Thank you so much for all your reviews for the last chapter. I think it was probably the happiest chapter in the story, hmmm?

I'm going to shut my mouth about how many chapters are left. The goal posts have been changed again because the epilogue is proving so much fun to write, and I couldn't cram it all into one chapter. It'll be over when it's over. A few more things to happen yet.

Thanks to JessiokaFroka for betareading. .

Chapter Thirty Two

WEDDING NIGHT

"Is an hour long enough to spend at one's own wedding reception?" His voice was soft and deep at her ear, his hand caressing her shoulder.

She turned to him and smiled. "You've had enough?"

"There are other things I would much rather be doing," he smirked.

She bit her lip as an emotion welled up inside. They had made love so many times, and yet the promise of the wedding night seemed to fill her with such anticipation and excitement, she might just as well be a virgin all over again.

"Me too," she smiled.

"Could we slip away, quietly?"

"Absolutely, but let me just say goodnight to Liz - have you seen her?"

"She was talking to the Headmaster the last time I saw her. I think she was still recovering from being hit by your bouquet which you so forcefully threw at her."

Andi laughed. "I wanted to make sure she caught it. I knew Vincent was ready to dive for it. Oh look, she's not here, let's just sneak out..."

Leaving their champagne glasses on the mantelpiece, he led her to a little side door and they both slipped through it into a small lobby and then out into the grounds.

They strolled along the path that went around the outside of the castle until they reached the tiny archway where they had, just over an hour ago, been married.

"Little did I know when I discovered you here, practically naked, last July, that a year later I would be standing here as your husband," he mused.

"Me neither. I thought you were the most odious man I had ever met. If the crone had predicted then that I was going to be your wife, I think I'd have opened a vein!"

"That bad?"

"Just about." She picked up his hand and played with the ring on his third finger, thoughtfully. "We've been through some crap to get here, haven't we?"

There was a thickness to her voice that betrayed her thoughts. His arms came around her and held her.

"Severus...would you mind very much if we tried for a baby quite soon? I know we can never replace Josephine - I wouldn't want to think we were trying to - but my arms feel the need to hold a baby and... Poppy warned I might have problems..."

"Anything you want," he said, looking into her eyes. "Anything you want."

They kissed.

Breaking the kiss but not the physical contact, they continued their walk around the castle. Even at this hour, the temperature was pleasantly cool and an almost full moon lit their way as they strolled around the back of the castle where the gravel path ended and blended into grass.

Severus stopped and held her back. She looked up at him enquiringly. He nodded in the direction of a little arched porch where the moonlight did not reach and so was in darkness, a secluded hideaway.

Andi's night-vision was no match for Severus' and she peered into the dark recess, wondering what he had seen, until she detected the movement of shadows.

Silently she and Severus approached, their footsteps muffled by the grass underfoot. They got very close and still had not been heard.

A large figure was standing facing the wall. Taller than Severus and slightly broader, he was stooped to accommodate the pale flesh of female arms coiled around his neck.

Sandwiched between him and the stonework was emerald silk and a shock of flame-red hair.

Andi realised this was becoming a touch voyeuristic as the man thumbed three buttons open on the top part of the outfit and slipped a hand inside.

"Hey you two - get a room!" she called, and laughed as they sprang apart.

"Professor Snape!" choked the man, a guilty, fearful look on his face.

"You are out of my jurisdiction, Gleaves," said Severus, sternly. "I cannot take points from you now."

"And we'd go to my room if I could find the bloody key," blustered Liz, quickly buttoning her jacket and adjusting the skirt.

"Mr. Gleaves seems under the impression you keep it down the front of your dress," smirked Severus.

"She does," grinned Bruno, holding aloft a chain with a key on the end.

Liz looked away in embarrassment.

Andi smiled and went to her, drawing her away from the men.

"We've left the reception," she said. "We're turning in. I'll see you tomorrow."

"I was hoping you wouldn't," said Liz in a low voice, grinning and glancing lustfully at Bruno. "I was planning to spend the whole day in bed." Then she bent to Andi, turned their backs to the men and whispered, "He's absolutely gorgeous and hung like a horse by the feel of it."

