A/N: It's kind of long, at least for Pigwarts, but hopefully you share my view of 'the longer, the better'. :D

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Disclaimer: Everything you can recognize from the Harry Potter books belongs to the wonderful J. K. Rowling. And thank Merlin for Wikipedia. ;)

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The Founding of Pigwarts II – Cooking Chaos

Chapter 20: The Wedding – Four Gifts and One Nose

From Ron's point of view, everything was not going the way it should. Harry and Ginny were finally married, and that was good. But at the same time there was still a Ferret lurking around, and that was not good. Not good was also whatever Malfoy was up to now that his Crabbe-plan hadn't worked, for Ron was ready to bet his red hair and freckles that Crabbe had acted the way for no other reason than on Malfoy's orders. It had been a set up, just like with those pictures, only it hadn't done its job and ruined the wedding, and now they had an angry Ferret lurking around and scheming evil.

Ron was determined to find him, hex him, and kick him out. Of course, he had been determined to do this twice already, and on both times something had interfered with his noble intentions. But the third time is a charm, and Ron was thrice as determined now, and nothing, absolutely nothing was going to stop him this time.

Except for Ginny, who suddenly came and hugged him for no apparent reason, and then proceeded to push him into Daphne for no apparent reason. Ron was about to apologize (because Ginny thought highly of Daphne, and was presently staring at the two of them), when the air became filled with music, and Daphne's arms were thrown around his waist. And since Ginny was still glaring at him over Harry's shoulder, he had no other choice but to lay all his hopes on the fourth time. It wasn't as promising, though, for he had never heard anyone say that the fourth time is a charm. But he could always speak it to a hexed and beaten up Malfoy.

For half the dance everything was fine, Daphne didn't try to start a conversation with him, leaving him to enjoy all the wonderful mental images about the charmed fourth time, which also brought a wide smile to his face. But then, in the middle of a very nice scenario of Malfoy begging mercy and him replying with an evil laugh, he got a feeling that something was slightly off. His smile disappeared as he frowned, pondered, and then squeaked, finally becoming aware of the position of Daphne's hands.

"What the hell are you doing?" he demanded in a furious but hushed tone, should Ginny still be spying on them.

"I'm trying to make a cow jealous," Daphne answered in all seriousness. "Do you think it's working?"

The joy Ron felt when the dance finally ended could be only compared to the joy his was going to feel once he found Malfoy.

---

He didn't find Malfoy. Instead, Millicent found him, and then he found himself with Slytherins again, although these ones weren't groping him, for which he was very, very, very grateful.

But then Crabbe joined their little group, and Ron decided it was time to exchange his gratitude for anger, especially when he heard Blaise's words of greeting.

"That was bloody brilliant, Vincent! And the 'make babies' remark, that was fantastic. Why didn't I think of this?"

"Because you're an idiot, Blaise," Millicent replied sweetly, while Crabbe grinned, although not too enthusiastically.

"Malfoy put you up for this, didn't he?" Ron demanded hotly.

"Draco? No, not exactly."

"Haa! I knew it!" he cried triumphantly, then thought for a second. "What do you mean, not exactly?"

"He gave me some advice," Crabbe explained.

"The 'make babies' remark?" Blaise inquired, still a bit disappointed that he hadn't thought of this.

"No," Vincent slowly shook his head. "He told me that some things in life are worth fighting for, and that love is one of them."

"Malfoy told you that love is worth fighting for?" Ron asked, his tone too shocked to be doubtful yet.

"Yes."

"Like Malfoy would ever even know what love is," the doubt had finally made it, and brought disdain as well to keep it company.

Millicent and Blaise exchanged a look which was just obvious enough for Ron to catch it, but not as obvious for him to start suspecting they did it on purpose. Although that precaution was unnecessary at the moment, for he was still busy with his disdain towards Malfoy.

"What?" he questioned darkly.

"I think you should ask your friend that," Millicent smirked.

"Harry?"

"No, your other friend. The smart one."

