Traditions were odd things. Although she thought of herself as a thoroughly modern girl, a part of her hankered for a past when convention made things stricter but so much simpler. Take love, for example. One hundred years ago, she would not have been in the mess she was in now. Society’s mores would not have allowed it.
She sat by her dressing table, staring into the mirror. The face looking back looked wan. She tried a smile “ he had always loved her smile “ but it looked false. Her drab, brown hair fell lankly to her chin, and with a sigh, she realised she wasn’t that girl anymore. No longer laughing and effervescent, she looked older, harder and weary.
As she moved across to the window, wondering if he’d appear, her attention was caught by an old journal; one they’d discovered two years before when she’d been in the first ridiculous flush of love. Her great-grandmother’s etiquette lore, dusty with disuse, had provided them both with amusement when he’d unearthed it at the old house. Back then, they had laughed together, a shared joke at her august family’s expense.
She wondered if he remembered those days now.
A letter may be exchanged between the prospective groom’s father to the prospective bride’s father to start the proceedings.
His father had died when he was seventeen, a pointless death and one that still ached to his core, shattering his strength.
Her father had gone, and he knew enough about her mother to know she would not be pleased to hear his suit. But he sent his missive anyway, asking for permission to speak to her daughter. Her mother had read the note and then tossed it across the table, making it clear that although she disapproved, she would leave it all in her daughter’s hands.
If the father of the witch is agreeable to the match, then the young wizard may proceed with the next step and send a small corsage with the head house-elf and a billet-doux asking if he could take tea with her in her parents’ parlour.
She looked at the corsage on her pillow. It hadn’t been delivered by the head house-elf from his manor, for he had neither. He lived in a squalid bedsit and the last time he’d seen a house-elf it had not shown him anything approaching respect. Instead, she believed that he had levitated it through her open window at dusk, knowing she would see it when she entered her bedroom. It was a pale-pink lily, the kind of flower no one would associate with her and yet ...
He’s knows what I like, she thought ruefully, remembering a particularly wonderful day in the summer when they’d taken a walk in a meadow near her home and splashed in the shallows of a pond covered in lilies.
“I wish every day could be like this,” he murmured in her ear as they lay down on the grass together, wet limbs entangled.
“Days of permanent sunshine, no nights and no darkness,” she agreed.
He smiled at her. “I don’t mind the nights, not when I can share them with you.”
“For always and ever,” she replied, then stopped because now he was bestowing soft as petal kisses on her mouth and gathering her close.
There was a note pinned to her pillow underneath the flower. ‘Please. Can we talk?’
She inhaled the delicate fragrance. The bright orange pollen dusted her nose, making her sneeze uncontrollably, yet she smiled. Thinking carefully, she sent a message to her ‘young wizard’, telling him to come over this afternoon. She, too, would like to talk.
If the assignation in her parents’ parlour proves agreeable, then the young wizard may send his lady-love a gift “ gloves, perhaps, or chocolate-coated cherries.
She supposed the talk had gone well. At least they had not argued and her mother had remained silent, though obviously biting her tongue. She had tried not to look into his eyes as they silently implored her. And she had resisted his attempt to kiss her on the mouth, turning her head so he ended up clumsily touching his mouth to her earlobe.
On her dressing table the next morning, she found a lilac-coloured heart-shaped box containing chocolates “ Honeydukes' finest “ but the taste was cloying and she pushed them to one side.
Of course, she thought feeling a lump in her throat, he doesn’t know.
If the young witch (and her parents) find the second gift acceptable, then the young wizard can be invited again to the parlour for tea, and this time the young couple will be allowed a few minutes alone.
She hadn’t eaten the chocolates, but her mother had, and so she let him call again. She allowed herself to listen to the heartfelt speech declaring his love and begging forgiveness, but then her mother walked in and the pair of them started bickering. She left the room, tears welling in her eyes, and heard him storming out of the house, annoyed at her mother’s intransigence.
If the second visit is agreeable to the courting couple, then the young wizard may send the object of his affections another gift “ something to trim her Sunday-best bonnet with.
Of course, the second visit had not been agreeable, but she had hoped that he would not give up, not now he was certain of his feelings. And yet, it had been a week and she’d received nothing.
A noise from outside the window tore her eyes away from the mirror. She gasped half in fright, half in delight, as an old burnished silver box began to tap at the pane. Unfastening the window latch, she giggled as the box floated down to her dressing table. She could see no one outside, but there was a suspicious looking shadow lurking by the front gate. So she opened the box and found it full to the brim of brightly coloured ribbons. She ran them through her fingers, delighting in the myriad of colours, and swirled them around in the air.
And if the young witch accepts the young wizard’s favour, then she will trim her Sunday bonnet with the ribbon and thus declare her intent.
She laughed loudly and danced around the room. “I don’t have a bonnet, you prat,” she yelled to the empty air, “but I know what to do with these.”
He was waiting outside the house, hoping for a miracle, when she appeared. She had no Sunday bonnet “ he knew that “ but instead, she’d weaved the ribbons through her hair, matching the colours to every tress. She smiled that wide smile “ the smile that lit up his life “ and held out her arms to him.
“Great-Grandmama Black would not approve,” she said and rolled her eyes dramatically.
“Great-Grandmama Black could not disapprove. I have followed all the steps.”
“But most people,” she said as he held her close (or as close as he could with ‘the bump’ in between them) “do their courtship before they’re married, and not when the wife is pregnant.”
Remus kissed her tenderly on the lips. “Since when have we been ‘most people’, Dora?”