I hope you all enjoyed the battle scene. It took up two chapters, and that's a first for me. I know it wasn't all of the fifteenth chapter, but you're just gonna have to deal with it. It's my story, and that's the way I wanted it. So that's the way it is. Besides, a lot of people would get bored if I dragged it out too long. Anyway, the rest of the chapters will just be like vignettes. Long vignettes, but vignettes none the less. They'll just be dropping in a turning points in the lives of out favorite characters. Six more chapters. I'm stopping at 23. That's the chapter scheduled for Monday the fifteenth. The day that voting starts. I don't want to update during the judging, so I'm going to end at twenty three chapters. I think that's a good length. I am taking votes on the names of their kids. Lily and James will be needing two names, both girls. Harry and Hermione will need the names of girl, Ron and Luna will need three boys' names, and I've already got one picked out for Draco and Ginny. Start sending me your suggestions. I would prefer the names to mean something, but it's not a requirement.
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It was over. That was all Harry could think of as the body count was totaled and families were notified. It was all he could think about as the survivors went to the hospital wing and St. Mungo's. It was all he could think about as he fell asleep in the Head Boy dormitory that night, Hermione pressed close to his back. It was he could think about at the funerals over the next days. And it was all he could think about during the celebration.
There was no more Voldemort. No more Lucius Malfoy. No more Death Eaters. No more Dark Lord. And that was amazing. That let everyone sleep peacefully at night. And that made Harry reevaluate his life.
He had no more mission. There was no point in being an Auror. Sure, there were still rogue groups of Death Eaters who would cause problems from time to time, but Harry no longer wanted that life. He'd lived it since age eleven. Been forced into it. He wanted to choose his path. And he wanted to play Quidditch. He wanted to continue living with Hermione and Ron, and hell, Draco, Ginny, and Luna if they all wanted to stay. He wanted his friends to choose a life. He wanted to get to know his parents, and have Sunday dinner at the Weasley house followed by a rough and tumble game of football in the back yard.
The celebration had lasted for a month. Every time they'd turned around, Harry, Hermione and Ron were being interviewed for some paper, written about in a history book or made Grand Marshall of someone's parade. Books were written, they were made infamous. Moreso than they had been at the beginning. They would forever be known about, and no one would forget them. They were offered jobs everywhere, amazing amounts of money. They were heralded as heroes. To them, they'd just done what had to be done.
And in the end, Harry supposed that was what made them different from everyone else. They hadn't set out to be heroes. They'd have been more than happy to just have a normal life, grow up and get married, work a plain job, have a couple kids, and be the coolest grandparents ever. As long as they were in the lives of the others, they were happy.
Six months passed and it seemed like six hours. Their lives were that full of things. Wood proposed to Alisa, and a date was set for August, six months further into their Voldemort free future. It came and went. There was a beautiful ceremony, and Harry was Best Man. Hermione, who had become friends with Alisa served as Maid of Honor. It was a Muggle ceremony in a Muggle church. It was filled with witches and wizards. Alisa's parents were Muggles.
Harry, Hermione, Ron, Ginny, Draco and Luna bought a house. A huge house. With six incomes, they could afford it. It was larger than Malfoy manner. And if anyone had told with Harry or Draco while they were in school that they would be roommates, both would have punched the messenger. But there they were, friends and sharing a house.
Hermione accepted a teaching position at Hogwarts teaching Transfiguration. McGonagall agreed to let her commute. Her Floo was always open to students who had questions, and she was always there by eight o'clock, despite the fact that her first class wasn't until ten. She had Tuesdays, Fridays, and weekends off. She was making double what any of the other teachers were.
Ron was Keeper for the Chudley Canons. He'd been offered a seven figure salary playing for his favorite team, and had snapped it up. He had let a few goals be scored, but not enough to lose a game his first season. He'd never been happier, and his friends were happy for him.