"Hermione? Why would she know anything about…" Ron broke off his sentence, his face turning as red as a boiled lobster, and the doubt and distain asked their friend ire to join them.

"It's not about Ginny, is it?" he spoke, "Malfoy is here to do something to Hermione."

"Yes, you could say that," Millicent nodded.

Crabbe frowned in confusion.

"But Draco l—" he managed, before Blaise silenced him was a surreptitious wave of his wand.

"I'm going to kill that bastard should he even touch one hair on Hermione's head," Ron announced, looking murderous now.

"I don't think he'll limit to that," Millicent noted casually, her eyes shining with fiendish glee.

Ron opened his mouth, stayed this way for a moment, then closed it and stormed away without a word.

"Don't you think you went a bit overboard with that?" Blaise inquired. "By the look on his face, he might inflict serious damage on Draco."

"Well, I got impatient with all the waiting," she defended herself. "You really think it's that bad?"

"Yes," Blaise nodded. "Especially when Ginny and Hermione figure out it were us who riled him up like that."

"Oh, all right," she relented. "Let's go and save the day then. Or at least watch the show."

---

Blissfully oblivious of a raging-mad male redhead storming their direction (as the fates – ready for some entertainment - had finally took pity on him and let him choose the correct path), Hermione and Draco had found a quiet corner and were currently using it for dancing.

"I've got something for you," he whispered into her ear.

"Hmm… nice," she replied, breathing in his intoxicating smell as she stood in his embrace, cheek laid against his chest. "But shouldn't you be giving presents to Ginny and Harry? It's their wedding, after all."

"All right, I'll give it to Weaslette then."

"She's Potteress now," Hermione chuckled. "And no need to go that extreme. Let me take a peek at it first, and then we can decide."

Not wanting to let go of him, she instead turned around in his arms, resting her back against him, and placing her hands upon his. For a few moments they stayed like that, content, before he removed one arm from round her waist, but before she was able to protest, he had brought it back, now holding a box covered with dark green velvet.

"I wanted to give this to you the other day," he spoke as she took it from him. "But then we were rudely interrupted, and after that you got busy with your revenge."

She smiled and opened the box, staring at its content for a long moment, while he peppered her neck and shoulder with kisses.

"I don't know how to say this…" she said at last, frowning.

---

Thanks to the abnormally generous fates, Ron sighted them at that very moment, pausing for a second to take in their positions and the glower on Hermione's face, then broke into a run.

It seemed that those fates were having a good day because the next moment Ginny just happened to glance that direction, and understanding the situation in a heartbeat, she turned at once, not bothering to excuse herself from the conversation, and hurried towards the upcoming catastrophe.

Some way behind Ron, Millicent and Blaise sped up as well, although they knew they would never make it there on time, and in truth, they actually didn't want to.

---

"You don't like it," Draco stated, his tone filled with disappointment.

"… but Ginny is going to get one present less," she finished, breaking into a smile. "I love this, and I love you."

Ron stopped, as if hit by a lightning.

Ginny stopped, eyeing Ron carefully, ready to storm on should he make a move.

Millicent and Blaise stopped, their eyes sparkling with amusement at which promised to be a good show.

Under three intent gazes – because Ginny refused to take her eyes off Ron – Draco took the masterpiece of jewellery out of the box, and fastened it around her neck.

Hermione's smile widened at feeling the cool silver touch her skin, and glanced down at the diamonds and rubies sparkling merrily back at her.

"You are beautiful," he spoke quietly, yet the treacherous wind carried his words to all the spectators.

No one made a move, and the tension was almost palpable in the air, even around the lovers' embrace.

"I love you," he added.

And quite suddenly all the tension was gone, replaced instead by a bloodcurdling howl of white rage, as Ron put two and two together and got five, and before anyone else could react, the livid male redhead flew right at the happy couple.

Ginny started off as well, but then halted, realizing that her rushing into that might end up with blood on her white dress, and she was not going to let that happen.

