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A/N: Here's another chapter and it didn't take me 2 months! HARRY POTTER AND THE HALF BLOOD PRINCE COMES OUT TOMORROW NIGHT, 12:01 A.M.! I'm going partying. Yes, I'm excited. Well, here's your chapter. You'd better review!

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Chapter Forty-Seven

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"Hermione! Have you seen my other black stiletto?" Pepper cried in panic, racing around the flat.

"It's right here!" Hermione called.

Pepper sped into the living room, her hair half curled, one stiletto on, to see Hermione standing there, dangling the other shoe from her finger. "Thank you!" Pepper gasped, taking the shoe from Hermione. "I have no other shoes that go with this outfit. I should go finish my hair!" Trying to put on her stiletto and walk at the same time, she hopped from the room.

"Hermione, Draco's here!" Pepper announced from the bathroom as she watched the familiar blonde pass the open bathroom door.

Pepper heard Hermione and Draco in the sitting room, exchanging usual pleasantries, and then Hermione called out, "Pepper, we're leaving! Don't wait up for me."

"Well, if my date goes as well as I hope it will, I won't be here to wait up for you!" Pepper replied.

She heard Draco and Hermione laugh. "Bye!" Hermione said.

"Have fun, Pepper," said Draco.

"You too, kids! Don't do anything I wouldn't do!" said Pepper as she finished curling her hair. There wasn't any reply from Hermione or Draco so she headed to the sitting room, expecting them to have already left; they were still there, though.

"Oh, and Pepper," Draco said, "some advice on how to get laid tonight—"

"Advice that I don't need," Pepper retorted cockily.

"Wear that black belly shirt with the weird sleeves," he continued.

"Then I'd have to change my bellybutton ring," Pepper whined.

Draco shrugged. "It's just a suggestion."

"You two are so full of yourselves," Hermione sighed, shaking her head. She grabbed Draco's arm and dragged him towards the front door.

"Why Hermione, I'm chuffed!" Draco exclaimed in answer to her comment, and Hermione slammed the door behind him, leaving Pepper alone in the house.

She strode over to the full-length mirror on the sitting room wall and glanced at her choice of attire. "I hate it when he's right," she muttered, and headed up the stairs to her bedroom to change her top to the one that Draco had suggested. Then, since this top showed her stomach, she changed her purple flower bellybutton ring to a silver star.

The doorbell rang and she raced from her bedroom to the front door in a matter of seconds to answer it. She smoothed out her pants before she opened the door.

Her date, Jake, was holding a dozen tiger lilies. "Hey, Pepper," he said, his eyes skimming over her body. "Wow, you look great."

"Thanks, Jake. You don't look so bad yourself." She smiled at him.

"Oh, these are for you," he remembered, handing her the flowers.

"Thanks, I'll put these in some water," she said. "D'you want to come in?"

Wordlessly, he followed her in the house, back into the kitchen, where she went to the cupboard to get a vase.

"You've got a really nice place," Jake said, sitting on a stool at the island in the kitchen.

"Maybe you should come see it more often, then," said Pepper, turning from the cupboard to smile at him flirtatiously.

"Perhaps I should," he said, smiling as well.

The doorbell sounded again. "Excuse me," Pepper said, breaking her flirtatious gaze and headed to the front door once again. When she opened the wooden door Harry was standing there. He looked slightly nervous. When he saw what she was wearing, he became even more nervous.

"Hey Pepper," he smiled.

"Harry," she said, "what are you doing here?"

"Well, you see—"

"Who is it, Pepper?" Jake appeared beside Pepper in the entryway.

"Uh, Jake, this is Harry, my god brother. Harry, this is Jake, my boyfriend," Pepper explained.

The two men exchanged waves as greetings. "I should come back later," said Harry, turning to go.

"Did you want to tell me something?" Pepper asked.

"Yeah," said Harry, "but it can wait."