The two women burst out laughing.

"I think it is time to go our separate ways," Severus said pointedly, drawing Andi away and bowing a dismissal. "Miss Murrone; Mr. Gleaves."

One couple went one way, one the other.

Finally Andi saw the door that led down to the dungeons from the other end of the corridor and at last they stood before the quarters they both would now call home.

Severus opened the door and stood aside to allow her to enter first, but she stood quite still, looking at him. He looked back inquisitively, until he realised and raised his eyes to the heavens.

"You are not holding me to that Muggle tradition?"

"I certainly am."

He sighed. "How many Muggle wedding nights are ruined," he grunted as he picked her up in his arms and carried her across the threshold. "by the groom rupturing something vital whilst doing this?"

"Are you saying I'm too heavy?"

"I was speaking generally."

"Now you're speaking diplomatically."

"You are speaking too much." He bent to kiss her as he lowered her feet to the ground. "Would you care to see around your married quarters?" he said, breaking off.

"Married quarters?" Andi turned, and for the first time saw a new door set to the right of the fireplace. "What's this?"

They walked over to it.

"My quarters have been extended to accommodate a wife. This is the first room..." he said, opening the door for her.

Andi walked in to an oak-paneled room with bookcases, a chaise-longue, her framed photos standing on occasional tables, her gramophone and... ...a baby grand piano.

"What the...?" She turned to him, amazed. "Where did this come from?" She indicated the piano.

"There is a card."

Now she saw the white card propped on the music stand above the keys.

She went to it and read,

"To my darling Daughter,

There is nothing I can do to make up for the twenty-five years

I missed of your life, but I hope this wedding gift

will bring you some of the happiness I know we could have shared.

Never doubt that I loved you, and still do.

Be happy my darling,

Love Mummy

"Oh my goodness," said Andi, breathless. She sat down heavily on the piano stool. Her fingers fell to the keys and played a few chords. The piano had a wonderful tone, and she couldn't help it, she began to play:

"Night and day,

You are the one.

Only you beneath the moon

And under the sun..."

"Champagne?" he interrupted, taking the bottle from an ice-bucket and pouring the golden liquid into two fluted glasses waiting on a tray on a table.

Andi smiled as she continued to tinkle the keys. He wasn't keen on light, frivolous cocktail music, but a little teasing wouldn't go amiss tonight, she thought.

He read the card next to the ice bucket. "A wedding gift from Minerva."

"The ice bucket?"

"The champagne."

"I get no kick from champagne.

Mere alcohol

Doesn't thrill me at all..."

"Cease playing and drink," he ordered pleasantly, handing her the cold glass as he sat beside her on the piano stool.

"In the words of Woody Allen, 'you don't deserve Cole Porter'." She grinned at him and clinked her glass against his, whether he wanted to or not.

They drank.

"What do I deserve?"

"Oh something much, much better..."

When she opened her eyes from the kiss she noticed the torches on the walls had dimmed to a very romantic level. More teasing, she thought. She put her glass down and began playing again as she sang;

"I need no soft light

To enchant me

If you'll only grant me

The right

To hold you ever so tight...

She had turned her head and they looked at each other, their faces close (and if you couldn't be slushy and romantic on your wedding night, when could you?);

And to feel in the night

The nearness of you."

Evidently he felt the same, because...

"I believe I never did tell you what an Entrancing Enchantment is," he murmured, his eyes following the passage of his thumb as it traced over her bottom lip, his own lips moving closer, and in the second before they kissed again, he whispered, "I love you."

She felt tears dampen the tops of her cheeks. These were words she had never expected to hear.

"I think it's time you took your virgin bride to bed," she whispered, choked.

His mouth twitched. "Andrea, unless you are privy to some very powerful magic of which I am totally unaware, I think 'virgin bride' is a slightly inaccurate declaration."

"Yes," she sighed. "It's quite sad really, isn't it? You fool around with some spotty youth in your teens, lose your virginity to him - which he never really appreciates at that age - and then years later you meet someone you'd much rather lose it to."

