“We’re going to have to do something about that scar, though, Annie. It’s hideous, completely ruins the impact of the dress. You can’t very well get married displaying it. People know you’re a werewolf, dear but you don’t need to broadcast it.”

“Yes mother.”

Hannah Bombay nervously placed a hand over the scar on her arm. She knew what it looked like. Unlike her tactless mother, Hannah had to look at the mark every day. She never had it visible in public and rarely in the house. Even throughout the hot summer days the healer had worn long sleeved tops just to cover up the offensive mark marring her otherwise perfect skin.

Cindy Bombay was staring at her daughter’s left forearm, taking in the atrocity that seemed to offend her so much.
“You’re a healer, Annie. You should know how to get rid of a scar.”

“Yes mother.”

“And stand up straight, girl. Don’t slouch. It doesn’t become you. You’re short enough already.” Her bright blue eyes slid over her daughter’s body as Hannah stood a bit straighter, staring down at the floor. “Good, it holds in that extra podge you seem to have picked up. That’s relationship weight, dear. Happy weight. You really must be careful. I’m sure Yonyarn will love you a lot less if you get too fat.”

Hannah glanced up at her mother, lips pursed. She hadn’t had the guts to tell her mother that it was over. That Johann and her had talked and come to a sensible conclusion. That they had never been in love and never would be. Cindy Bombay had arrived half an hour ago with a ‘present’ for her ‘darling Anniepoo’ in an enormous bag. The present had turned out to be Hannah’s nightmare.

“My old wedding dress, Anniepoo!” Cindy had squawked with delight as she’d unzipped the bag and pulled out the big white meringue dress. Internally Hannah had groaned, wishing the ground would swallow her up. Externally the healer had struggled to maintain a strained smile as she’d reluctantly led her mother into the tiny living room.

And now she was stood wearing the dress and a pair of shoes Cynthia had picked out after rummaging through the magically enlarged wardrobe in Hannah’s bedroom. She felt ridiculous, uncomfortable and prussed up like a hag in a ball gown. But there were two people that Hannah was incapable of saying no to. Her mother and her father. So she’d appeased Cynthia Bombay in the hopes than soon she would leave.

*ding dong*

The doorbell rang loudly through the tiny flat and Hannah used this as an excuse to escape her mother’s constant criticism and high pitched infuriating voice. She left the living room in a wisp of meringue white and swept down the hallway, pulling the door open to her guest.

Then she remembered she was wearing a wedding dress.

“Don’t ask.”

Thursday.

The questions about marriage had finally started to subside. The Department were more preoccupied with matters like the next task and a diplomatic visit. Johann was all too pleased to drown himself in work, if it meant he could escape - and escape he had. Out on Monday drinking with his oldest schoolfriend, and again on Tuesday with Hannah over 'dinner'.

The relief about sorting out the whole engagement had brought back his appetite and he'd slept without having to resort to the heaviest dose of apothecary sleeping potion. The very last of his blue bottle sleeping potion had been drunk that night he stayed with Hannah, and there was even less chance of him getting some more now he had a friend with good morals working in that room at the hospital.

He'd asked to pop over to Hannah's to ask her advice. She was working a day shift for the week, and although she'd be mentally exhausted from having to deal with wide-awake, living patients quite potentially, their recent trials had brought them closer. The wizard felt more inclined to spend time with her - rather than vanish from her life for a month as he had done at times during the previous year when unable to face life.

Besides, he needed help to figure out where to take Ophelia on her St Mungo's 'date'. That was something he had to thank his father for, signing him up to the auction without his knowledge. Humiliating, especially when Johann found out via Dolly that his father had stipulated he didn't like anyone who wasn't at least a halfblood. He'd manage to delay things, as he hadn't any idea on what to do for a date, against others who were going on picnics up the Eiffel Tower. The closest he'd got to a 'date' in recent months had been his excursions with Adelia, one of his interns, to places like the British parliament.

As such, Johann rang Hannah's doorbell with a stack of Muggle paperwork under his arm, covering all manner of Muggle west end entertainment from comedy to musicals and theatre. It was all brightly coloured and full of people wearing too much makeup, who didn't move.

