[Dahliental Christmas market] It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas (Nice)

It hadn’t been easy to get time off briefly before the Christmas break but Louise had somehow managed it. She wanted to meet her friend Bérénice in Dahliental and get into a festive mood. Somehow with her new job she had entirely failed to do proper Christmas shopping and hadn’t even started to decorate her room at Hogwarts yet. It seemed to her as though time was just passing too quickly these days, leaving her barely time to actually enjoy the season.

She had been exchanging owls with Bérénice for weeks now. They had wanted to meet for a while already but had not been able to make time for it until now. Louise reached Dahliental in the late afternoon when it was already getting dark. While the wind was quite chilly it wasn’t too cold overall; not cold enough for snow anyway.

Walking to the entrance of the Christmas market, Louise pulled up the collar of her dark blue coat and hoped that the slight drizzle would stop before long. However, she forgot about the unpleasantness of the weather as soon as she spotted her friend.

“Bérénice!” she exclaimed, waving at her as she tried to find a way through the crowd to approach her. “Lovely to see you,” she said once she reached her, leaning in for a brief hug. “This place looks so beautiful! No surprise that so many people came here. I hope you haven’t been waiting for me for too long.” She glanced around, admiring the decorations of the stalls nearby. “Where do you want to start? Some mulled wine first and then some shopping?” Louise was quite hopeful that she’d find a perfect gift for Sam but getting mulled wine seemed like a good way to start their time at the Christmas market.

“How have you been?” She then asked, looking at the Beauxbatons professor. It felt like they had so much to catch up on. Their letters had, after all, been rather short and basically focused on making arrangements to meet so they could talk properly.

@Bérénice Bonaccord

Bérénice readjusted her scarf and pulled the collar of her light tan wrap coat tighter to stop the draught on the back of her neck. Her other hand was holding her wand upright, keeping the umbrella charm active as she stood in the drizzle awaiting her friend. She hadn’t been to Dahliental in some time -- since she was in her mid-twenties, she thought at a guess, even though much of her extended family still resided here. It hadn’t changed at all, and upon her walk through the market to the meeting point she’d given Louise, she thought she might have to make more of an effort to return -- at least around Christmastime, when the village was transformed into a winter wonderland.

A fraction less wonderful when it was raining rather than snowing, but they’d make do.

Nice heard her name called out and turned to scan the crowd until she spotted the auburn-haired witch. “Louise,” she greeted her warmly, placing her free hand on the Englishwoman’s upper arms and kissing each cheek in turn. ”You too,” she smiled, not yet removing her hand from Louise’s sleeve. “Isn’t it?” she agreed, then shook her head when she was asked if she had been waiting long; “No, not at all.”

“Wine sounds perfect,” Berénice grinned, swapping sides with Louise to hold her wand between them, her umbrella charm stretching out a little further to keep them both dry as they began walking into the market proper. “Do you have many people to buy for? Your fiancé?” Nice smirked, nudging her softly with her elbow. “You’ll have to tell me how he proposed.”

“I’ve been well. Sorry I haven’t written in so long—” The French witch couldn’t remember the last time she’d written Louise before a few weeks ago, much less seen her in person. “I thought working at the hospital was busy,” she smiled wryly. “And you? A professor now too? How is that going?”

“I’m glad,” Louise said, relieved to hear that she hadn’t kept her friend waiting in this unpleasant weather for too long. She was rarely late but due to some unfortunate miscalculations on her part she had not arrived as early as she’d have liked to anyway.

She was glad that Bérénice seemed to like her plan of getting some mulled wine first. That surely would let them forget about the less ideal weather, too. However, Louise was already forgetting about that due to her friend holding her wand with the active umbrella charm over them both.

“Not many,” Louise responded and grinned when Nice nudged her with her elbow. “And of course! I definitely need something for Sam. To be honest, I’m mostly hoping to find something special for him and possibly his daughter here. Everything else isn’t quite as important. I can place some owl orders for the rest. How about yourself? Do you have many people to buy presents for?”

