Chapter Thirty-Four – Winter and Spring

With Valentine's Day over, and Quidditch matches done until May, the students at Hogwarts were loaded down with their studies. Between their classes, never-ending assignments, and Quidditch practices, James, Al, and the others seemed to be on the go all of the time.

The New Marauders continued to help their fellow students too, and Lily was a big part of what they did. Arianna now had forty-six mentor volunteers helping students with homework, or with personal issues.

For the rest of February, March, and April, other than Hogsmeade weekends, there wasn't much excitement happening at the school at all.

Outside of the school, though, things were hopping! Harry and Lily were making day trips to Marauders Paradise to help organize the wedding that was being put together on such short notice.

On the second weekend of March, the Marauders Institute began advertising their newest product, and created a storm of media attention. When they went on sale at the end of June, Ginny's now long-time pet project, the VirtualMall was going to certainly be a huge hit.

The difficulties in overcoming the creation of an entirely new way of securely exchanging money had taken years to create, and to negotiate with Gringotts. Where other games were complete when sold, this one linked to the game systems from the Institute, where the virtual store owners could continually modify their store or inventory to match the actual stores, or even just do something completely different that maybe wasn't even possible in real stores.

There were eight VirtualMalls that would be going on sale, and eventually customers would be able to buy the program for every magical mall in the wizarding world. VirtualMoney could be purchased at any real store that had a Virtual counterpart, or a VirtualAccount could be setup at a Wizard or Witch's local Gringotts bank. Delivery of purchased products could be nearly immediate, using Translocators, or sent to the customer by any means the customer requested and paid for.

The financial implications for the Institute, and for Gringotts were the most astonishing projections that any of the senior PBP managers had seen in their more than twenty years. A whole new demographic of customers would be buying Virtual GameWizards. PBP would have income from the purchase of the VirtualMall programs, from transactions, and from the purchase and use of more Translocators.

Since between PBP Investments and Witch Investments they also owned quite a few of the retail stores that would have VirtualStores too, they were positioned to make significant profits in every segment of the retail, banking, and manufacturing sectors that surrounded the new product and the business that would be created.

Most of the Weasley family, along with Lisa and Marcus went to Marauders Paradise on the Friday before Megan's wedding. Devon was muggle-born, and so only his parents would be attending from his family. Lisa was Megan's maid of honour, and Kevin was Devon's best man.

There was a reception to welcome everyone on Friday night, and they had dinner together at the hotel, then went to Gabrielle and Kevin's house, where they spent the evening outdoors before returning to their hotel suites. With the time change, most of them were very tired after a long, long day.

They had a beautiful day for the wedding. They were having another beach ceremony, this one on the beach near Megan's apartment.

There wouldn't be a very long 'aisle' for Harry to walk Megan down, but she and the other women were getting ready in her apartment, and when it was time to go to the beach, Harry walked with her from there.

"Do you have everything?" Lisa asked Megan.

Megan looked down at herself. "I think so," she said, smiling.

"You've got blue in your flowers, and Ginny's diamond necklace is borrowed, and your dress is new," Lisa said. "We forgot something old!"

Harry laughed, and took Megan's arm. "She's got me for that one," he told the girls, who both laughed along with him.

"You look amazing," he told her as they followed Lisa, and started their walk toward the waiting guests. "You're happy?"

She smiled at him. "Yes. Happier than I could have ever dreamed."

"Devon's a good man," he commented. "A really lucky one too."

"I think so – on both counts," she said, laughing.

Harry stopped for a minute and turned to look at her. "I want you to know that I'm really proud of you, Megan, and I love you very much," he said. Kissing her cheek softly, he smiled again. Lisa was waiting for them now, already at the back of their little gathering of friends and family. "We better get going, or they'll wonder what's going on."

Megan held him back for another moment. "Thank-you. I love you too."

They made it to the beach, and Harry kissed her cheek again as he placed her hand in Devon's, then stepped back to stand with Ginny. She smiled as she took his hand, and they watched as the old Wizard began the ceremony.

Harry felt a small hand take his other hand, and he smiled at Lily. The service was pretty short, and they were quickly exchanging rings and vows. When they were pronounce husband and wife, Harry had already used up a significant part of his tissue reserve, handing them to his left and right as mother and daughter both cried happy tears.

There was another private dinner, and then they all went dancing, including Lily, Hugo, and Frederica. They all gathered outside shortly after eleven to wish the newlyweds well, and see them off. They were staying on the island tonight, and would be leaving in the morning for their honeymoon.

Harry and Ginny took the three kids back to their suite, and were in the group that had decided it had been a long enough day, and went to bed.

Easter at Hogwarts was another adventure in hilarity. When the Chocolate Easter Wheezes went on sale, pink bunnies, easter egg and lily headed kids started popping up all over school. At breakfast on Easter day, there were several hundred temporarily Transformed students.

The school wasn't turned into anything, and there wasn't a mass case of bunny-mania that morning, but the students kept watching for whatever prank was coming. James and Al did not disappoint them.