Draco had taken over all his father's businesses, made them all legal, and sold all but three of them. He worked from home, running a real estate company, a small private pre Academy school that instructed children of witches and wizards from age four to ten, and took over his father's gubernatorial position. He even managed to be nice to the house elves.
Ginny entered into a Healer program. She'd always wanted to be one, and was talented enough that she made it through the two year program in eleven months. She was hired on at St. Mungo's and worked with Curse Victims. She was very good, and enjoyed her job immensely.
Luna ran the Quibbler. She kept the outrageous stories, but threw in a couple that covered actual news every once in a while. It threw people off. She liked that. The battle had settled her down. She stopped being so scatterbrained, and turned into a person that everyone really grew to like. She still had her moments, but they were few and far between.
And Harry. Harry was probably the one who had known immediately what he wanted to do. He'd showed up at Puddlemere's tryouts, and won the spot. He'd signed a ten year contract, which had never before been done, and received a yearly salary of double what had been in his parents' vault. He never lost a game the first season. He and Ron played in different divisions, so there was never cause for competition between best friends.
Lily, James and Sirius went into business together. They opened a wonderful store in Diagon Alley. It dealt in everything. Robes, wands, which Lily made herself. Hermione swore they were better than Ollivander's. They sold cauldrons and ingredients, gave the twins a run for their money in jokes, had a veritable library in stock, carried parchment and quills. Basically, everything a witch or wizard could ever need. They did very well from the start. People coming back from the dead were a bit of an interest, even in Diagon Alley.
Overall, they settled into their new, Voldemort free lives very well. They all had a good amount of excitement, and they all loved what they were doing, which, when it all came down to what was important, that was all that mattered. Harry knew Dumbledore would have been proud of them.
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It was Harry's twenty first birthday. It had been three years since Voldemort had been defeated, and he was pacing a St. Mungo's waiting room. Ginny was in labor. With her first child, which to Draco's dismay, was going to be a girl. He'd pouted about it for all of ten seconds, then thrown all his time and energy into making their house baby safe and the nursery girl appropriate. He'd been making lists of things that needed to be done ever since. The first thing had been marry Ginny.
He'd propose on Christmas Eve, in front of her entire family, and on one knee, with a gorgeous sapphire ring in one hand and tears glistening in his eyes. He'd told her that he loved her, and he couldn't spend the rest of his life with anyone but her. He'd said that she was the reason he woke up each morning and that he couldn't think of anyone he would want as the mother of his children besides her. Ginny had been sobbing when she'd accepted the proposal and the ring.
She'd been sobbing, too, when she'd walked down the aisle seven days later. The Malfoy name still made people move, and they'd put the whole thing together in a week. Ginny had worn a Muggle wedding gown. Beautiful while lace and silk, with a train, semi full skirt, spaghetti straps and embroidered roses along the bodice and drizzled over the skirt. Draco had worn a tuxedo. The rest of the ceremony had been done in typical magical style. They'd Honeymooned in the French Caribbean.
"What the bloody buggering hell is taking so damn long!?" Harry demanded. Hermione touched his arm soothingly, pushed him not so gently into a chair.
"Babies take a while, Harry. You can't just wave your wand and there they are. It's a biological process that's magic by itself." She kissed his forehead. She was nearly twenty two, and growing prettier with each year. She had matured into a very striking woman. Harry was up to his eyeballs in love with her.
Harry looked over and was met by her warm, smiling face. He felt his heart speed up in his chest. It always did when he saw her. "I love you, Hermione."
"I love you, too. Now calm down and sit still. This will all be over shortly. It's not like millions of women haven't done this already."
"Those other millions of women," Draco said, coming out with a small, screaming pink bundle, "cannot hold a candle to my wife. Here she is."
There was a flood of people rushing to see the baby. Molly wallowed in tears while Arthur patted his back. Draco handed his daughter to her grandparents first. Hermione threw herself at the new father. "Congratulations! How's Ginny?"
"Wonderful, beautiful, amazing. Resting at the moment. They're releasing them later tonight."
