The Importance of Being Different
Dress Shopping

When they had got home from their lunch that afternoon Anne and Irwin sat down to have a very important conversation with Olivia.

“Ok Livi, you’re a big girl, aren’t you?” asked Irwin.

Olivia nodded.

“And big girls sleep in their own beds,” said Anne, “there’s a spare room on the fourth floor that you can move into if you want.”

“But I like staying with you!” sulked Olivia.

“You slept on your own when I was away with Harry and Hermione,” Anne pointed out.

“But that was different,” said Olivia sticking her bottom lip out, “I have Diana.”

“You still can have Diana,” said Irwin.

“How old is Teddy?” asked Irwin.

“Twenty months.”

“And how old are you?”

“Six.”

“Exactly,” said Anne, “so if Teddy can sleep in his own room so can you.”

Olivia still looked unimpressed.

“Remus and Tonks share a room, don’t they?”

“Because they’re married and they’re a mummy and daddy,” nodded Olivia.

“Right, well in a few months me and Annie are getting married and we are going to want our own room.”

“Diana can stay with me?” asked Olivia.

“Yes,” Anne nodded.

“Ok,” Olivia shrugged running to go and start moving her things.

“I thought that was going to go so much worse,” muttered Anne in relief once Olivia had left.

And so Olivia moved into her own room and Anne and Irwin hit the books. In three months, they were going to be finishing off their magical education.

Anne sat at the kitchen table the day after the visit to the ministry and she had a huge piece of card paper. She was drawing out a calendar for the next four months and filling in the important dates such as 31st December Dora’s due date, the dates of her exams and 5th of April wedding day.

Once she had done that, she started colour coding the boxes with colouring pencils with what subject she was supposed to be studying on each day.

“What are you doing Anne?” asked Harry as he flopped down at the table.

Today was a Saturday so he didn’t have training today.

“Revision timetable,” muttered Anne as she coloured one of boxes half red for charms and half purple for History of Magic.

“You don’t need to study, hell you don’t even those exams!”

“Just because you got given your job without taken your exams,” she muttered, “doesn’t mean I will. I would be a bit of a hypocrite working for the Department of Education and I didn’t have a single qualification.”

“Whatever sis,” said Harry shaking his head, “I’m going to The Burrow.”

“Whats all this?” asked Tonks as she came into the kitchen.

“Revision timetable,” said Anne.

“I can see that but aren’t we meant to be doing something today?”

“What?” asked Anne looking up from her timetable.

“We’re going shopping, the Scamanders and Luna are going to be here in ten minutes.”

“What?” asked Anne dropping her pencil.

“Wedding dress shopping!” said Anne as she ran out of the room to get out of her pyjamas. She had somehow completely forgotten that today they were going wedding dress shopping.

She quickly pulled on a pair of jeans and a jumper with a pair of trainers before brushing out her hair into a quick ponytail.

She rushed back down to the kitchen where Gwen, Luna, and Tonks were all waiting for her.

Gwen and Luna had been tidying the kitchen table and putting the pencils and timetable on the kitchen dresser.

“You ready for some fun?” asked Gwen.

“Yeah,” nodded Anne as they all headed out of the house.

They were all wearing muggle dress and winter coats because it was mid-December. They took a muggle taxi to a wedding boutique.

Luna was going to be Anne’s maid of honour but today was all about Anne. They were going to have quick look at the bridesmaid’s dresses today so Anne could see what she liked and then Gwen was going to go shopping with Luna, Aislynn and Olivia another day.

They got out of the taxi and walked into the boutique.

“Hello,” said the assistant, “I’m Louise, can I help you today?”

“Hi,” said Gwen, “we are the Potter Scamander wedding party, we’ve come to look at some wedding dresses.”

“And who is the bride?” asked Louise.

“Well it’s not me,” said Tonks as she looked at her massive stomach.

“You never know, some people leave it pretty late,” chuckled Louise.

“What walking up the aisle three weeks before the due date? They must be mad!”

“This is Anne,” Gwen said putting her arm around her, “she’s marrying my son Irwin.”

“So you must be the mother of the bride?” asked Louise turning to Tonks.

Anne stared down at her trainers.

“Anne’s parents died when she was a little girl,” said Tonks, “my husband Remus brought her up.”

“So, when’s the big day?”

“April 5th,” said Gwen, “I’m doing most of the organising.”

Gwen and Tonks sat down whilst Anne started going through the dresses with Luna.

“What sort of colour do you want?” asked Louise.

“I don’t know,” said Anne, “whites traditional but it’s a bit….”

“Boring?” suggested Luna.

“Yes,” Anne chuckled.

“Irwin likes you in pink,” said Luna, “and that gold dress you wore at Fleurs dress was beautiful.”

“You can’t go too bright though on the pink,” said Louise looking at Anne’s red hair, “maybe a dusty rose or a very light pink?”

“Hmmm,” said Anne as she started going through the dresses.

“You got any ideas about hair?”

“Irwin said he wanted me to wear my hair down when we were talking the other day,” said Anne.

“Ooh,” exclaimed Luna, “if you’re wearing it down how about wildflowers in your hair?”

“Flower crowns can be beautiful,” said Louise, “especially at a Spring wedding.”

“Crowns are pretty, but you could weave some flowers in as well,” said Luna dreamily as she played with a lock of Anne’s hair.

“What do you think Anne?” asked Louise.

“I do love flowers,” she nodded.

“Are you quite traditional when it comes to clothes?”

“Yes,” said Anne.

“Do you want long or short?”

“Long but I don’t want to trip over it,” she chuckled.