"Don't ask."

Johann's eyes were like saucers and he nearly dropped the whole stack of things in his arm, only managing to keep them scooped by hugging them against his chest. Hannah was dressed all in white. Somewhere in the back of his head, a little voice went wowee!.

"Merlin!" His lips managed instead, more alarm than admiration. "Bad time? What are... oh no." He zipped his pinched fingers across his lips, regarding her earlier statement on opening her door and taking it to heart.

Inside the front door, he quickly regretted stepping foot inside when he discovered Cynthia Bombay was in there. He balked on the doormat, hastily looking to get out,

but it was too late.

It had seen him,

and Herbert had bounded towards his leg, pouncing on his shoelaces.

"Cynthia!" Johann greeted, adopting as neutral expression as he could. "Didn't realise you were popping over to see Hannah. Have I interrupted?"

“YOURHAM!!” The witch squealed from the living room door where she’d been nosing to see who her daughter had ran off so quickly to let in. Hannah didn’t have many friends; after all, Cynthia wanted to meet each one. Little did she realise Johann was the only one. “You shouldn’t be here!” She practically ran from the door down the small corridor to grab Johann and herd him into the bedroom where she shut the door, leaving Hannah stood alone in the corridor looking quite perturbed.

Cindy gripped Johann’s wrist tight in her perfectly manicured hand.
“You can’t see her like this, Yonyarn! Not in her dress before the wedding my dear. Such terrible, bad luck! Oh no, that won’t do. We’re going to have to obliviate you now.”

So as Cindy Bombay started trying to reach into her pocket for her wand to perform the luck saving procedure and save her daughter’s wedding, Hannah Bombay stared at the bedroom door where her friend and mother had just disappeared. What had just happened?

“Mother!” She tried to push the door but someone was against it. “What are you doing mother?”

“Saving your wedding, darling!” The witch called back as she found her wand and yanked it out of her pocket. “Now I’m not the best at these spells, Yourham dear, so I’d close your eyes if I were you. I don’t want to accidently vanish those instead of your memories.” Cindy let out a nervous giggle.

He'd been confused enough to find himself in Hannah's bedroom last week without her mother dragging him in with her. Why did she have to be so damned physical about it all? The leaflets and other Muggle gumph he'd been carrying and very nearly dropped as he'd seen Hannah had spilled out between the front door and her bedroom, and he was now only grasping a copy of Time Out in his left hand. Mrs Bombay had her grip on that wrist, and was stood between Johann and the door to get out of Hannah's bedroom. He didn't want to look round. He wasn't sure what he'd see.

“You can’t see her like this, Yonyarn! Not in her dress before the wedding my dear. Such terrible, bad luck! Oh no, that won’t do. We’re going to have to obliviate you now.”

Merlin almighty - the Daily Prophet had definitely checked his name after speaking to this woman, otherwise they'd have written her poor interpretation of it in print. One thing they did fact check, then again, that particular journalist was one for hype and gossip, Johann was hoping he'd find a job at Witch Weekly and write silly news there, where it was acceptable. Or better still, the Quibbler.

"Her dress?" Johann asked in surprise, Hannah wasn't getting married? Unless there was some other wizard everyone had failed to mention in between times. No, Merlin, no - his brain quickly pieced things together. Hannah hadn't told her mother yet, Cindy Bombay must not have given her a chance.

"Obliviate me?!" Johann exclaimed, and then, despite himself, yanked his wrist in Cindy's grip, which only succeeded in her getting Time Out near to her face in a flap.

There would be no obliviation, no no no no no! That was Johann's greatest fear. Nobody was messing with his head ever.

“Mother! What are you doing mother?” Hannah's voice came muffled through the closed door.

“Saving your wedding, darling! Now I’m not the best at these spells, Yourham dear, so I’d close your eyes if I were you. I don’t want to accidentally vanish those instead of your memories.”

Johann stared at her in terror as her wand was drawn and he took drastic action!

… well, about as drastic as he felt he could given this was Hannah's mother, and he wanted to get out of the flat alive in the not too distant future, anyhow.