He picked up one of her corkscrew curls and let it bend around his finger. "I'm not sure I would want a twenty-eight year old virgin on my hands," he said, his mouth lifting pleasantly.

"No, perhaps not," she smiled. "But you know..." She cleared her throat. "There is one way I'm still a virgin." She felt her face go warm and she lowered her eyes, suddenly feeling very shy, her heart beating fast.

He rid himself of his glass, then put a finger under her chin and lifted it, looking into her eyes. "I would never ask you to do anything you did not want to do."

"I know," she said, quietly. "I didn't go through with it last time because you caught me by surprise. I was unprepared. Now I've thought about it and I've decided; I really want to be a virgin for you on our wedding night."

When they kissed this time, she felt the heat ignite immediately, burning through her until she fell weakly against him, into his arms, and he lifted her, carrying her towards the bedroom, kissing continuously.

"Andrea?" he murmured huskily, as he lowered her onto the bed.

"You've ruptured something vital? Did... did you just... laugh?" She struggled to get a look at his face but he quickly buried it in her neck kissing his way along exposed flesh, until her thoughts were diverted elsewhere.

His fingers unbuttoned the back of her dress, pulling it down, and when her breasts were naked to him, he lowered his lips, kissing her flesh until he could take one nipple into his mouth, sucking gently, flicking his tongue, sending her wild with desire.

His fingers took over, caressing and teasing until both nipples stood hard and erect and she was whimpering with arousal.

"Would you have... any objection... to the conventional way first?" he said, kissing his way down her body.

The dress was off, her panties were off. All that remained were her Jimmy Choos, which were his favourite, and the silver necklace. She lay completely open to him; she was his - for whatever he wanted.

And she wanted it so.

"None at all," she sighed, and pulled him to her.

Emma Barrows - Thanks for your review. I'm so glad you liked it.

Thouandl - Yes, it did feel as though we'd completed the circle and it could all end happily right there. However, there is more. Nope, haven't changed Twenty Four Little Hours for Ashwinder. I just wanted it posted somewhere else in case Ffnet do to me what they did to Grill.

Mark Darcy - Being bi, I suppose Vincent would fit in anywhere! One of my readers told me Hooche's name was Rolanda (?), but it didn't fit in with what I had planned for her character, so I gave her the nickname of 'Dickie', which kind of goes with her 'hobby'.

Queen of the Faeries - Vincent would probably rather be referred to as a 'side-dish' rather than a side-character! Hehehe. Thank you for liking him. The stag-night remains a secret, but I can tell you that Severus' middle name was Marvolo. The name sounds more of a wizard name than muggle to me, and it doesn't appear on Voldemort's father's tombstone, so I thought perhaps it might be a family name given to Voldemort through his mother and that way back in their family tree, Severus is somehow related and shared the name. And you were the only one to ask...

Aries1 - Hey, hi again. Thanks for reviewing. Glad you enjoyed it.

Music Is My Muse - Can I join you on those sleepovers? They sound so much fun. I want one of those rooms with the recliner chairs. Have not seen Something the Lord Made - yet; but thanks for your email and for being my muse. Hugs.

Wytchkat - Oh, thank you so much. What a lovely review. Lol.

KristiM - Andi once mentioned in a letter to Liz that she thought Vincent was bi; and then Vincent looked after Liz when she stayed at Hogwarts when Andi lost the baby. She would have found out then. Thanks as always for a lovely review. Lol.

Kerichi - I'm sopleased you came to the wedding. Lol.

Hysterically Insane Author - I'm sad it's coming to an end too, but Andi will be with us for a little while longer.

Helena Oe - Thanks for your review as always. I'm glad you like Sylvia. She's a bit of a rock in the next chapter.

Merlinsbeard - Thank you for all your reviews. I'm flattered you've read from the beginning and caught us up in such a short time. Very much appreciated.

Zanna - Severus a fluffy little bunny? Hahahaha! Perhaps that could be Andi's private nickname for him (and perhaps it would be best if Severus didn't know about it!). Thanks so much for your review and comments.

josie - Thanks so much. Characterization is not one of my strong points, so thank you for that.