It was a warm, sunny spring morning outside, and so a lot fo the students were outside enjoying the day when the bunnies started to appear. They kept on coming, more and more of them, and there were soon hundreds of bunnies hopping around the school grounds. Then they were in the school too – in the Great Hall, the Library, Common rooms, and nearly everywhere you walked.

"Well, aren't they just the cutest?" Carolyn told Al as they were walking together outside. "I wonder if they'd let you pick them up?"

Al smiled. "They look tame, why don't you try?"

She bent down, and one practically hopped into her arms. When she'd stroked it for the seventh time, though, it suddenly turned into a chocolate bunny! Al started laughing quietly at her surprise, and she turned to stare at him.

"This was you two again?" She looked at all of the bunnies all over the grounds and absently took a bite out of her bunny. It was very good chocolate!

Al just continued grinning and watching all of the other students as they began discovering what happened when you picked the bunnies up and pet them. Soon, everyone was smiling and having a great time. Some of the bunnies would hop right into a kid's arms, while others seemed to want to be chased around first.

James and Arianna walked up to them, both grinning. "I'd say this practical joke is a hit," Arianna told them.

Carolyn nodded. "And pretty tasty too," she told them as she popped the last piece of her bunny in her mouth.

The bunnies were fun, but year-end exams, OWL's and NEWT's were only a bit more than a month away, and none of the students could take a whole day off from studying. The New Marauders each caught themselves a bunny, then took their chocolate snacks with them, and went to work. It took until after dinner that evening for most of the bunnies to be caught and eaten, but the students would find a stray bunny here and there all over the school for the next several days.

The first Saturday in May was the day of the game between Hufflepuff and Slytherin. The Slytherin team desperately wanted a win. They were facing the prospect of having the worst losing streak in the history of their team. Hufflepuff wanted the win to stay in the race for the Quidditch Cup.

The Slytherin team had started out the year with a bad loss to a good Gryffindor team, a horrendous match where they were destroyed by a vengeful Ravenclaw team, and now they were facing a Hufflepuff team that had gone from a poor game against Ravenclaw to a great win over Gryffindor, and were on a roll.

Now the Hufflepuff team had it all together, and they showed it as they overpowered the Slytherin team. The Hufflepuff team only made one mistake in their game plan. Since points difference could play a part in the Quidditch Cup race, and their team was actually in a negative net points, thanks to the big loss to Ravenclaw, they wanted to score as many points as they could.

They underestimated the Slytherin Seeker, though, and didn't defend him well enough. Slytherin still lost the game, but by only one hundred and twenty points. Hufflepuff was now tied with Ravenclaw with two wins, but were still behind on points. It would take a huge blowout win for Gryffindor to hand the championship to Hufflepuff.

The following Friday, May tenth, was Lily's eleventh birthday. She woke up to the smell of her favourite breakfast cooking, and hurriedly got dressed and went downstairs.

"Happy Birthday!" her Dad told her, gving her a big hug and kiss. "Are you ready for your best day ever so far?"

She smiled up at him and nodded. "Sure. What are we doing today?"

He grinned at her. "I can't tell you – yet."

Ginny joined them a few minutes later, giving her daughter hugs and kisses too. Owl Posts arrived while they ate breakfast, and Lily opened the three packages that had come for her. James, Al, and the other kids sent her a box of Chocolate Birthday Wheezes, which included the Chocolate Cakes, Chocolate Presents, and an assortment of other themed treats. Teddy, Stewart, Victoire, and Isabelle sent her a beautiful musical jewellery box, and Grandma and Grandpa gave her a certificate for a Spa day – her second favourite thing to do next to shopping.

When breakfast was over, and her parents were cleaning up, Lily was starting to wonder what was going on. They hadn't given her any gifts, and other than wishing her a happy birthday, and making her favourite breakfast, hadn't really done anything special yet.

"Looks like we're all done here," Ginny told Harry. "I guess we can get going now." He grinned at her.

"Do you think Lily will want to come too, or should we drop her off to hang out with Hugo or Frederica?" he asked.

"Why don't we ask her?" Ginny suggested, smiling too.

"OK. Lily, we're going to the mall in Paris this morning. Do you think you'd like to go there and maybe try out all of the rides that the eleven year olds and older can ride? Then maybe do a little shopping? Pick out your own birthday presents?"

Lily threw her arms around him, then hugged her mother too.

"I think that's a 'yes', Harry," Ginny said, laughing.

They spent the morning at the mall, then had lunch there, and shopped for a couple of hours after that before getting ready to leave. Lily was expecting to appear back at the cottage when they took the TransPortal, and so was surprised when she found herself standing in front of the Marauders Paradise hotel.

"Why are we here?" she asked her parents excitedly.

"We thought maybe you'd rather not have to wait until summer to go on all the cool rides you've been missing out on. We'll have the whole weekend to play and go on those rides together."