There was a bang, and a clatter inside Hannah's bedroom, followed by Johann's muffled exclamation of,
"Merlin! I'm sorry, that wasn't quite what I was aiming to do!" which was genuinely apologetic. Rather than hex Cindy Bombay, he'd managed to smack her in the face with the magazine, and draw his own wand in the distraction, looking to quickly disarm her or at very least cause her to unhand him.

The results were a bit different, Cindy Bombay had grown a pig's snout, and Johann was looking in horror at her face and then at his wand in surprise. He decided he wouldn't point out to Cindy what had happened to her face, but instead turned on the spot and seized the nearest item of material which came to hand - promptly identified and threw it down, seizing the next - a scarf.
"Look, its ok, I'll just put this over my eyes, you don't need to obliviate me." He flailed, staring at Cindy Bombay.

"Hannah!!"

Perhaps he wouldn't get out alive.

In the bedroom Hannah heard a loud bang and tried to push at the door again, slightly nervous about what must have been occurring in there. Who’d hexed who?

The answer came when Cindy Bombay began screaming a few moments later. Inside the room Cindy had lifted her hands to her face, confused about what the wizard had meant and wanting to know why he was looking at her like that when she’d felt something incredibly strange.
A snout!
On her face!
A pig’s snout!
On her beautiful perfect face there was a snout!
So she screamed, covering her nose and falling backwards, tripping over a trunk as Johann grasped one of her daughter’s stockings.

"Hannah!!"

Finally with no one blocking the door Hannah was able to push it open, squeezing into the tiny bedroom with her enormous dress.
“What is it? What’s-” Then Hannah saw her mother on the floor, arms flailing as she tried to get back up.

“No! Get it off, get it off!” She was shrieking.

Hannah’s gaze swept over 'it' and her eyes widened, lips parting in surprise before the corners twitched, revealing amusement.

“What did you do to my mother, Johann?” She bit back a laugh.

“Argh! Destroyed me! He made me ugly! Get it off Annie! Get it off!”

“What did you do to my mother, Johann?”

"Not what I intended." Johann explained, putting the various material items he'd grasped from nearby to try and convince Cindy Bombay that he could just be blindfolded, down again as they were rather surplus to requirements.

"She was trying to obliviate me because I'd seen you!" He was staring at Cindy and her pig snout, rather surprised at himself. That was the first time he'd managed that since school, some fifteen years or more previous. But it certainly wasn't what he'd meant to do by any stretch of the imagination. Fear caused some interesting results.

"Nobody has the right to do that!" Johann snapped, and then put a hand to his mouth, surprised at himself, and steadying himself now that Hannah was in the room and able to pacify her mother.

"Sorry, let me sort her face out." He raised his wand and stepped towards the cowering, wailing Cindy Bombay.

"She was trying to obliviate me because I'd seen you!"

“What’s wrong with seeing me?” Hannah questioned, confused. But Miss Bombay didn’t know much about popular culture and superstition. She also hadn’t mentioned yet to her mother than the whole farced engagement was off and her mother was not going to gain a son.

Nevertheless, Cindy Bombay was still flailing and screaming, her snout making funny snorting noises and amusing her daughter no matter how much it shouldn’t have been. Johann looked highly perturbed, blurting out how no one had a right to obliviate him.

“Calm yourself, Johann. She can’t obliviate a flobberworm.” Her mother’s magical expertise was quite simply dreadful. Hannah once more glanced at her mother’s snout. Apparently there was a lot in common between Johann and Cynthia.

Johann stepped closer and Cindy started yelling louder.

“Argh! Get him away, Annie! He’ll make me uglier!”

“Be quiet, mother!” The healer snapped, annoyed with the noise of the wailing after having spent a day of listening to patients in far worse positions doing just the same. “It’s a snout. Stop flailing and stand up and I might try and fix it for you.”

“It can’t be fixed! I’ll be ugly forever! Your damned fiancé!”

“Fine!” Hannah rolled her eyes and looked at Johann. “Tea?” Then the witch spotted the magazines and leaflets he was grasping. He was not taking her to see singing muggles in their underwear and dancing elephants.

Cindy hadn't taken too lightly to being given a pig's snout for a nose. Johann wasn't sure if it was an improvement, but at least she'd stopped attempting to obliviate him, and wasn't gripping his wrist. Owch, she was surprisingly strong.

