Chapter 2: Graduation.

The day had finally come. Graduation. Exams had come and gone. Results would be sent over the summer by owls. But today they were graduating. Everyone was in special graduation robes the colour of their house. There were chairs and a stage set up next to the lake. Hundreds of chairs for parents and families of the students. Each house had their own allotment of seats. The rest of the school sat at the back with the graduating students at the front close to the stage.

As the ceremony started, each house's graduating students were called up on stage. They were handed a roll of parchment signifying their completion of schooling at Hogwarts.

After the ceremony, there was a banquet for the students and families in the Great Hall, followed by raucous parties in each of the common rooms by the 7th years.

A few days later everyone piled onto the Hogwarts Express, eager to get home for the summer.

In the middle of that summer there were three engagement parties. Frank and Alice kicked things off, Arthur and Molly soon after and as the summer came to a close, Lily and James celebrated theirs.

By Christmas that year, Lily had arranged for a loan with the muggle bank in London. She had found the perfect place to open her cafe and decided to get a loan to finance it. She had already arranged with the Ministry for an official to cast the needed spells. Molly and Alice had helped to secure suppliers, both muggle and wizard, and had helped set up both a muggle bank account and a Gringotts bank account for the cafe. If things kept moving as smoothly as they were the cafe would be open in no time.

James and Sirius, meanwhile, had found a mechanic that was going out of business and arranged for a loan to buy the business. They had started renovating the building and would be ready to open by the start of January. Everything was going according to plan.