Millicent and Blaise took a few steps closer, not wanting to miss anything.

But all they saw was a blur of colours, a few growls, rustle of cloth, and then…

CRACK!

And then…

"Owwww!"

Ron staggered away, covering his nose with both of his hands.

"You bwoke my nose! You son of a bitch!"

A very angry Hermione, judging by the way her hair was everywhere and seemed to be sizzling with electricity, stepped up to him, glared him in the eye, and stated coldly,

"That's daughter of a bitch!"

Then she moved back again, and shook her right hand, grimacing in pain.

"Damned, that hurt."

There was another moment of silence, which was broken by Ginny, who finally arrived at the scene, careful to stay away from Ron and his bleeding nose.

"What the hell are you doing?" she demanded from her brother.

"What the 'ell is Malfoy doing 'ere?" he demanded back, still angry and in pain, and therefore even more angry.

"I invited him," Ginny gritted through her teeth. "You have a problem with that?"

Ron was smart enough not to answer that question truthfully, but he wasn't smart enough to leave this whole argument.

"'e was 'urting 'Ermione!"

"No, he wasn't," Hermione snapped. "The only reason I'm in pain now is you and your stupid hard face!"

"But 'e is playing with you, 'Ermione, can't you see it?" Ron pleaded, turning towards his friend, "'E doesn't mean it. 'E simply wants to get you into bed."

"All I can see is you making a fool of yourself and ruining your sister's wedding," she snarled. "As for getting me into bed, not that it is any of your business, Ronald, he's already done that."

She gave him another glare, then, using his moment of shock, marched away angrily, dragging Draco with him.

Millicent and Blaise quickly removed themselves from her path, lest she figure out their participation in this whole thing, or simply lash out at them in her anger.

Once Ron had recovered from his shock, which took a while, the only person he saw was his sister, and by the look of it, she wasn't very happy with him.

"What part of 'Behave' did you not understand?" she hissed. "Now go clean yourself up and if you ever do something like this again, Ronald Bilius Weasley, I will never talk to you again."

And she walked away, leaving her brother wonder how his ultimate act of propriety had turned into a natural disaster.

The cruel fates were definitely laughing at him, but they weren't the only ones. Some distance from the brooding and bleeding Ron, Millicent and Blaise ended their evil moment with an exchange of amused gazes, then set off to help and heal the not-so-angry-anymore male redhead.

---

Chatting, and mingling, and sipping her champagne, Ginny tried to throw all thoughts concerning Ron out of her head. After all, women weren't supposed to keep thinking about their brothers on their wedding days. And she was sure he would be all right without her – Millicent and Blaise, once finishing their devilish laughter, would surely go and help him. Hah! Those delusional Slytherins thought she hadn't seen them there. They had better stop underestimating her and her sneakiness, although it wasn't so bad for her that they did it. This way, sooner or later they would do something really wicked, and then she could catch them in action, and make them pay. Pay her money or favours, that is – go blackmail!

Yup, it was fun to be evil.

She wasn't as angry at Ron as she had acted like, though. Not as angry as Hermione had been. She realized that with her recent history of being on the receiving end of Hermione's rage and revenge, the fact that she broke his nose shouldn't really surprise her. And actually she was more surprised at her friend's last words to her brother. Poor Ron, bleeding and confused and shocked as hell. Perhaps she should have told him before that Malfoy and a bunch of other Slytherins had been invited to the party. But she had been rather busy, and she had told him to behave. Though, from Ron's point of view, good behaviour probably did include hexing the hell out of Malfoy.

Still, it wasn't that bad. Ron was not going to curse anyone anymore, in fear of her never speaking to him again. Hermione's and Draco's relationship was out in the open, at least for Ron. And as to her dear brother, he was making friends with Slytherins, possibly without even noticing it. And her gown was still pure white without a single drop of blood. So all in all, things weren't that bad. Probably.

"Ginevra?" someone's voice brought her out of her thoughts, and there was only one person who called her that.

"Vinny," she smiled at him.