"Yes please," Johann replied to the query about tea as if nothing had happened - subconsciously returning to normality. He then looked from Hannah to Cindy who was moaning about her face, surprised at the question and also what Cindy had protested.

"Hey! I'm still in the room." He scowled at Hannah's mother. "I didn't mean to do that to you, and I can fix it if you let me."

Perhaps she'd like some matching trotters? But he wasn't malicious. The pig snout cursing was a throwback from Durmstrang where he studied theory over wandwork, and had to occasionally be seen to give a Dreg a lesson. He had hated being coerced into doing it by his fellow oberteils, which is why he'd had a special pleasure in helping a distant cousin pitch to be elevated.

Exasperated, he marched over and pulled Cindy up from where she'd tripped over the trunk.
"Look, go in the living room, let your daughter fix it for you. I'll make us all some tea." He hastily chivvied her towards the bedroom doorway before stooping to pick up the rest of the things that had fallen from his hands when Madam Bombay had dragged him in there.

"All this fuss over a wedding dress." He muttered as he stood up again. The fear and reaction to being threatened with obliviation had made him ever so slightly less reasonable. That and dog heads did that.

“I’m not letting you anywhere near me with that wand!” Cynthia shrieked in response to Johann’s offer to fix the spell. Hannah’s lips pursed, at least her mother had stopped flailing like a platypus on its back. Hannah really had little patience for this woman and whatever she did have had vanished. After all, she was stood in a wedding dress, her scar bared, stuck in a bedroom with her ex-fake fiancé who had just turned her mother’s nose in a pig’s snout for attempting to obliviate his memory of Hannah in a wedding dress.

She wanted to go to bed.

Yet unfortunately her room was somewhat occupied at present and the witch had to put up with the guests for a while longer it seemed.

Johann grasped Cynthia’s hand and hauled the witch up onto her feet.
“I want no more funny business!” She warned him once stood once more. Her hand was pulled back from his and instantly went to cover her new snout.

“Go on, Johann. Put a whiskey in her’s.”
A pause.
“And mine.”

Next the witch glanced back at her mother who looked anything but pleased.
“I don’t know why you’re marrying him, Annie. What an idiot!”

Hannah’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. Was this woman kidding?
“You know, mum. I’m not sure I know a spell that can rectify that permanently. You might have to go to St Mungo’s.” Hannah lied before shrugging her shoulders and leaving the bedroom after Johann.

“WHAT!?!”

"Whiskey it is." Johann muttered and left the room, heading for the kitchen. He put the pile of leaflets down on the kitchen side,  but wasn't far enough away not to hear Cindy's parting shot.

“I don’t know why you’re marrying him, Annie. What an idiot!”

"I'm not an idiot!" He retorted from the kitchen, and then added in a whisper to himself as he grabbed mugs and teaspoons, teabags and alcohol, "and we're not getting married either, you'll be glad to know."

“You know, mum. I’m not sure I know a spell that can rectify that permanently. You might have to go to St Mungo’s."
“WHAT!?!”

Johann drummed his fingers on the worksurface, his back to the hallway, though he could hear Hannah between the bedroom and the living room. The shock of seeing her in a dress, and seeing the scar for the first time, perhaps ever, some nights were hazy what with the sleeping potion use the previous year.

Still, however unusual the dress was, he couldn't help but notice the additional skin usually obscured by long sleeves and Hannah's healers robes. Any other man might have been putting his eyes back in, but Johann's mind was merely comparing how different it was to day to day wear.

Then in the back of his head, a voice quietly pointed out that had they got married, he'd have been dressed in a suit tailored by Darian Morgan, reading vows opposite Hannah dressed in a similar way to how she was right now. That was a daunting thought, that would never become reality.

He shook his head and poured the boiling water.

Maybe Cindy couldn't obliviate him, that was fine, but he wasn't keen on her even trying. Perhaps more so if she couldn't obliviate him correctly. Hearing about Claire Pepper was enough to give him nightmares about a bungled job.

