Chapter Twenty-Three

Hannah felt the hand on her arm pulling as her as she apparated, adding weight and throwing her off-balance. She desperately hoped she wouldn't splinch herself or whoever it was hanging onto her as they were crushed by the air around them as they travelled. Hannah had been wanting to apparate straight into her sister's room, where she had disapparated from to get to Hogwarts, but in the split second from her arm being grabbed she changed the destination to the first one she had used last time she apparated to her sister's wedding venue, behind the trees surrounding the car park in case she needed to escape whoever it was.

They landed together on the soft ground and tumbled over. Hannah quickly checked herself all over and was relieved to find she hadn't splinched, then she looked at who her travelling companion had been and was surprised to see Sergei turn to look at her.

'Hannah!' he said, getting to his feet to come over to her. 'Are you alright?'

'Sergei?' she said, he was the last person she had expected. 'What are you doing here? I mean, why did you grab me? Sergei, I could have splinched you!'

'I didn't know' he said, 'I didn't know you were apparating, I never would have, I'm sorry.'

'I'm sorry' she said. 'But why were you there? I thought you were in the Great Hall with your team?'

'I wanted to see you' he said. 'I wanted to say congratulations, but you ran out of the room before I could. I thought maybe something was wrong, why else would you run away when you had just won, when you are captain of team that just won. So I run after you, I try to help you, but you ran fast, I couldn't catch up. Then you stop, so I go to, to shake hand, to hug maybe, and this happen.'

Hannah hadn't dreamt that anyone was capable of keeping track of someone else in all the chaos in the Great Hall when she had slipped away, she thought she'd managed to get away without anyone realising but it seemed Sergei had been keen to watch her and this embarrassed her which she couldn't explain why.

'I..' she said, but she couldn't find any words, she didn't know what to say. 'This is my sister's wedding' she said, thinking he probably would appreciate an explanation even though he hadn't even asked for one. 'I'm a bridesmaid but she doesn't know I've been at Hogwarts for the competition, I told her it's tomorrow so she wouldn't worry.'

'Your sister's wedding?' he was so surprised. 'You have been bridesmaid at wedding as well as the duelling today? You are remarkable Hannah' he said and before Hannah really knew what was happening, his arms were around her and his lips were on hers.

Hannah had never had a boyfriend, she'd never had a kiss before, and the whole world seemed to disappear around her and there was only her and Sergei and nothing else.

They broke apart and looked at each other, both grinning hugely.

'Right' said Hannah, not really sure what to say.

'Was that ok?' asked Sergei. 'Should I not have?'

'Yes' said Hannah, 'I mean no, yes it was ok, yes you should have.'

He kissed her again but a shorter kiss this time before he said 'Should you not be at the wedding?'

'The wedding!' said Hannah, she had completely forgotten about the wedding. She grabbed his hand and pulled him after her as she ran through the trees out into the car park and ran for the entrance of the hotel.

Once they were inside they rushed up to Cassie's room and Hannah opened the door with her wand, and let them both inside. She left Sergei waiting whilst she got changed back into her bridesmaid dress in the bathroom and when she came out in the beautiful purple dress, he just said 'Beautiful!' before he kissed her again.

At that moment, the door to the room opened and Cassie came in.

'Are you in here Han-Han? Are you feeling any better?' she said softly as she slowly and quietly opened the door. Hannah and Sergei broke apart just as Cassie opened the door wide enough to see them and she was stunned by what she saw.

'Hannah?!' she asked incredulously.

'Cassie' said Hannah, 'It's not how it looks'

'You left my wedding meal to go and snog a boy in my room?' asked Cassie, seeming to disbelieve it even as she said the words.

'No!' said Hannah. 'It's not like that at all.'

'That's what it looks like Han' Cassie said putting her hands on her hips now.

'No' said Sergei. 'She tell truth, really. Hannah, tell her what happened, please. Your honour is in tact, truly, she must know this.'

'Go on then' said Cassie, raising an eyebrow and waiting for an explanation.

Hannah told her everything, about the competition being on the same day, about her and their mum's plan of hiding it from her, about apparating between the two places and even why her legs had been going crazy in the ceremony earlier in the day. And she told her how Sergei had come to accidentally be there with her and then she was too embarrassed to say how they had then had their first kiss but Cassie was kind enough not to ask.

Cassie was happy to be introduced to Sergei and they kind of fumbled around what to call him and Hannah's heart did a little skip when she questioningly asked her if boyfriend was ok. So the three of them went back down to the wedding reception where they were waiting for Cassie to come back so that they could cut the cake.

Cassie hadn't wanted Hannah to miss the cake cutting as it was a muggle tradition that Hannah had read about in one of the muggle wedding magazines that Martha had bought for Cassie and she thought it was very sweet so Cassie wanted to make sure she was there for it.

When they got down into the reception room again, everyone was waiting for them and Hannah thought she saw one of her uncles tucking away his wand into his pocket. She eyed him suspiciously but she knew they wouldn't do anything that the muggles would see, they might have had a few drinks but they knew better than that.

She got some funny looks as she came back to the wedding not only looking like she had never been ill, which of course she hadn't been, but also now holding hands with a boy dressed in Durmstrang robes! But no-one said anything, they were too anxiously waiting for the cake cutting.

Cassie went over to join Brian by the cake.

'Who's that?' he whispered to her, nodding towards Sergei.

'Hannah's boyfriend' whispered back Cassie. 'Everything's alright, don't worry about it'

'Ok' said Brian to the guests gathered round. 'It's time to cut the cake!' There was a cheer from Cassie's family which confused Brian a little but he was just glad they were enjoying it.

They took hold of the cake knife together, one hand each on it and pushed the knife slowly down into the cake.

As they reached the bottom of the cake, the most unexpected thing happened, and a host of golden and purple butterflies erupted from inside the cake, fluttering out and filling the room.

Cassie and Brian looked at each other stunned for a moment, but then they basked in the glorious magicalness of it all, knowing they'd explain it away as pre-planned to the muggles there and loving their special magical moment.

~~~~ fin ~~~~