"Hold on Jake, I'll just be a moment," Pepper said, flashing her date a grin before stepping out onto the patio, closing the front door behind her. "What is it, Harry?" she asked.

"Oh, no, it's nothing," said Harry, but from the anxious look on his face Pepper could tell it was something.

"No, Harry, what is it?" Pepper asked, concerned. She wrinkled her brow. "Has it something to do with Tanya? I thought you two were doing well."

"No, we broke up a week ago," Harry shrugged, seeming indifferent.

"Oh, I'm sorry, Harry," Pepper said sympathetically. She wondered if it had really been that long since she'd seen Harry.

"It's alright, I broke it off," said Harry.

"Why?" Pepper wondered. "I thought you really liked her."

"Well, you see, I…er…realized something," he said uncomfortably.

"What would that be?" Pepper asked. She was determined to get this information out of him. She drummed three of her fingers against her shiny silver pants, the material silky to the touch.

"I realized that I'm…in…in love with you, Pepper. I love you," he said hurriedly, looking away from her.

"Oh my," Pepper breathed, eyes wide.

The clone Pepper was passed out in the middle of the Death Eater circle, the Seer standing over her, looking puzzled.

"What's going on?" the Source hissed. "This is not supposed to happen!"

Draco stiffened. Once they found out that she wasn't pregnant, the Source and Voldemort would blame it on him. And they would kill the clone Pepper. Draco didn't know if the clone's connection to the real Pepper was strong enough to kill her too…

"This is your fault!" Voldemort yelled at the Source.

All of the Death Eaters shifted their eyes to the Source, who glared at his partner.

"I knew that damn Seer was no good!" Voldemort continued.

Draco's eyes went wide. It looked like there might be a chance that the powers of the Source and of Voldemort would clash and Good would have the slightest chance at winning the Last Battle….

The Source rounded on Voldemort. "If your insolent boy would have been more reliable then everything would have gone as planned! I can't have this fail!"

"You can't have this fail!" Voldemort roared. "Everything depends on this! And because of your damn Seer it WILL fail!"

Right in front of the Death Eaters' unbelieving eyes, the Source conjured an energy ball and threw it at Voldemort. Voldemort moved out of the way and it hit one of the Death Eaters – Nott – and he screamed in pain and crumpled to the floor; his robes, hair and very flesh on fire.

The first scene faded and another one appeared behind her eyelids.

"Ariel's pregnant!" Ron announced, entering the kitchen. Pepper was standing at the sink, rinsing dishes off to put in the dishwasher, and Harry was sitting on one of the counters, talking to her. At Ron's announcement, he jumped off and went over to hug his best friend.

"That's great, mate!" said Harry.

Pepper smiled, and went over to hug Ron as well. "How far along is she?" she wondered, drying her hands on her jeans.

"Two months, but she just found out today. You guys are invited for dinner tomorrow, to celebrate," Ron said.

"Pepper!" called a voice from the living room. Hermione entered the kitchen, Draco on her heels. She looked flushed and excited.

"What is it, sis?" Pepper asked, wrinkling her brow.

"Aunt Phoebe's giving birth," Hermione explained.

Pepper gaped at Hermione. "No," she said softly. "But they baby's not due for another six weeks."

"I know, but they need you there now," said Hermione sternly. "She's at the Pittsburgh General Hospital. Draco and I were just there; she's not doing too well, it would seem."

"Oh god," Pepper muttered, "Harry, Ron, d'you want to come?"

The two of them nodded, looking slightly worried. Pepper grabbed both of their hands and Mirrored out of the kitchen, Hermione and Draco going to the fireplace to follow.

Pepper, Ron, and Harry arrived in the corner of an empty waiting room. The walls were painted white and the floor was white marble. Pepper hurried over to the desk across from the waiting room, where a receptionist was filling out some paperwork. "Could you tell me where the maternity ward is, please?" she asked.