She couldn’t help but smile widely as she thought about Sam’s proposal, but, as they were walking through the crowd now, she felt it wasn’t quite the right moment to talk about it. “I’ll tell you all about it,” she offered, “but let’s get the wine first and find a comparably quiet corner to chat.”

Louise laughed softly as Bérénice spoke about how busy she was. “I know, right?! I underestimated the workload as a professor for sure!” The English witch shook her head, grinning a little. “I must say, I do enjoy teaching, though. I hope you do, too. It’s a good feeling to be able to influence new generations of witches and wizards and pass knowledge on to them that might help them find their way in life. Besides, I rather like having a schedule to stick to and be organised. However, if I’m entirely honest, I would never have applied at Hogwarts would Sam not teach there as well. I actually applied quite spontaneously, did I ever mention that?” Louise chuckled as she thought about that very special day when her whole life had changed quite a bit. Since they hadn’t seen each other since before that day, the Hogwarts professor felt quite certain that she had not really told her friend a lot about what kind of a spur of the moment thing her application had been.

“Okay,” she said, although they hadn’t reached the stall with the mulled wine yet, “I met Sam at the Highland Dunoon during the summer and we got to talk about Hogwarts and teaching…” Louise smiled to herself as she remembered that wonderful day. “Well, somehow we were first hypothetically discussing which subjects I would be interested in teaching and then we ended up talking about what I’d do with the gallery and planning to write that job application. And…”

She stopped walking and turned to Bérénice, “and then he led me to a beautiful place by the loch…” Louise smiled reminiscently. “Suddenly he was kneeling in front of me and proposed. I honestly hadn’t been expecting this, but it was a perfect moment, a perfect surprise. The scenery was stunning and…” she held out her hand, “he chose the most beautiful ring,” she said with a dreamy sigh.

“Oh, I forgot he had a daughter!” Bérénice said with an apologetic but excited grin. “At least shopping for little girls is easier than for grown men,” she joked with a roll of her warm brown eyes -- shopping for a very specific grown man, who already had everything he could ever need or want, especially.

“I—” Nice stopped and smiled guiltily -- coming Christmas shopping with not many people to buy for seemed silly, but she had wanted to catch up with Louise and this had seemed like the best excuse. Besides, it wasn’t that she already had all her presents sorted, she just didn’t have a large family to purchase for. “Not really,” she admitted. “But I might get a couple of things if I see them. And it can be good to pop things away for birthdays,” she said, her mind already thinking ahead to the next year.

Nice clutched gently at Louise’s arm and squeezed it, letting out an accompanying quiet noise of delight as she hunched her shoulders up -- it hadn’t been that long, but still long enough that it was about time and Bérénice was happy for her friend.

“I— Yes, I do,” enjoy it, that was -- but she still had that niggling thought that she was missing out on a whole other life while she was cooped up in the palace. It wasn’t so hard for Louise, surely, because Sam was with her. Bérénice didn’t have that luxury. Louise seemed to read her mind, mentioning Sam being the very reason for her application in the first place. “No, you didn’t,” the French witch smiled, “but I was the same -- applied on a bit of a whim, and now look.” She shrugged with a soft smirk.

They hadn’t yet reached the mulled wine stand but Louise clearly couldn’t contain herself. Bérénice kept her eyes on the cobbles as the other woman told her the story, smiling wider with every additional detail and glancing sideways at her friend as she reached the part where her fiancé got on one knee, pausing in the street with her. “Oh, Louise,” Nice took the Englishwoman’s fingertips in hers and tilted her hand back and forth, letting the light hit the stone. “It’s stunning,” she gushed, her eyes crinkling at the corners -- it was hard not to be reminded of her own engagement ring, though they didn’t look alike, and of all the ensuing emotions and drama that followed. Of course, Louise wasn’t going to go through any of that with Sam, from what Bérénice had heard of him.

“I feel like we should be having champagne instead of mulled wine! Do you have any idea of when the wedding will be yet?”

