Chapter 12: Celebration

By 2003, Ginny Weaseley had spent two very enjoyable seasons with The Holyhead Harpies, but she had missed being with Harry and her family a lot more than she had thought she would. As well as this, although she still loved the sport, she had taken some rough treatment in the weekly, faster and tougher, professional league matches, and had suffered broken bones and other minor injuries on more than one occasion. So at the end of her second year, she had told Harry that she thought that she was now ready to settle down with him and have children.

There were also certain advantages, she said, to having a husband who practically ran The Daily Prophet: one of which, was that she could regularly go to Quidditch matches and write about the season for the paper, and still enjoy being a wife and mother!

Hermione and Ron were both now established in their careers, too. The two couples were still very close, so when it was suggested one evening during a meal that they perhaps should have a double-wedding, all parties seemed to think that it was a great idea! When the wedding invitations were sent out, they read as follows:

You are cordially invited to attend the joint Wedding Ceremony of Miss Hermione Jean Granger to Mr Ronald Bilious Weaseley, and

Miss Ginevra Molly Weaseley to Mr Harry James Potter.

The Ceremony will take place on August the 1^st, in the Great Hall of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, followed by a reception at the same location.

Harry and Ron had asked Professor McGonagall for special permission for the marriage to take place at Hogwarts. For although it was to be, by wizard and witch standards, a fairly small affair for family and friends, most of the other invited guests were ex-pupils, or those who had an association with the school: such as Madame Maxime, who would be accompanying Hagrid. All of the teachers who were Harry's former colleagues were invited: including Horace Slughorn, who very regrettably declined. Even the castle ghosts, who could not literally be excluded, were asked personally by either Ron, Ginny, Hermione or Harry: even Peeves, who made a solemn promise to behave on the day.

Hermione's parents would be there of course, and although they were both Muggles they had met the Weaseley family and Harry and had been thoroughly briefed from a time when Hermione was young, about what to expect life to be like when there were magical children involved. It was also, of course, something that very rarely happened—Muggles being allowed to visit the school, and permitted to see it for what it really was!

Ginny and Hermione had decided not to have any attendants. It was thought that this would be the most diplomatic course of action, as they could not really ask Luna (who would have been their choice), and not ask Gabrielle Delacour, as they thought that the two together might just be, well—too much.

Minerva McGonagall had insisted that the school, who had, of course, had many hundreds of years of experience of such things, would provide for all the catering and decoration needs. Some of the house elves, including Kreacher, would act as waiters and waitresses.

This, it should be said, was not initially to the liking of Hermione Granger, who had been actively campaigning to change the plight of house elves everywhere. At her insistence, and with the agreement of the school, she had tried to implement a policy of voluntary freedom and mandatory wages for all the house elves at Hogwarts. After her experiences with Kreacher while at Grimmauld Place, she thought that she knew their ways: but she was unprepared for the apparent hostility that met her proposals. It was left to Kreacher himself to explain to her, that the elves had no use for freedom: that to them, it was their sole purpose in life to serve their masters and mistresses; and what need had they for—wages! The house elves at Hogwarts were required to work long hours and carry out menial tasks, but they were always treated (they believed) fairly and with kindness. In the end, though, while some of the elves had even baulked at the thought of being made to wear anything other than a clean towel or rag, they had agreed to wear something more like a smock while at the wedding—as long as it was only on the clear understanding that these clothes were not gifts, but merely uniforms which they would never, ever own. Hermione was forced to concede the point (just) and compromise.

The question of Kreacher's long-term future—nobody really knew what this meant, as Kreacher was already older than anyone knew for sure—was also raised at this time. Kreacher still proudly wore the gold locket that Harry had given him, on a chain around his neck, and during a quiet moment of the preparations, Harry summoned him from the kitchen and he and Ginny sat down with him to talk:

"Kreacher, when we are married, Ginny and I probably won't be going to live at Grimmauld Place."

"We know that it was your home for many years," added Ginny, "but Harry and I both want you to come and live with us, when we get our own place, if you don't mind staying at Hogwarts until then."

Kreacher bowed his head, then looked up at them with big, round, sad-looking eyes as he replied:

"Kreacher would be honoured to live with Master Harry and Mistress Ginny and serve them."

The raised platform that usually held the teachers' dining table was extended outwards so that the brides and grooms could be seen by all the guests. To one side of the platform there was suspended a large golden picture frame. Harry looked across at it curiously, as he couldn't remember ever having seen it before. Inside the frame, however, was a portrait of two men who he recognised instantly. The first was Albus Dumbledore, dressed in his midnight blue robes. He had his hand, no longer withered and blackened, on the shoulder of the second man, who Harry recognised with surprise, as the black-robed figure of Severus Snape. But, to Harry's great delight, both men were looking down on him with broad smiles on their faces.