The woman looked up at Pepper and smiled a greeting. Pepper smiled a hurried smile back. "My aunt's in labor," she explained to the woman.

The woman smiled again, this time understandingly. "Maternity ward is down this hall and to your left." She pointed down the right side of the hallway.

"Thank you," Pepper said, and she, Harry and Ron took off down the corridor. Piper and Paige were standing outside a door not too far down the hallway, and the trio stopped at that door.

"What's happening?" Harry asked.

"There's been a little trouble with getting the baby out," Piper explained, and she sounded worried. "I think they're going to have to do a C-section. She's already been in labor for hours…"

"Why didn't someone come get me before?" Pepper asked, worried herself now. Her black eyebrows knitted together, wrinkles in her forehead, her eyes full of concern. Harry grabbed her hand comfortingly and squeezed. A nice tingling sensation made its way up her fingers and arm.

"It's been really dull, sitting around here for half a day," Paige shrugged. "We know how you can't sit still, Pep. And we wanted to know what was going on before we worried any of you guys."

"It seems like she'll be alright, though," Piper assured her niece.

"I hope so," Pepper said. "I'm just glad it's not as bad as when you gave birth to Chris."

Hermione and Draco came down the hallway, fingers intertwined, joining the five people outside Phoebe's white hospital door, number 256. "Hey," Hermione greeted. She looked around the feet of the group. "Where're Chris and Wyatt? Weren't they just here?"

"We had Leo take them home," said Piper. "I didn't think they'd like hanging around here much longer."

"Speaking of hanging around," Ron said, "would you guys mind if I headed back home? Ariel was expecting me, and she's gotten very demanding today, since she just found out she's pregnant. It's like she's forcing her hormones into overdrive." He grinned, obviously happy about the whole situation, even if it meant waiting on his wife hand and foot.

"Congratulations, Ron!" Paige and Piper chorused.

"Of course it's alright if you leave," Piper said.

"Tell me how it all works out," Ron said to Harry and Pepper, who both nodded. Ron looked around the hallways. The wedding ring glinted on his finger as he waved them farewell. After making sure the coast was clear, he Apparated from the hospital, leaving the other six people to wait for Phoebe's baby to be born.

"Now look what you've done!" said Voldemort in incredulity, referring to the fallen Death Eater. All eyes were on Nott's smoldering body. Voldemort was amazed that the Source had just tried to kill him.

"I'll just do this myself!" the Source yelled, conjuring up another electric, blue energy ball. Before he threw it, there was a loud banging noise as the doors to the room flew open, the old wood flying off the hinges. One of the doors landed on a Death Eater, knocking him to the ground.

Everyone's eyes turned to the doorway, where a pack of people entered, led by Piper, Paige, Phoebe and the real Pepper. Before anyone had time to think twice about the two Peppers, the battle began.

For a second time, the scene faded, another one coming in quick succession.

Pepper, Harry, Hermione, Draco, Ron, Ariel, Ginny and Eric were gathered on the front porch of the Halliwell's house. Pepper, hand in hand with Harry, knocked on the door.

"Come in Pepper!" came the muffled voice of Paige through the door.

Pepper pushed the door open and the eight of them filed into the house, greeted by shouts, hugs, kisses, and introductions. Pepper was reluctant to release Harry's hand, but she had to so she could greet her family.

Phoebe ushered them all into the living room, which was smaller than the one they had had at the Manor but larger than the one they'd had in Montana, Pepper noted. She glanced around the room. It was the first time she'd been in her aunts' house since they moved.

Harry sat in an armchair and Pepper sat next to him, on the chair's arm, her dangling leg bumping his every so often. Ginny and Eric were sitting alongside Ron and Ariel; Hermione and Draco were on the floor with Chris and Wyatt. Phoebe sat on the floor as well and Paige excused herself to go help Piper with dinner.

Pepper breathed in deeply. "It smells wonderful," she commented, and everyone nodded their heads in agreement.

"So, Wyatt, how's the magic school?" Harry asked.