Louise laughed as her friend stated that it was easier to get presents for little girls than for grown men. That was true, of course. However, the English witch felt that Sam would appreciate whichever present she’d get for him whereas she wasn’t sure what his daughter really thought about her. She might get her the most perfect gift and yet end up not hearing a nice word from the girl. They hadn’t really had a chance to talk a lot and Louise was worried that the girl would not want her to marry her father.

“Yes, that’s definitely a good idea,” Louise agreed. “I like buying presents for people whenever I see something that seems to suit them. The thing is, I sometimes forget that I bought something months ago!” She laughed again. “I bought a necklace for my mother once… that was several months before her birthday. I even wrapped it nicely and stored it in a drawer. When her birthday came, I had totally forgotten about the present and went looking for something else. I only found it weeks later…” She shrugged. It hadn’t been a big deal, after all. Her mother had received the necklace the next Christmas and she had loved it.

Louise hadn’t been aware that Bérénice’s decision to become a professor had been equally spontaneous but it felt nice to have this in common. “I didn’t know,” she said softly. “Sometimes spontaneous decisions are the best.” She wasn’t really sure about this. However, so far she at least wasn’t regretting her decision yet.

As Bérénice admired her ring, Louise smiled brightly. Talking and thinking about the day that Sam had proposed always made her feel thoroughly happy. It had been a great day. In her memory everything had been perfect. When she thought about it she couldn’t really remember a single thing that hadn’t been right. It was funny how even the smallest details had helped to paint a perfect picture.

“Maybe you’re right!” the English witch said brightly. “Champagne it is. And it’s on me, of course.” After a little pause she remembered that she hadn’t answered Nice’s question.

“We haven’t set a date yet,” she admitted. “After we got engaged, my start at Hogwarts kept me so busy that I haven’t really given the wedding a lot of thought. We’ll have to discuss it properly one of these days. I think a summer wedding would be nice. I just hope that Sam and I have the same idea of what our wedding should be like.” She chuckled softly. Truth be told, she wasn’t really concerned. They’d surely figure something out that would work for them both.

Sometimes spontaneous decisions are the best. Bérénice smiled, mostly to herself -- all of the recent good things (in her opinion) that had happened had been a result of living life more spontaneously (perhaps one bad thing, but she was choosing not to focus on that -- him, rather). “Sometimes,” she repeated belatedly with a forced twitch of her lips.

“Oh, don’t be silly,” Nice said dismissively when Louise offered to pay for the champagne. “I will pay, I insist,” she said sternly before smirking softly; “You’ve got a wedding to pay for now.”

They continued on through the market, side-by-side, with Bérénice allowing her English companion to lead them in whichever direction she preferred. The brunette nodded along as Louise explained their lack of plans as of yet. “Oh, I can imagine,” Nice smiled wanly; when she had been engaged, her focus had been on her work too. She couldn’t decide if she was busier now--as a professor herself--or back then. Probably now -- it felt like they never truly left work. “Summer would be lovely, though,” she agreed readily, gesturing at the rain falling around them. “In England, I assume? I suppose that’s no guarantee of sunshine.”

Louise wondered what her friend was thinking when she smiled about her comment on spontaneous decisions and took her time to repeat the word ‘sometimes’. She didn’t want to pry, though. If there was something that Bérénice wanted to share with her, she felt sure that she’d do so.

She laughed when Bérénice insisted on paying for the champagne and said that Louise herself had the wedding to pay for. “Thank you,” she said, realising that there was no point in arguing here. “Funnily Sam and I haven’t even discussed if we want a small or a bigger wedding. I think, however, that we’ll agree that it doesn’t need to be very big. Just family and some friends… Then again,” she laughed at the thought, “it’ll be so hard to draw the line of who to invite and who to leave out.”

As Bérénice asked if the wedding would take place in England, Louise nodded. “Yes, I suppose so,” she agreed. “I wouldn’t know where else to have it. Maybe Sam has some ideas, though. We really need to make the time to address the topic properly. Somehow we’ve been way too busy with other things to talk about it much.”

Louise smiled and shook her head slightly. “I guess if we don’t start talking about details soon it’ll be years until we’ll marry,” she joked. They were approaching the stand where drinks were served and the drizzle seemed to have stopped by now.