Author: Havana Nights Chica

Title: Here We Go Again

Genre: Humor/Romance

Ships: Ron/Hermione, OC/OC

Keywords: Wedding, Ron, Hermione, Second Generation

Disclaimer: The world of Harry Potter belongs to JKR, the "Here comes the bride . . ." song is from Beverly Cleary's Ramona Forever, and the quote "And they continued to bicker and when they grew up, they decided to get married so they could fight more conveniently" is from C.S. Lewis' The Horse and His Boy.

This is my reply to the

Wedding Challenge

Created by XUnFoRgEtTaBlEbAbEX at Fiction Alley

1. Luna must sing "Longbottom is Our King" at some point DURING the ceremony.
2. Draco must be present with his family and must make a comment about weasels.
3. Harry must spill the beans on Ron's most embarrassing OOC moment during his toast.
4. Harry's daughter must drop her flowers and bicker with another canon character's child.
5. Someone must say, "Doesn't that look familiar?"
6. Fred and George, Gilderoy, and Fleur must be mentioned.
7. Ron and Hermione must have "their song."
8. One of the following ship names must be quoted in dialogue: Good Ship R/H, Orange Crush, The Government Stole My Toad, Unknown and Unforgettable, Venomous Snakes, or Serpents and Stags.

Here We Go Again

          "Daddy, I want a bedtime story," a young girl named Danica asked one night.

          "Yeah, me, too," echoed her twin brother Alexander.  But everyone agreed that that was much too big a name for such a little person, so they all called him Alex.

          "You know it's not up to me," said their father, grinning archly at his wife. 

All three pairs of eyes turned to the tyrant of the house, who melted under the identical pleading gazes.  She nodded and began, a small smile playing on her lips.  

"Once upon a time, a man named Ronald Bilius Weasley and a woman named Hermione Jane Granger were married in a beautiful ceremony.  This is the story of their wedding."

          "Here comes the bride, fat, fair, and wide.  Here comes the groom, skinny as a broom.  Here comes the usher, the old toilet flusher," sang the ring bearer softly under his breath, knowing full well that if his mother caught him, he'd be worse than dead.

          But Blaise Malfoy seemed to have better-than-average hearing because she still heard his quiet crooning.

          "Aidan James Malfoy, if I hear so much as another peep out of you before this wedding is over, you won't live to tell the tale," she hissed, her normally kindly blue eyes burning.  "If you are in any way responsible for ruining Hermione's wedding. . ." she trailed off, shaking her dark hair.  "You're quite lucky you're in it in the first place."

          "Yes, I know Mr. Weasley didn't want me in it, Mummy, because of Dad."

          "You know it took a lot of persuasion on Hermione's part to have us all in the wedding.  I might be one of her closest friends, but her husband-to-be doesn't trust Draco farther than he can throw him.  So you best behave," Blaise admonished, smoothing down his blond locks.

          "Yes, ma'am," sighed the boy, rolling his gray eyes.  He stood silently against the wall, waiting for what seemed ages as the bride and the mother of the groom scurried about, finalizing preparations with frantic consultations of Gilderoy Lockhart's Guide to Hair Almost As Good As His and Gilderoy Lockhart's Guide to Planning the Perfect Wedding.  He occupied his time by alternately glaring and smirking at the flower girl whilst his mother's attention was diverted by Ginny Potter.

Honestly, Maxine Potter was the snottiest girl he had ever met in his short life.  Her dad didn't like his dad, so she wouldn't even say hello to him.  How rude!  Well, Aidan hadn't been terribly nice himself, so maybe he'd slammed a door in her face coming in, but still!  His dad had been right to say that she was a nasty brat.  He'd known he wouldn't like her.  But Aidan got bored of glowering at her rather quickly, so he decided to try to count the number of the people in the wedding party.  But this proved to be difficult because no one could stand still. 

Once it was determined that the bride's hair was as tame as it could possibly get, everyone got in position and the wedding began.

Maxine Potter took her place at the front of the line and Aidan went to stand beside her – as flower girl and ring bearer, they were supposed to walk together.  But as they began the procession, Maxine seemed to want to edge Aidan away from the center of the aisle by moving closer and closer to him, quite possibly to shove him.  But before she could do that, Aidan "accidentally" stepped on the back of her shoe, causing her to trip, ripping a tremendous hole in the royal blue fabric of her long dress and sending her basket of rose petals flying backward.  In fact, it flew straight toward Fleur Delacour-Weasley, who had been walking directly behind them on Bill's arm.  The basket struck the side of her head and she blinked, seeming slightly disoriented for a second, but pulled herself together. 

Molly Weasley thought the wedding might still go on without another mishap, but she was wrong – very wrong.  She stared horrified as her granddaughter, who had been sitting on the floor in a heap as though she might cry, leapt up, ran over to Aidan and shoved him, shouting "This is all your fault, Malfoy!"

"No, it's not," Aidan shouted, shoving her right back.  "You started it!"

"Doesn't that look familiar?" George whispered to Alicia, grinning in the middle of the unforeseen disaster.  "Reminds you of those rows the little bro and soon-to-be-little sis used to have in the common room, doesn't it?  Just a tad more violent."

George was right.  Maxine didn't bother with petty shoving again.  Her small hands flew to Aidan's chest, she tackled him to the ground, and straddled him, hitting every inch her tiny hands could reach until Draco Malfoy ran up from his spot at the back of the line to pull her off.  He started berating the girl until Harry strode up from his position and ordered, "Don't talk to her like that, Malfoy."

"I'll talk to her any way I want, Potter, or did you not see your wild child attack my son?"

It seemed as though Harry and Draco might come to blows, too, but Harry took a deep breath, seeming to remember that his best friends had to have their wedding in spite of the chaos.  Maxine hadn't actually done much damage, so the wedding continued as scheduled.

It went without a hitch until the vows.  At the precise moment that  the minister asked, "Do you, Ronald Bilius Weasley, take this woman, Hermione Jane –," Luna began to singsong, "Longbottom is Our King," under her breath, which caused a mini-explosion of laughter from the ring bearer and the flower girl, who found that in spite of a sore stomach and an irate grandmother's threats, respectively, they couldn't control themselves.  Luna Longbottom was just too much!  But she seemed quite unaware of the havoc (and embarrassment) she had caused and continued with her little rendition until she hummed herself into silence.

The ceremony continued smoothly (with the minor snag of Fred pretending to object to the union and stopping only with his wife's lethal glare) and the couple officially became Mr. and Mrs. Ronald Bilius Weasley.              

Everyone proceeded to the reception in a jovial mood.  Later, when things were in full-swing, Harry interrupted the happy chattering of those assembled by tapping his glass with his fork.  "I'd like to propose a toast to Ron and Hermione.  To the first two best friends I ever had, who are as near and dear to my heart as they were when we were at school, may they have only happiness and all the best in their new life together, as well as the knowledge that I'll be there for them now and always."

Molly Weasley dabbed at her eyes. 

"Yes, yes, I've been there every step of the way.  A firm supporter of the relationship even in the days of denial.  Our Good Ship R/H, as we called it in Gryffindor Tower.  Ah, in fact, I remember it was the boys and I that brought about the first time Ron declared his undying love for Hermione.  Sixth year . . .," Harry continued reminiscently.

Neville, Seamus, and Dean all sniggered at the memory.

"Yes, we Gryffindor boys had gone down to The Three Broomsticks in the village and we were having a merry old time, but it was Ron's birthday and the birthday boy wanted some stronger stuff."

The Weasley brothers sat up in their seats, looking interested all of a sudden and Draco looked more excited than he'd ever been.  Ron buried his face in his hands, but you could see that the tips of his ears were red enough to put his hair to shame.  Hermione stared very intently at her champagne flute as though there were something interesting floating amidst the bubbly.

"So we go down to the Hog's Head, you all know how they are there.  They gave us everything we asked for and lots of it.  It was then we found out ickle Ronnie can't handle his liquor.  We had him telling us his deepest, darkest secrets as though he'd drunk a bottle of Veritaserum. 

So Dean, smart bloke, goes "Eh, Ron, you're getting on in years and you haven't got a girlfriend yet.  But there's got to be a bird you've got your eye on."

And Ron answers him, "Yea' that Er-my-knee.  She drives me up the 'all and down ag'in, nags a' me day in an' day out, 'enpecks at me and mollycoddles me, and 'er 'air's thicker than 'Ogwarts, a 'Istory, but I love 'er.  She's a special 'un."  The same bloke who's been swearing up and down that he couldn't possibly fancy his best friend for the last two years."

"Guess the weasels are only brave drunk," Draco commented, amid gales of laughter from the group.

Ron's ears turned, if possible, redder.

Harry continued, "But it gets better . . . it turns out that Hermione was there all along and heard the entire thing.  She overheard Neville and me talking about our little escapade that morning and had followed us with Ginny to make sure we didn't get into too much trouble 'cause then little Ronnie would lose his prefect's badge.  So then she runs in and snogs the bloody drunk sod.  But he's so smashed that – how do I put this? – his digits slip a bit and she slaps him across the –"

"Stop it!" a loud voice interrupted Harry's recount.

Fred and George had cast a charm on Maxine's plate, causing the words Maxine Potter-Malfoy to appear all over it in pink, loopy script while Harry was giving his speech.

"Take it off!" Maxine wailed, her green eyes filling with tears.  She ran to where her father was standing and pulled him by his jacket to her place at the table, her long dark curls flowing behind her.  "Look!" she cried, pointing at her plate and glowering at her uncles with her hands on her hips.  "Make them put it right, Daddy!"  Harry frowned at them and instead took out his own wand, whispering a few well-chosen words that, rather than just making the words go away, turned the entire plate bubble-gum pink. 

"Well, pink's your favorite color, isn't it, Maxie?" Harry commented, as though he'd meant his spell to have that effect.

"That's better, Daddy," Maxine agreed with a watery smile, hugging him 'round his knees.

Harry smiled and wrapped up his little tale.  "So she slapped him across the face, gave him a sobering potion and here we are today.  Finally."

At last, Ron and Hermione got to have their dance.  They walked out to the dance floor arm-in arm and spun in time to music that only they could hear, waiting for their song to come on.  Ron, in an unprecedented fit of romanticism, sang a bit into Hermione's ear, "I knew I loved you before I met you . . ." 

But to their horror, the song "Opposites Attract" blared over the speaker's rather than "their song."  "We come together 'cuz opposites attract.  And you know, it ain't fiction, just a natural fact, we come together 'cuz opposites attract."

"Dedicated to the true stars and entertainment of the day.  You know who you are," said Fred and George in unison over the music, winking at Maxine and Aidan, who had been punished and were sitting in the same corner after dinner ended.

"Here we go again," Hermione whispered to Ron, laughing in spite of herself, with a wink at the two sullen children in the corner.  

"That was a funny story, Mummy," Danica gushed.

"But you didn't hear the ending yet," her father protested, smirking slightly.

"Yeah, Dani, be quiet, I wanna hear what happened to the ring bearer and the flower girl," Alex agreed, making an impatient "shh!" motion at his twin sister.

"They continued to bicker and when they grew up, they decided to get married so they could fight more conveniently.  The End."