Wyatt seemed excited to be asked a question by Harry. "It's great," Wyatt said. "I'm the most powerful kid in class!" He beamed. "But I can't wait to go to Hogwarts. I know it'll help me a lot and make a great impression on me."

Pepper smiled at the effort Wyatt was making to impress Harry.

"Well, if you're anything like your cousin Pepper, here, you'll make your own impression on Hogwarts."

"Hey!" Pepper said indignantly, though she was smiling. She hit Harry playfully on the chest. The rest of the room chuckled.

"She did do a lot of cool stuff, didn't she?" said Wyatt.

"Yes, she definitely did that," Hermione said, smiling.

The Dark side was definitely outnumbered by Good. The Death Eaters fought the Aurors, Order members, Charmed Ones and Hogwarts staff to fend them off until the Source could call demons to him and until Voldemort did the same with the Dementors. Plus, they were down by two Death Eaters: Severus Snape and Draco Malfoy were fighting on the side of Good now, knowing that this would be the Last Battle.

"It almost seems anticlimactic, you know?" Pepper yelled to her partner-in-battle, Hermione, as they fought off Ivi Spada, who was glaring at them as she fought. "I mean," she continued, freezing Spada and stunning her, "all this stuff has happened and now it's just like 'Alright, Harry's got to kill Voldemort now, the war will be over by tomorrow.'"

"Don't complain about the end of a war being anticlimactic, Pepper," Hermione warned, using a spell to wrap ropes tightly around Spada's wrists and ankles.

Pepper shrugged, throwing out another spell, and trying to grasp the pictures that were playing the back of her mind, a little too dim to see.

The demon factions and Dementors appeared a few minutes later, sweeping everyone in cold. It got considerably harder to fight in these conditions. It was lucky that Professor Giancarlo had taught her students how to do the Patronus Charm and it was a requirement to become an Auror and member of the Order.

"No, you three were at Hogwarts five years longer than I was, and you caused a lot more commotion than I did," Pepper argued. "Harry fought Voldemort countless times, saved the Philosopher's Stone, won the TriWizard Tournament, he and Hermione saved my dad and Buckbeak, Ron found out the truth about Madam Maxime…you guys did way much more than I did. If I listed it all, we'd be here all night."

"Yes, but you kept things exciting," Harry said. "There's never a dull moment with you, Pepper."

"Too much information, Potter," said Draco.

Pepper's jaw dropped in mock-shock, but she started laughing. Wyatt and Chris looked around, not getting Draco's joke.

"So Chris, how're you doing in magic school?" Hermione asked.

Chris sat up tall on his knees. "It's great," he said. "I'm doing really well and I've got lots of friends! But I wish they would lower the age you could go to Hogwarts to seven. Then I could go now."

"Enjoy magic school while it lasts, Chris," said Pepper. "Once you get to Hogwarts your life will probably be turned inside out."

There she was, Bellatrix Lestrange, the woman who had killed her father. Their meeting reminded Pepper of an old Western movie: they saw each other, Lestrange smirked, and they stomped towards each other. No one else in the room mattered, though Pepper had to dodge a curse as she approached the killer. She squinted her eyes into a glare, but Lestrange just laughed at her. Pepper raised her wand, seemingly in slow motion, to send a curse the woman's way, but she was too slow.

"Avada Kedavra!" Lestrange shouted, breaking Pepper out of the slow motion trance.

She knew this to be the killing curse, and she wasn't in the mood to die tonight. She knew that she herself couldn't send the curse, so she had to decide a way to kill Lestrange without actually saying the words herself. As the bright green light sped towards her, Pepper had an idea. She tucked her wand under her armpit and held her hands out. As soon as the curse got close enough, she deflected it, sending it back to a wide-eyed Lestrange, who died as soon as the green light touched her. She joined the growing number of dead bodies littering the floor.

