My friend, I hope you are well.

I write this letter having finally been granted my just rewards for completing my OWLs. I find myself in Brilliantmont Finishing school in Switzerland and I could not be happier. The people are wonderful and the surroundings are beautiful. I would much like it if you could join me for tea here before I return home.

As I have alluded to on many many occasions throught our friendship, I will be marrying in the early year of 1896. I am eager soon to become Mrs François Dupont.

From my first days in Hogwarts you have been my friend. You took this little nervous French girl with a very poor grasp of English under your wing. Your guidance, your support and your friendship allowed me the confidence to grow into the woman that I am today. And for that I thank you.

Hermia, it would do me an honour beyond compare if you would agree to join me for my matrimony as my maid of honour. I would feel most emboldened to step forward until marriage with you at my side.

I hope that you can see to accept this and I look forward to discussing my plans for the event, of which there are many.

Yours truly,
Miss Violetta DeCroix
.. Vee

Thank you! It has made my day to your response to my letter. I shall be web and have your beautiful self by myself. I will make arrangements for tea once I am further through my classes. You are the first beyond my family to know this so keep it under your bonnet, but my family are hoping to host my ceremony at Mont Saint-Michel in Normandy, I have visited there once as a child and am told the renovations have made it a beautiful location.

You will find this amusing, we had a class of dinner service today, I can do these things in my sleep, but poor Miss Le Marachel, you might think she had never seen an oyster fork. I am having wine with her after I finish this letter to give her a few pointers, we ladies must succeed together.

I shall see you soon my friend. Your first duty, I have sent you with this letter a few drawings of dresses that I am partial too, perhaps you can give me your opinions?

Yours truly,
Vee

Yes, then Empire waistline is one of my favourites, I do not have the curves of some of the other ladies here and I think puffs will swallow me whole. My mother has offered me her own dress, it is lovely but it is not to my taste.

Discussions of feminity have been quite interesting here, as you say there is little for me to learn with regard to the etiquette side of things. However, the fact that we are mostly in waiting for marriage has led to dorm room conversations regards, that would have had the Hogwarts professors running in alarm. There are aspects of our feminity that might be better explored with the aid of a gentleman you might say. Some of the conceptions that the other ladies have are quite amusing, Miss Saint John fears even kissing her betrothed might have her with child. I am a little more informed of such things it seems.

Hermia, would you damn me as your friend if I was the sort of person who might entertain the company of a gentleman who was not my promised? I have done something that I fear I must tell someone for fear of exploding. I have allowed the temptation of my heart to cause me impropriety. There are very few people who know, and fewer still who know the extent. I do believe the problem to have passed, but what I did cannot be taken back. Can I allow myself to believe I shall be a better wife of duty if I have at least once sampled what it is like to be a woman of love?

Yours in nervous anticipation,

Vee

Thank you for your letter of support, I am pleased that my lack of propriety has not made me a lesser friend. I shall not commit the full details of my scandal to paper should it have my letter whisked away to join the libraries of prohibited romantic fiction, but I will share when we meet if you wish.

And also a thank you for your reassurance. It is not that I see no possibility that François and I will ever find love, perhaps we will, he seems a pleasant enough gentleman, kind, handsome, I should count myself lucky. But for a man to want me for no compulsion other than his desire, it felt special. I suppose it is just my nerves causing me to overthink my future experience, I am very excited, marriage, family, everything. Its just. I look in the mirror and I see both a woman, and a child, for I am both and neither. We're you to write and announce that Miss Moony was preparing her nuptials. I would scoff that she was too young, but she has nearly three months on me, but here I am. Such a different world, it is no wonder I found tension there.

But I am ramling. I shall wrap this letter up before I am chastised for candles after last light.

Yours truly,
Vee