alicia tried to say helpfully.

"Yes it is!" Fleur wailed. "Everything is a disaster and it was all supposed to be perfect! I wanted everything to be perfect for Bill and I's celebration of love!"

"But that's exactly why it doesn't need to be perfect!" I argued. "The important thing is that you and Bill are there to pledge your love to each other. So long as the two of you are there, the material stuff that also happens to be in the marquee won't matter!"

"She's right," Katie chimed in. "My cousin got married last year and her wedding was a complete disaster, but she still says it was the best day of her life because everyone she loved was there and her husband made everything seem better. Everybody had a total ball in spite of the fire!"

"Yeah, Fleur, nobody else is going to notice all those little details, and on the day, you're going to be so drunk in love that you're not going to give two shits about them either," Angelina nodded.

"Besides, Bill doesn't need or want the perfect wedding, he just wants you! You could host the ceremony in a swamp where you arrived wearing a potato sack and he still wouldn't have eyes for anybody but you," I said, squeezing her hand. "Cut the guy some slack. Hasn't he proven well enough by now that he doesn't love you because you're perfect all the time? He loves you because you're not."

Fleur sniffled, her puffy eyes running between the four of us gathered there. A moment later, she threw her arms around me in a tight hug. I returned it, and then felt an assortment of other arms wrapping around us as Angelina, Katie, and Alicia joined in the cuddle.

"Oh, thank you," she sobbed. "You're right, I'm being stupid, it doesn't need to be perfect, as long as Bill's there then that's the only thing that matters."

She pulled back slightly. "But – I still don't have anything to wear."

I winced, fingering the ruffles of lace around her collarbone. "Listen, Fleur, I know you were pretty dead set on this dress, but it's a disaster."

"Definitely can't be saved," Angelina nodded.

"We should just completely scrap it," I said honestly. "Then tomorrow, we'll wake up bright and early and visit a bunch of dress shops in London and see what we can find that fits on such short notice. I promise you that we'll find something stunning."

Fleur smiled widely, her cheeks still tear stained, and nodded. "Oh, thank you, Bree. You are too kind to me."

I shrugged with a smile. "That's what friends are for, right?"

Her grin widened, before Fleur turned her gaze to the others. "And you three – you were so kind and helpful today trying to save my dress. I would love it if you all came to the wedding on Saturday."

"Hell yeah!" Katie burst out as the others grinned and nodded.

"That's so kind, we'd love to," Alicia said, as I heard Katie mutter something to Angelina about how nice it would be to attend a wedding that didn't involve something catching fire for once.

"It's going to be a beautiful wedding, I'm telling ya," I said to Fleur. She nodded with a grin, before her eyes dropped down to the disaster she was wearing.

"I'm going to go get this thing off," she said sheepishly.

"It's for the best," Angelina said. "I'll pour some wine! We can forget about the whole thing over a bottle!"

"I would love that," Fleur laughed. As she headed out to get changed, the rest of us went in the opposite direction and entered the kitchen. Angelina and Katie begun unloading bottles from Katie's snack bag, and I whistled.

"Jeez, how much did you bring?"

"When you described the situation, it sounded like a disaster, so we figured we'd be getting drunk at some point," Katie shrugged. "Besides, seems like Fleur's our friend now, and nothing says 'new friend bonding' like a good but cheap bottle of red!"

I couldn't help but agree with that assessment.

THE WEDDING NEXT! I'm so bloody excited! Hope you all are too!