When she'd finished hugging and kissing them again, they went into the hotel, and were shown to their suite. They all got changed and went out to enjoy their day.

"The rollercoasters are definitely the best," Lily was telling them excitedly over dinner. "That tower one is pretty awesome too," she continued.

"The man there told me that muggles do something like it with something called a 'bungee cord', whatever that is, instead of just jumping and getting caught by the suspensor spell. He said that hardly any kids have actually ended up smucked on the ground. I think he's just making that part up, though."

Harry and Ginny listened as Lily, fully wound up now, entertained them throughout dinner. Their little girl had a gift for communication. It was fascinating to watch her mind work. Someone who wasn't paying attention might think she was just spouting off, but she took in everything around her, and her commentary was laced with insights and understanding of her world that was far beyond what most young children would have – more than even a lot of adults.

The three of them had an amazing birthday weekend together, including an extra special Saturday. That day started with Aunt Hermione and Aunt Marietta bringing Hugo and Frederica to spend the morning at the Water Park with Lily, and an afternoon and evening with Gabrielle and Kevin. Lily even got to go to the WizardKaraoke club, where her Daddy got up and did a song just especially for her.

When they went home on Sunday, she assured Harry and Ginny that this birthday had definitely been the best one ever so far.

There had been three weeks between the Hufflepuff-Slytherin game and the final match of the season between Gryffindor and Ravenclaw. Between studying for exams, and Quidditch practice, all of the students on both teams – and their practice teams, were working harder than they'd ever worked before.

On gameday, while Al might wish that he could be out there playing for his house, he did get the consolation of getting to sit in the stands with his parents, sister, girlfriend, and other members of the family to watch the game. That was definitely a lot better than just having a few minutes with them after the game.

He had been joking with James when he'd suggested back in February that the Arithmancy people would be having fun with the possible outcomes of this game. What they'd decided, was, that if Gryffindor won by more than six hundred and ten points, then Madame Hooch could declare a tie for the Cup between Gryffindor and Hufflepuff, but that a win by Ravenclaw, a tie, or a loss by less than that six hundred and ten points would keep the Cup with Ravenclaw House for another year. If by some statistical miracle, Gryffindor won by exactly six hundred and ten points, then it should probably be a three way tie for the Cup.

The game got underway, and Al followed the action closely. He knew what their team game strategy was, and watched to see if it would be effective. They did want to win the game if possible, but Trinity had drilled every member of the team hard that they were not going to try to win at the expense of possibly losing the Cup.

"Your team is playing for the close win or loss," his father leaned over and told him. Al nodded as he kept his eyes on the action. "It's a good strategy," Harry added.

The lead swung back and forth between the two teams as they each put everything into the game. Gryffindor had only managed to pull into a thirty-point lead when Christina, making a bold run for the snitch left Jeremy with the choice to either catch the snitch himself, and win the game but fall short of winning the Cup, or lose both the game and the Cup. He didn't have the angle to block her to keep the game going. He only had a split second to make that decision before it'd be too late.

"Jeremy catches the snitch for Gryffindor! Gryffindor wins the game three hundred and seventy to one hundred and ninety!" Andy shouted in excitement. "Ravenclaw wins the Quidditch Cup on points! Well done, both teams!"

The Slytherin fans hadn't been cheering for either team, since they'd been beaten by all three of the Houses still contending for the Cup, and the Hufflepuff fans were disappointed, but could look forward to next year, coming off of a great two win season.

The Gryffindor and Ravenclaw fans were going crazy, and there was sure to be big celebrations in both Common rooms after the game.

James, Aaron, and Arianna were with their team as they met the Ravenclaw team on the pitch, and they exchanged congratulations for their respective wins of game and Cup.

He gave his Mum, Dad, and sister hugs when they got to the field from the stands. Percy and Penelope went to hug and talk with Nick and Scorpius, while Hermione and Hugo met with Rose and Matt, who was finally meeting Rose's mother for the first time.

"You all played a wonderful game today," Ginny told their kids on both teams. "I can hardly wait to see what happens in the next game of this series. It's just too bad it'll be a whole year before the next chapter is out!"

Lily smiled at her mom. "That chapter's going to get started in September when Hugo and I find out what House we get sorted into. One of the Houses are going to get a really good Keeper and Seeker next year."

James laughed at his sister. "You're pretty confident, what if you end up in Slytherin?"

Lily grinned at him. "Then I'll feel really, really bad for your team when my team beats yours. It might take me several seconds to get over it, but I would feel bad."

They didn't have much time together before Harry, Ginny, and the others had to leave. Christina again thanked Harry and Penelope for her broom, since she was graduating this year, and might not see them after today. Ginny had smiled at that, because she knew that Victoire had been keeping an eye on the girl for a job in one of the Witch Investment divisions, and would probably be recruiting her at the end of June.

There was one last round of hugs and kisses, then the students watched for a few moments as their family left for home before they all headed for either the locker room or their respective Common rooms to join the parties that would be the last moments of relaxation they'd have until after exams were over.