The Choices We Make ∆ Harry Potter Sister

Chapter 5.4

Ellie ran her the palm of her hands down the familiar ivy green lace, smoothing them as she sat on the dining table in the kitchen across from Sirius whom was sharing stories with Remus' father, Lyal. The kitchen was connected to the sitting room, where her newly wed godfather swayed to Al Green's Let's Stay Together along with her wife, a permanent smile painted on their faces. She had never been to a wedding before, but she would bet on her wand that this would be the best she would ever attend. It was a small wedding, simple, but beautiful nonetheless. There was no decoration what soever around the house where the wedding was being held, the food was cooked by the bride's mother herself, and the music was a compilation of vinyl records own by Sirius and the father of both the groom and the bride.

With her feet perched on the stretcher and her arm rested on the crest rail, she leaned her cheek onto her palm dreamily, letting herself be mesmerised by the magic that was love. If love was a colour, it would not be as red as a rose, or as pink as a Valentine's card. No, it would be something warmer, softer, yet bolder, because that was what love is, that was what her godfather had shown her. He was warm and kind, yet bold and brave. He had let himself be vulnerable enough to acknowledge the love he felt for the amazing woman that was Nymphadora Tonks. He had let himself show courage when he put his utter and complete trust in the fact that she could love him for who he was, even his lycanthrope, not despite it.

"I believe I owe you a dance at the Yule Ball," called an all too familiar husky voice, with a small smile etched on his lips, his dark eyes warm compared to their usually hard and calculating gaze. He stood in front of her, donned in a white button down which sleeves he rolled up to his elbow and a pair of black slacks. Ellie could not help but appreciate how simplicity often brought out the beauty in things, and even in people. When she merely gave him a look, he let out a low chuckle as he drew his hand in front of her, "Come on, you're the only one sitting around."

Looking around, she was indeed the only one sitting around, as Sirius and Lyal had disappeared from the kitchen, probably joining the rest of the guest in the sitting room or choosing another record to play. Still, she would not gave him the satisfaction of being plainly right. "There are only six guests, Xenyk, eight if you count the groom and the bride. You can't pull that card."

"Still, it's a beautiful vedding," he told her with a shrug, hand still drawn, "Vot a shame to have a beautiful girl in a beautiful dress sitting around."

She had to give credit to his persistence, as she finally let her high top, mason grey Converse - the only pair of shoes she own besides her old battered pair, and a birthday gift from the young man whose hand was drawn for her to take - making contact with the wooden floor of the house where Tonks had grown up in. Taking his hand, she let him guide her out of the kitchen and into the sitting room where the newly wed was still swaying to the music echoing from the turntable, joined by the bride's parents - Ted and Andromeda Tonks.

With his hands placed gently on her waist, and her hands on his shoulders, he led her through the first notes of Louis Armstrong's La Vie en Rose, the sound of his trumpet guides their every step. Ellie was quite sure Louis Armstrong was a muggle musician, as she had heard his songs before she went to Hogwarts, but there was no doubt that there was magic swirling out of the turntable with every note blown on the trumpet. With every beat and every waltz, she found herself closer and closer to Xenyk, until her hands were locked behind his neck, his hands circling her waist, and their body pressed against each other with the lace of her dress and the cotton of his shirt being the only barrier between their skin. She rested her head on his chest, humming to the jazzy tune that was left on repeat. Her emerald green eyes were hidden beneath their lids, and the world around her seemed to disappear into rose coloured glass, leaving only her, the sweet jazz whispering in her ears, and the young man whose hands were intertwined behind her back, the young man who in the span of three years had turned from a stranger into her home. Home.