While he thought Cindy flapped about her nose for a while to her daughter, and Johann calmed down in the kitchen. He'd just wanted a quiet, short evening with Hannah, alone, to work out where he was taking Ophelia Grimlish for the damned St Mungo's event date. Not a wedding dress, not a squarking mother.

Still, it could be worse. Could be his mother, and a dog's head, all over again.

But as irritated as he was with Cindy Bombay, he'd so far given a very poor impression of himself as a boyfriend, and a potential husband, and the woman clearly thought that was what Johann was. He'd have to resume that part all again.

Realising he was still wearing his coat, he shouldered it off, and stalked down the hallway, hanging it up and adding his navy suit jacket beside it, arriving in the living room a moment later with three cups of tea, dressed in navy trousers and a white shirt, open at the neck - not having to wear a tie for work that day.

"Here get your trot- er, here - tea." He ticked himself off mentally.

"I can get rid of that for you, really, Mrs Bombay, really. Its a curse I learned at school, used to use it as an easy defence if someone decided they didn't like me. Which was thankfully infrequent." Two cups of tea less, he raised his own to his lips and gave it a sip gingerly, stood in the middle of the room, looking from the snout to his friend.

"Its a nice dress by the way."

Cynthia continued to grumble about the snout as she followed her overdressed daughter into the living room. She was cursing the day her little Annie had bumped into such a silly boy, muttering about how their marriage was now cursed or they needed to find another dress, but how could they at short notice?

“Short notice?” Hannah remarked, staring at her mother as they both stood in the living room.

“Well you are getting married soon aren’t you, Annie?” Cynthia responded, “although merlin knows why you’d wish to marry such a silly boy. Look what he did to me! He could make you ugly as well, dear. Especially with that extra podge, we’d end up calling you porky.”

Hannah’s lips pursed in disapproval, still not about to tell her mother the truth. That would only cause even more screaming. Instead Hannah had decided that an owl would be more appropriate. And then she’d move across the city so that her mother couldn’t return.

"Here get your trot- er, here - tea." Johann’s slip up caused a smile to erupt and Hannah lifted a hand to cover it. Appearance was such a sore point for her mother, the blonde witch that had always spent more time priming herself than bringing up her only daughter.

“Oh I don’t know, Johann. I really think a potion would be best for it. My mother’s going to havea see a healer.”

“You’re a healer!”

“In creature injuries. This is spell damage, mother. I really don’t want to risk making it permanent.” The healer’s expression was deadpan; anyone would have struggled to know she was lying. Unless they had knowledge of such spells like Johann surely did.

But he commented on the dress. Hannah frowned, looking down at it, then the scar so plainly visible.
“It makes me look like a Christmas tree decoration.” She muttered before snatching her wand from the arm of the sofa and giving it a twist. Each button at the back of the gown undid and it slipped down her body, falling to the floor.

In her underwear, the witch stepped from the dress, not a care for the room’s inhabitants.
“Johann, pass me my trousers and blouse.” She pointed at the clothes folded behind him on the chair.

"The fairy at the top of the --er..." He had been about to say tree, with a grin but his expression changed, the rim of the mug inches from his lips as Hannah suddenly dropped the dress from her shoulders without a care. He wasn't sure where to look - and instead found himself spilling tea on what remained of the carpet, cursing under his breath as he averted his eyes from her figure.

A distant voice in the very back of his head spoke up, the one which fought to speak up when Vedir looked at him in close quarters, the same one that gave a sigh when he snuck a look at Colin watching television and smiled when his housemate laughed at the jokes in Doctor Who, the same one that had exclaimed in admiration as the door had been pulled open in the not so distant past when he'd arrived. You could have married that.

"Yes! Sorry, of course, here." Johann hurried to put down the cup of tea, flick the drips that had slopped onto his hand away and retrieve Hannah's trousers and blouse from behind him. The ceiling was very interesting when he turned back - he'd clocked Cindy Bombay looking his way. Much as it was in for a penny, in for a pound, giving Hannah's mother a snout and seeing her daughter in a wedding dress, when he was meant to be marrying her in the woman's eyes was about as risky as inviting his father in.