"Dinner's ready!" Piper announced, and everyone filed into the dining room to eat. Pepper, Harry, Hermione, Draco, Ron, Ariel, Ginny, Eric, Piper, Leo, Phoebe, Wyatt, Chris, and Paige had to squeeze around the dining room table.

"Where are Parker and Jake?" Hermione asked Phoebe.

As she spoke, the doorbell rang. "There they are," Phoebe said, getting out of her chair. She left the room to go and answer the door, and when she returned she kissed Jake, who was holding Parker in his arms, she said, "Eric, Ginny, I don't think you've met my husband. This is Jake. And this little bundle of Terrible Two joy is Parker."

They sat down again and the Thanksgiving meal began. Under the table, Pepper kept playing with the gold ring around her finger. Harry, who was sitting beside her, saw her fidgeting and grabbed her hand so she would stop it.

"So Aunt Paige, where's your current beau?" Pepper asked her aunt as she served herself some stuffing.

Paige raised an eyebrow at her niece. "Actually, Michael is having dinner with his family tonight. He wanted me to come, but I told him I couldn't miss seeing my own family and friends."

"Wise choice," Pepper smirked jokingly.

"Do you like it here in Virginia?" Ariel asked the Charmed Ones.

Piper shrugged. "It's no San Francisco but what can you do when everyone there thinks your dead?"

"We do like it a lot better than Montana, though. At least we can go to the beach," Phoebe said. "And the job options are better here as well."

"How's married life treating you, Hermione?" Piper asked, grinning.

"Pretty wonderful," replied Hermione. "Our honeymoon to New Zealand was incredible, and now that everything's settling down, I'm realizing it's not as complicated as I thought it was going to be."

"That's good," Paige said. "Now the only unmarried couple besides me and Michael is Pepper and Harry." She turned to look at the two.

"Actually…" Pepper began. "Well, this isn't really how I wanted to make the announcement, but…" She pulled her hand out from under the table and waggled her fingers so everyone in the room could see the sparkling diamonds around her finger. "Harry proposed two days ago." She grinned, as did her family, and all the women swooned over the ring for a few minutes.

"Not too shabby, Potter," said Draco, admiring the ring. "It's almost as nice as the engagement ring I got for Hermione."

"Oh stop it," Hermione smiled, hitting Draco in the shoulder. Still, she looked down at her own ring.

This was it, the final showdown. There were only a few Death Eaters left. Voldemort and the Source were still alive. Pepper couldn't find her clone.

"Now, Harry, you've got to kill him NOW!" screamed Hermione as she tried to fight of a Death Eater single-handedly. She earned a gash in her shoulder as she dodged a spell. Ron rushed to her aid.

Meanwhile, Harry was fighting Voldemort with all he had.

"Face it, Harry; I'm the more powerful wizard. One of us has to die and it's going to be you," sneered Voldemort. "Avada Kedavra!"

Harry ducked and the green light shot over his head. "Pepper! A little help here, please!"

Pepper was helping her aunts with the Source, but at Harry's call she abandoned the wild potion-throwing and energy-ball-ducking to assist him with Voldemort.

Pepper laid her feet across Harry's lap. She was beginning to get bored with the movie on the television and wanted to do something else.

"Harry, would you like to go out somewhere?" she asked, playing with her wedding ring. "I'm tired of staying in the house."

"Where would you like to go?" Harry asked.

"Wherever. We could go to a club or to visit Hermione and Draco."

"A club sounds good. We haven't gone to one in a while," Harry said.

"Okay, just let me get changed," said Pepper, getting up and going into her room. She put on a silver blouse and a black skirt before leaving the room again.

Harry hadn't really changed at all, but when Pepper went into the kitchen, he was on the phone. He had a very puzzled expression on his face. "Pepper, it's for you," he said. "It's the doctor's office."

Her face became puzzled as well. Harry stood beside her while she was on the phone, his arm around her waist.

"Hello?" said Pepper.

"Hello, Mrs. