This is a short that I wrote some time ago and published without doing enough checking. I'm putting that right now, I hope. Do let me know about any mistakes - fancy putting her down as Virginia - what was I thinking!? Thanks to my mystery guest - do make yourself known next time for a more personal thank you. Also to thats-a-moray, who added some great thoughts and got me to read what I'd mis-written.
I appreciate criticism and have changed some of my other stories for the better because of it. Use your review time wisely! =;-)
We didn't marry as young as many people who knew about us thought we would. There seemed no point in rushing things, there was so much to do in the years following. We both had school to finish in any case. Harry had a year of catching up, and exams, before starting on the world of work. I chose to retake a year after the farce that we all underwent with certain Death Eaters in charge of discipline at Hogwarts, preceding the Battle of Hogwarts.
We each took a gap year after that, though mine the following year to his and, meeting up frequently - we became adept at apparating, and also developed a little known empathetic trick of knowing where and what the other was doing at the time when we wanted to meet most strongly. We've never lost that to the great amusement of our grandchildren who interpret any vacant look as some form of telepathy. Unfortunately given our respective ages, this is not always true these days - I am just as likely to be wondering what I have done with the reading glasses that I had in my hand some moments before which, as likely as not, I shall find, after searching for them for some hours, on the end of my nose.
Oh yes, the wedding ... It's not that we were undecided, we'd known for a long time. He always told the children that he'd known since our first kiss, which appalled the boys when they were younger - though I suspect Albus Severus was only pretending, he has his father's romantic streak - but enchanted Lily. Romantic; though I'm never sure if it's an exaggeration despite his protestations to the contrary.
In the end, my youngest brother, my husband's best friend since they started at school together, married before us, despite predictions of a double wedding or that we would beat them to it from impatience at not being together. Mum put her foot down there and managed to scotch any ideas of living together by saying what would be the point unless we were uncertain about staying together, and didn't we all need a good party anyway. And it was a good party - possibly with as many family members as we are expecting today, though with a different set of generations.
Yes, there are a few people who we would have done anything for them to be there at the wedding. A few of our friends and classmates at Hogwarts didn't make it through the dark days and the Battle of Hogwarts when the Death Eaters were finally defeated. Some, such as Professor Severus Snape, I never got to know in a real sense, though he had taught at the school since long before I started there, and took me for Potions and Defense Against the Dark Arts. He was a bully at school and favoured his own house of Slytherin. It turned out that he was a really good man, and my husband has often described him as the bravest man he has ever known. That's why we named our younger boy after him, as well as Albus Dumbledore, as you say. Both people who influenced our lives beyond measure and without whom we would not be alive today and our children would not exist.
And it's not just witches and wizards that we owe our happy, boring lives to either. We would not be where we are without Dobby the Free House Elf who was a close friend of my husband and is now buried at my great niece's beach cottage, a home passed down to her by my brother and his wife. We visit Dobby's grave when we go there to see family, but also to mark special occasions such as the first time my husband met Dobby, when Dobby was given his first sock and the day when he rescued all of us from Malfoy Manor some months before the final war. Dobby died defending us in this last occasion as is still a great sadness to us.
It's possible that others who were invaluable in the fight against the Dark Arts, I would not want to know to any great extent. My husband has told me of his dealings with Griphook who was a goblin who worked at Gringotts Bank during our school days. He talks of him as warmly as I've heard anyone speak of goblins, even my brother who worked with them for many years at his time with Gringotts. There was something quite blood thirsty about Griphook however and he distrusted wizards about as much as I would have distrusted him.
I'm not sure that I can tell you much about the Deathly Hallows really that isn't in Beedle the Bards tales. I do know that the Elder Wand has lost its special enchantment, if it ever had any. Voldemort - yes, it's fine to say the name, honestly are people still superstitious after all these years; it won't call him back from the dead you know. Voldemort never was able to tap the finer nature of the wand and it's no longer certain who 'owns' the wand, even if its whereabouts could be found. The Resurrection Stone is known to be long lost and the cloak is only of use to its rightful owner, so I do hope people have finally given up on trying to get that secret out of the Potter family. That's all I'm prepared to say and much good will that do you in any case.
I know what's said about the longevity of the Potter line, but we don't possess the Deathly Hallows and would not wish to. In any case the stone, which brings back only a shadow of the person who died, does not make anyone Master of Death and brings only despair to those who believe that it does. I do hope your listeners will not continue with the unreal romanticising of these objects which do not do anyone good to dwell on.
Some would think that after such an exciting start our lives were boring and staid in comparison. We've never felt that at all. Bringing up two wizards and a witch is exciting enough for anyone in my view. Professor Dumbledore would have said something pithy to sum it all up, he was always good at a great sound bite when the occasion arose. He once said that to the organised mind, death is but the next big adventure. Neither my husband nor I are shy of going on this final journey in the secure knowledge that we shall meet each other and all our loved ones at this time.
I have just been speaking to Mrs Ginny Potter, wife of the legendary Harry Potter - the Chosen One - on the occasion of their 80th wedding anniversary taking place in Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. The interview was cut a little short by her great great grandniece's arrival and demand for hugs.
I would like to extend the thanks and warmest wishes of the wizarding world to this courageous family who, with their friends, saved us all and made our world the happy and safe one it is today. I am sure that you will want to join with me in wishing the Potters a further 80 years of marriage - given that Mrs Potter's protestations about the Deathly Hallows are not to be taken too seriously.
- Transcript from interview with Genevra 'Ginny' Molly Potter nee Weasley omitting the interviewer's questions
There are two conversations, that occurred shortly after the interview was concluded, that the listener might have been interested to overhear. The first was with Ginevra Jasper the great great granddaughter of Luna Scamander, nee Lovegood, friend and fellow old Hogwartian of the Potters. Ginevra may not have been aware that her 'family name' was passed down a few generations after great great grandmother had suggested naming her granddaughter after her good friend Ginny Potter who became God mother of this baby girl.
Anyway, the conversation she had following the interview was with her paper's editor in chief and her future husband, Grant Cassidy, and went something like this:
Grant, hi, yes Ginevra. I've got it, she's a great old broad and I got loads of quotable stuff. Talked about history like it was yesterday - yeah all taped and noted, none of that quick quills quote nonsense. Had a peek into the Great Hall where they are having the anniversary feast. Yes, he was in there. Looks every day of his age now, taking a nap sitting in a chair, nothing like he was when he led the last Convention just a few years ago. I'm going to say some upbeat stuff about the next 80 years marriage, but he really looked on his last legs. Not surprised he declined an interview.
The second conversation was a surprisingly upbeat and rather flirtatious one for a man on his last legs. I shan't report what was said between the happy couple on grounds of privacy. I shall tell you that as Mr Potter whirled his bride around the floor whistling a well know tune you'd have believed in another 80 years of happy marriage too.