"I've got something for you," Crabbe said, and without further ado handed her a small glass jar filled with water.

"Thanks," she said, turning her eyes to examine the gift. "What is it?"

"It's the Giant Jellyfish you wanted," Vincent explained.

Ginny frowned and looked closer, and after a couple of moments did notice a little dark spot floating in the water. Her knowledge of jellyfish wasn't very wide, but if this was a Giant one then she couldn't really imagine a normal-sized.

"It's… small," she finally stated.

"It's just a baby. It will grow."

"Oh," Ginny replied, not sure whether to believe him or not. Perhaps the Giant Squid had also once looked like nothing more but a small dark spot, but as she hadn't been there to witness that, she didn't know for sure.

"Thanks, it's great," she said at last. "Now I only need some sessile polyps, and then the lake is complete."

"But this is a sessile polyp," Vincent spoke, pointing at the glass jar.

"You said it was a Giant Jellyfish?" Ginny frowned, confused.

"It is. But sessile polyp is a particular life stage that most jellyfish, including this one, goes through. The polyp stage is the first of the two; in this phase, the jellyfish takes the form of either a sessile stalk which catches passing food, or a similar free-floating configuration. The polyp's mouth and tentacles are located anteriorly, facing upwards. In the second stage, the jellyfish is known as a medusa. Medusae have a radially symmetric, umbrella-shaped body called a bell. The medusa's tentacles hang from the border of the bell."

Ginny closed her mouth.

"So this thing…" she spoke, once her voice had returned, "will first become a sessile polyp and then a Giant Jellyfish?"

"No, it is always a Giant Jellyfish, but for a while it is going to be a sessile polyp as well. You see, sessile polyp is not a species, but a life stage."

"But for a while at least it's going to be both a Giant Jellyfish and a sessile polyp?"

"Basically, yes."

"That's great!" Ginny exclaimed. "That's two wishes with one fish, so to speak."

"Jellyfish isn't really a fish. While they do share the same domain, Eukaryote, and kingdom, Animalia, the phylum of the jellyfish is Cnidaria, but fish belong to Chordata."

Ginny took another moment to ponder this, but since it didn't even look like it was going to make sense any time soon, she decided to change the topic before she would either say something incredibly stupid, or go crazy from wondering how in Merlin did Crabbe know all this.

"Thanks again for the gift! It's wonderful."

"I'm glad you like it," Vinny smiled at her. She couldn't help but lean over and give him another kiss on the cheek.

---

Harry Potter was nervous. Harry Potter was also married, and damned happy about it. Well, not so much for the fact that he was married, but that he was married to the most brilliant and beautiful witch in the whole wide world, who he also happened to be madly in love with.

But now he was nervous. Happy, exhilarated, elated, and nervous. Being the Harry her wife (wife! He almost melted at the word) knew and loved, he had planned something special for her, a wedding present of sorts, to show her his endless love and appreciation. And now he was nervous it was too little, or too weird, or unsuitable, or she would just not like it. Thus, Harry Potter was nervous.

It was going to be a surprise for most of the people, but he didn't care what they thought of it. All he cared was her opinion. Would his wife (oh sweet Merlin, definitely melting!) like it, would she love it, or would she simply hate it? Well, even if she disliked it, she would forgive him, right? Right?

And now that the time to reveal his present was drawing near, Harry Potter was nervous. Officially and utterly nervous. It was probably very silly of him to worry about it like this, but he was in love, and allowed to be a fool.

In addition to a fool, he was also very grateful for Charlie Weasley, one of his confidants in this matter, who at his signal went to gather together the crowd. Of course, he was the one who had to talk in front of everybody once they got here, but he still had some moments left before that. To worry and be nervous.

"Harry," someone spoke his name.

"Oh hey, Ron," he greeted his friend. "Where have you been all this time?"

"Something horrible has happened," Ron informed him, sounding serious and miserable.

"Is Ginny all right?" Harry asked at once, frightened.