“Let’s try some three quarters, why don’t you try some of these on,” said Louise picking a dozen different dresses of varying cuts and colours from the rack.

Anne hated trying on clothes, but it wasn’t as bad as it could have been because Luna was helping her change in and out of the dresses.

Some of the dresses where an off white, others were a light gold. A few of the dresses had very full skirts whereas some had no underskirts at all.

She tried on at least two dozen dresses; Luna had to keep helping her do up the corsets at the back of the dresses.

The problem was Anne couldn’t replace a dress that she liked. Some of them were too long so she kept tripping over them, a lot of dresses were to glitzy and had sequins on them. The main problem was that all the dresses were far too big on her because she was so skinny so even once Luna had done up the corsets Anne was still swimming in them.

Anne was trying on one of the dresses for a second time, it was a very light pink and not quite floor length with a very full skirt. The only problem was that it was very heavy as the skirt had so many petticoats, and of course she was swimming in the thing.

“It is gorgeous,” said Gwen.

“The colours good,” said Tonks as she ate her twentieth finger sandwich, “but you could fit three Anne’s in that dress.”

“We could get it altered,” suggested Gwen.

“I don’t know the dress just doesn’t feel right,” muttered Anne as she turned around, “the skirts too heavy.”

“And the neckline,” said Luna, “it doesn’t suit you.”

“It’s the best we’ve seen so far,” said Tonks, “a few alterations and we’ve got a dress.”

“Wait a moment,” said Louise, “we might have something in the back.”

Luna helped Anne untie the corset at the back of Anne’s dress whilst Louise went back to the backroom.

Anne sighed slightly; they had been here for hours.

“Just one more Anne,” said Gwen, “if we can’t replace it today, we can come back another time, the weddings not till April.”

Louise came back into the shop with a dress in a bag.

“This dress got returned a few years back,” said Louise, “the bride said it didn’t fit, it had been custom made but the bride changed her mind about the style of dress she wanted. We’ve had this in the backroom ever since because it’s far too small for most brides.”

“Let’s go try it in on,” said Luna as she helped Anne out of the other dress in the changing room, and Louise took the other dress out of the bag.

The dress was a very light cream and three-quarter length. Luna helped Anne it on over her head and then did up the light pink velvet ribbons on the corset.

The dress was cream floral lace and had capped sleeves. As Luna did up the ribbons on the corset, Anne for once didn’t feel like the dress was too big on her, it was a perfect fit.

“Just a moment,” said Luna before she turned Anne to face the mirror.

She pulled Anne’s hair out of the ponytail and let it hang loose all the way down her back. She then pulled a white poinsettia out of her own hair and placed it behind Anne’s ear.

Luna nodded and they walked out of the dressing room to where the others were waiting.

“Oh My God,” said Tonks as Anne walked back out.

“I think I can see why Irwin calls you his auburn locked goddess,” said Gwen as she looked at her daughter in law to be.

“It’s just a dress,” said Anne blushing.

“Yes, but it’s the girl who makes the dress,” said Louise.

“Now the question is,” said Luna, “do we send Irwin a picture of the dress or do we wait him wait till April?”

“Make him wait,” said Tonks as she picked up another sandwich.

“It will be more of a surprise on the day,” nodded Gwen.

“I don’t know much about this wedding yet,” said Anne, “but what I do know is that this is going to be the best day of my life.”

“I thought that was ten days ago with Tom,” muttered Luna dreamily.

“Tom is gone, Irwin and I get to spend the rest of our live together,” she beamed.

“Do we want to take a quick look at bridesmaids dresses?” asked Gwen once Luna had helped Anne out of the dress.

“Sure,” said Anne, they had already been in there six hours, but she wanted to get an idea for the bridesmaid’s dresses.

“So,” said Louise as she set the wedding dress aside to be wrapped up later, “how many bridesmaids do we have what coloured hair?”

“Well Luna’s maid of honour, and then Aislynn is Irwin’s little sister and has dark hair, and then there’s just Olivia our flower girl.”

“Light blue?” asked Louise.

“I like blue,” beamed Luna.

“Could we do light blue with bronze accessories?” asked Gwen.

“Strange combination,” muttered Louise, “but it could work.”

Anne eventually picked out a very light blue floaty material that reminded her of Cinderella, and some hair slides with bronze roses on them. Gwen was going to be coming back in a few weeks with the girls to pick out some dresses now that they knew what Anne wanted.

“Will you be paying for the wedding dress today?”

“Yes,” said Gwen getting out her purse.

“Will that be card or cheque?”

“Erm,” said Gwen confused as she looked at Anne for advice.

“No,” Anne said laughing slightly, “cash.”

“You carry a thousand pounds in cash?” asked Louise.

“We knew we might be buying a wedding dress today,” said Anne, “so we went to the bank.”

It was true they had gone to the bank, but Gringotts to exchange a large number of galleons from the Scamander vault into pounds.

Gwen counted out twenty fifty-pound notes and handed them to Louise.

“I’ll get this wrapped up for you,” said Louise after she had put the cash in the till.

Louise came back a few moments later with Anne’s wedding dress in a white cardboard box tied with a bright red ribbon.

“Thank you so much for all your help,” said Anne.

“We’ll see you in a few weeks for the bridesmaids,” said Gwen waving goodbye to Louise as they left the boutique.

Anne headed home and Anne took the dress up to her room and put it away safely. Then Luna helped her colour code the rest of her timetable.

She duplicated the time table and hung one up on the wall in the kitchen, and the other one was hung up over her bed.

She couldn’t believe that in less than four months she would be marrying Irwin.