41"Draco, which tie?" Harry held two up against his shirt clad chest only to have the blond roll his eyes and send them both back to the wardrobe with a quick flick of his wand.
"Neither, Merlin Harry how many years are we going to be together before even a modicum of my style sense manages to seep into that head of yours? Get the lavender silk one."
"Lavender? Draco, honestly." He grimaced and went back, grimacing as he knotted the offensive piece of silk around his neck. Draco, dapper in black dress robes with silver fastenings shrugged.
"Hermione wanted you in Muggle clothes, and even you admit you don't feel comfortable in robes. Besides, it is a spring wedding, be festive."
"Easy for you to say. Come on and quit messing about with your hair or we're going to be late."
They apparated in front of the gates of Hogwarts and walked through, Draco remarking on the amazing flowering vines that adorned the gates, courtesy of some interesting developments of Neville's over the past few years. The small gazebo they headed for was awash in flowers as well, all in shades of white and the lightest blush. It was understated and quite lovely.
"It's about time you two showed up!" Ginny Weasley glared at the two with an expression that more resembled her mother daily and then ruined it by pulling the two into a bone crushing hug. "Draco, go see to Severus. He looks like he might bolt. Harry, you're needed back here." With a faint smile, Draco trudged away across the smooth lawn as Ginny pulled Harry into the small tent over to the side of the lawn. Stepping in he saw Luna place a last tendril of pearls through soft brown waves, and Hermione turned around with a nervous smile.
"You look amazing, Hermes, but are you sure you really want to do this?" Harry thought for a moment she was going to smack him, but she relented and gave him a hard squeeze instead.
"You're one to talk, hooking up with the amazing bouncing ferret. Is Severus out there?"
"Out there waiting and so far still conscious, but if you don't get the show on the road he's going to think you changed your mind. There's still time to take Jason up on his offer, you know."
"Don't be a beast, Harry," she grinned, and took a deep breath. "All right, let's do this."
"She's not coming, she changed her mind and realized she shouldn't be shackling herself to a man twenty five years her senior and she's left." Draco pinched the bridge of his nose and looked sideways at his godfather at the morose statement.
"She is a female and this is her wedding day. Weddings never start on time, and she is likely doing something revoltingly feminine like crying her makeup off and having to reapply it, primping her hair for hours, Merlin knows it certainly…"
"Finish that statement at your own risk, I warn you," Severus bit out, not looking a bit amused. Draco simply shook his head.
"Really, Severus. It's your wedding day, if there was a time to develop a sense of humor this would have to be it. After all, the rest of us have found this whole courtship amusing from the start. Ah, finally!" Severus eyes snapped to the short aisle made by garlanded ribbons and white orchids and caught his breath as a set of pan pipes began to sound through the small space, and in a rare display of raw magic loose rose petals and falling cherry blossoms began to dance around Hermione as if in pagan blessing. She was dressed, strangely for her, in a simple white gown with a medieval girdle slung low around her hips, trailing silver to her bare feet. Her hair was woven with flowers and pearls and she looked nearly unearthly in her beauty with the elements dancing in her steps.
Harry, escorting her down the aisle, ignored the flying flowers except to smile, and in a moment placed her hand in Severus with a wink.
"Don't screw this up, old man," he whispered just before stepping back to take his seat. The couple pretended not to hear him, or perhaps were too caught up in one another to have noticed. The ceremony was unlike any wedding seen in the Muggle world, and Draco would confirm later that it was unlike anything seen for centuries in the wizarding world as well. Incantations were said to the elements and the old gods, offerings of bread, wine, salt and oil placed at the four compass points, and when the bonding ceremony was spoken it was a language only Draco recognized, and the resulting flare of magic at the end left a small line of glowing runes around each of their wrists. Their gold bands seemed to melt and become one with flesh, and the wizard presiding over the ceremony seemed magically drained when it was done.
"It was a soul bond," Draco explained as they all adjourned to the castle for the reception afterwards. "Sure of themselves, those two. Soul bonding fell out of favor several hundred years ago, I never thought I would see one performed. Their souls will stay linked, even after death, the most rabid purebloods will not use that as a Fidelity Charm anymore. It defines "fovever"."
"I think it's perfect for them, don't you?" Harry started at the dreamy voice beside him, then wrapped a friendly arm around Luna, who as usual had managed to come up unnoticed. Harry thought for a moment and finally nodded.
"I can't see two people who could possibly be better for one another. Where's Neville got to?"
"Oh, he's already up at the castle, the children are leading him on a merry chase. I supposed I should go rescue him. When those two start Hogwarts it's certainly going to be interesting." She quickened her pace and soon left the two behind.
Two years had passed since Harry's press conference and Longbottoms reawakening. The couple had made a near perfect revoery, and the few lingering effects were considered mild at best. Minerva McGonagall, always a fighter had made a full recovery as had many other patients in the Permanent Spell Damage ward at St. Mungos as well as dozens of other hospitals in wizard communities world wide. Hermione had left the Ministry soon after she and Severus became lovers to work as a fund raiser for the foundation. She was even more brilliant at it than expected, pulling in huge amounts of funding that allowed them to open additional training centers to the point that it was difficult to train teams fast enough to get the newer locations up and running. The constant contact and port keying back and forth served to highlight what they were missing and it was less than a year before Severus proposed and was accepted.
Draco and Harry had agreed to postpone getting a surrogate to bear them a child until the foundation was functioning well on its own, and Draco was secretly hoping for a new law to pass in the Wizengamot that would finally give same sex couples full status as spouses. He had quietly poured hundreds of thousands of galleons into select pockets to lobby the bill and thought it might pass by Christmas.
It wasn't a perfect world. The dead were still a constant memory, and the rebuilding would go on for another ten years before the world truly began to recover. The wizard and Muggle worlds had separated finally in a desperate attempt to maintain some of their culture, and muggleborn children were being replaced at birth by squib children and raised as pureblood witches and wizards. The thought that perhaps if Tom Riddle had had a loving wizard family to grow up in he would not have become what he was weighed heavily on peoples minds. There was peace now, though, and that meant everything, and today was a wedding and a party and George and Ron had outdone themselves with party favors.
Watching an amazing fireworks display over the lake that evening with Draco by his side and an international portkey set to take them back to Seattle in the morning after seeing Severus and Hermione off on their honeymoon trip Harry realized that somehow he had become content. He smiled and placed a chaste kiss on Draco's temple. The blond gave him a quizzical look at which Harry only shrugged.
"Who would have thought, love. We all got our happy endings." And looking over George and Angelina, Ron and Lavender, Hermione and Severus, Neville and Luna, Ginny and Dean, Frank and Alice and all the other couples he realized with some surprise that Harry was right. The hard part was finally over, now it was time to get on with the living.