"She's fine, just a bit angry with me. But Harry…" and now his tone had turned desperate, "It's about Hermione."

"Is she all right? Did something happen to her? Is she hurt?" Harry demanded hotly.

"She loves Malfoy."

Harry stared at Ron for many long moments, his jaw open, before he collected himself, and broke into a grin.

"That's no more drinks for you," he laughed, clapping Ron on the back.

"I'm not drunk!" the redhead exclaimed. "Honestly!"

"Oh, don't worry," Harry spoke good-naturedly. "I don't mind, it's a party after all. Just don't let your Mum catch you, she might not share my views."

Still chuckling, Harry walked away towards the front of the large crowd to say what he had to say, mentally thanking Ron and his drunken state for stealing away most of his nervousness.

"I'm not drunk," Ron muttered to himself. "But I wish I were!"

---

"It's a bird!" someone cried.

"It's a dragon!" someone else argued.

"It's a flying rock!" Daphne supplied.

Actually, it was a balloon. Big, and red, and golden, and the crowd awed and gasped as it descended from the sky. Once it had landed, a smiling Neville stepped out of it, winked and waved to Harry, and went to hug Ginny.

It was a balloon. Big, and red, and golden. Gryffindor colours, as everyone noticed and smiled at, or commented that green and silver would be much better. But whereas the red and golden part was clear to everyone, not many of them realized just how big it was.

Everybody was invited to take a peek inside, and their previous awes and gasps were nothing compared to the sounds they made now. The basket of the balloon was not the size of a small table, but the size of a small room. It had a bed, and a nightstand, and a fireplace, and even a bathroom! And ceiling! It was like magic!

It was magic.

And everybody loved it. And Ginny loved it as well. And she loved Harry. And she would have grabbed his hand, and dragged him to that bed, and taken off with the balloon at once, had she not have a present for him, too.

But she did have a gift for him, and the balloon with the bed had to wait. Not too long, though.

And she had thought they'd go to Greece on their honeymoon. Well, they could still go to Greece. Or anywhere else in the world, really. This balloon didn't depend on wind, she was told.

"Oh, Harry!" she exclaimed for the eleventh time, and proceeded to show him just how much she loved his gift. Well, as much of it as she could until Molly started to scream.

---

Once she was done blushing at getting a bit carried away, not that anyone save Molly seemed to mind (because it had been just a kiss, passionate, fiery, hot, but still just a kiss; all right, perhaps the minimum amount of groping as well), Ginny gave her own signal, and when Dean had finally managed to pass it on to Daphne, the Slytherin smirked at her, and ran away.

She wasn't gone long, though, and when she reappeared she was carrying a round tray covered with what looked like little pebbles of stone. Actually, they really were little pebbles of stone.

While Daphne moved around in the crowd making sure that everyone could pick one, Ginny stepped next to the colourful balloon and spoke up.

"My dearest guests! You have all seen the gift my husband – husband, what a lovely word – gave to me, and I'm sure you all love it at least half as much as I do. Or perhaps not. Because I love it a lot. But you have seen the gift from my husband – mmm, I just love saying it – to me, and now you are going to see my gift for him. Prepare yourselves, it's quite a gift."

At this point she stopped and gave a sneaky smirk, only not too sneaky because she didn't want to scare anybody away. While Harry's gift could have been delivered as well in private, hers would do much better with an audience. She also wanted it to be mentioned in tomorrow's Daily Prophet, meaning that Colin and Parvati had to come along. Although she really shouldn't have worried about that – the curiosity of those two could kill a herd of hippogriffs.

"Ready to see it, people?" she asked, and was answered by a chorus of 'yes'es.

Again she nodded at Daphne, who scooped up two pebbles from the tray, threw one of them at Ginny, and placed the second on the open palm of her left hand.

Drawing her wand, she touched its tip to the stone, and with one last smirk at Ginny, she activated her portkey and all the others as well.

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Note #2: I hope you liked it. One more chapter to come! And then the next part. :) REVIEW!