Harry patted Draco on the back. "What did you name her?"
"Carys Laine. Carys is Gaelic for love, and Laine is Old English for the path. Ginny and I decided that it described us."
Harry grinned. "It's a big name to live up to."
"She can do it." Draco glance at his daughter with adoration. "She can do anything that she wants to do."
"I honestly believe that, Draco. I really do."
"Want to hold her?"
Harry considered it. "I'd better not.. I get to live with her. They don't. I'm going to go see Ginny if that's all right."
"Go. She'll be looking forward to seeing you. I'm going to go wrest my daughter away and hold her some more."
Harry chuckled. "Maybe I should hold her while I have the chance. When we got you drunk after you found out she was a girl, you swore you wouldn't ever touch her."
Draco blushed. "In my defense, I was drunk, and all Malfoys have boys. They have one child, a boy."
"And all the Malfoys before you have been evil, Draco. I really think that that could have something to do with it. And you'll be a good, if overprotective, father."
"True. That's what I'll use as an excuse when she asks me." Draco practically flew across the room when the baby started screaming, and Harry walked back to the maternity ward chuckling and shaking his head. Whoever would have told him that he'd eventually be Godfather to Draco Malfoy's child, and that they would be close friends would have gotten their heads knocked if they'd said it five years, even two years earlier.
Ginny sat up when she saw Harry, her hair still damp and sticking to her face. She smiled brightly, reached out a hand for him. "Hey. Did you see her? Isn't she gorgeous? Other than the eyes she looks just like Draco."
Harry kissed Ginny's forehead and sat down beside the bed. "I saw her, she's going to be the next Miss Wizard, and she does look like Draco, though she is far prettier, and her hair is not nearly as blonde as his."
"I know. My God, Harry, I had a baby." Ginny seemed unbelievable surprised at herself. "I can't believe I actually did it. It's amazing. You have to try it."
Harry did a double take, crossed his legs. "Not in this lifetime."
"Not giving birth, silly, having a baby. Being a father."
"I'm not ready for that, Gin."
"How do you know? You and Hermione have been together for three years, Harry! Three years. Haven't you once thought about marriage and children?"
"Of course I have. But she's teaching, and I don't want to affect her job, and I've got seven years left on my contract. That's a lot of traveling and a lot of being gone for days at a time."
"So? You can Floo home every night. You do it a lot anyway. And Hogwarts teachers have had children before. It isn't unheard of."
Harry looked at Ginny. "Why do I have a feeling that you're just having major wedded, motherly bliss and want everyone else to experience the same thing?"
"Because that's exactly what it is. You should Harry. I mean, with your parents pregnant and all…"
Harry held up a hand. "My parents are not pregnant. They're forty."
"And they've been trying to get pregnant for three years. But with them being frozen all those years, it made it a lot harder. I was over there this morning when I went into labor and Lily had just gotten home from the doctor."
Harry stood. "Congratulations again, Ginny. I'm unbelievably happy for you. Excuse me for a second." He walked straight into the wall. Ginny stifled a laugh while he re-aimed and walked through the door. He walked to the waiting room in a daze, and walked to his parents. "You're pregnant!"
Lily looked up at her son, and barely managed to keep from laughing at the expression of shock on his face. "I'm pregnant." She stood up. "We didn't want to say anything today. It's Ginny and Draco's day."
"When?"
"I'm due in six months. Harry, there's more."
"More?" Harry croaked. He wasn't upset about the pregnancy, and his parents knew that. He'd completely supported their decision to have another baby, but he hadn't thought it would ever happen. "What else could there possibly be?"
"I'm having twins."
Harry sat down on top of his father. "Twins. Two of them?"
James shoved Harry off good naturedly. "I had that exact same reaction. And you get to help me with the nursery."
Harry could only nod. "Okay."
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And here we have chapter 17. The next few are going to drop in at turning points in the lives of my characters. Don't forget to review. And don't forget to tell me what you think about names. I want input!
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