"I don't have to wear one of those do I?" He joked, not his best, but anything to diffuse the situation. Anything to let Hannah put her clothes on so he would be able to look at her without Cindy's eyes burning. Blouse and trousers gone to Hannah's hands, he stooped and pulled the dress up by the shoulders, before turning with it up before his shoulders to Cindy, modelling it, before turning back to Hannah for approval, forgetting to give her long enough to get fully dressed.

Cynthia couldn’t quite believe her daughter’s audacity. She may have been planning to marry this boy but they were not wed yet and she was stood in the middle of the living room in her undergarments, seemingly not a care in the world. Where was the girl’s modesty? It would have taken mere moments to walk to her bedroom to change alone. But instead she had to do it here, in front of her fiancé and show Cindy up!

The older witch’s bright blue eyes clocked Johann and his discomfort. The idiot didn’t know where to look! Yes, that was how it should have been. She wasn’t having those eyes gawk at her daughter.

“Annie…seriously?”

As Hannah took the clothing from Johann with a quiet thanks, Cindy tutted loudly.
“Snout bothering you, mother?” The healer asked as she kicked the high heeled shoes off and stepped a leg into her trousers.  For a witch with slowly increasing comprehension of social norms and how to act around people, Hannah hadn’t particularly considered modesty necessary in front of the people in her living room. Apparently her mother thought differently. Not that Hannah seemed to notice.

The German wizard held the dress up to his shoulders, seeming to model it and Hannah smiled as she buttoned up her trousers and pulled the blouse on, starting on those buttons over the camisole. “You could save it for next Christmas. We’ll put candles on it and set it alight.” A menacing smirk twisted her lips.

“Hannah!”

Johann averted his gaze as he swung round, but still kept his grin, the dress trailing from his fingers, not quite making it to the floor as he was quite a bit taller than Hannah. He peered down the dress as Hannah suggested burning it. It wasn't that bad, surely? Hannah's mother barked in disapproval.

"The piggy doesn't approve." Johann whispered in Hannah's ear with raised eyebrows. He turned back to Hannah's mother and presented her back the dress, figuring she was better qualified to deal with the garment than he was - and best to keep her hands busy and away from her wand so she couldn't attempt to obliviate him again.

"Well, probably for the best I did see you in it then." And out of it, Merlin! Johann remarked, stepping away without the dress in his hands, trying not to grin too broadly at the swine features. Taking Hannah's lead from earlier about the reversal, he let his blue-eyed gaze linger.

"Not sure how long we should leave your face like that, Cynthia," He tried to look serious leaning forward to stroke his own chin thoughtfully. "I'd hate for it to be permanent. Might spoil photographs."

"The piggy doesn't approve." The words were whispered in Hannah’s ear and the witch’s lips twisted in amusement. The only things her mother approved of were things Hannah did not. The witches were extremely dissimilar and many people did wonder if they were truly mother and daughter but the physical resemblances tended to put them straight. Hannah’s personality might have been similar to her father but she certainly looked more like her mother. She was immensely glad she didn’t sound or think like her.

The dress was given to Cynthia and after tutting loudly for a few moments, she began the faff of getting into the bag. Why the witch didn’t use her wand, Hannah didn’t know, but she just left her to it, not particularly caring. Her mother was one to her own .

“What?” Cindy squaked in response to Johann’s cruel comment. “Annie, you have to do something! Your fiancés made me ugly and it’s all your fault! How could you let the idiot do such a thing to me?”

“I’ve told you mum. I can’t fix it. You should really go home to Dad and he’ll take you St Mungo’s.” Cynthia looked stunned at her daughter’s unwillingness to help. She glanced between both of them, mouth open, snout firmly affixed to her face. Neither were relenting and she finally screwed her features up.

“Fine. I’ll just take the dress home and you can buy your own. I was trying to help considering you’re poor. Just look at this hovel, Hannah! You should be repairing this flat instead of getting yourself in trouble and spending all your money on fines to stop you going to Azkaban. Goodness me!” As Cynthia went on, Hannah scooped up a handful of floopowder from beside the fireplace and threw it in.

“Goodbye, mother.” She bluntly responded before Cynthia finally stepped into the fireplace and vanished in a wash of purple flames.

“I hate that woman.”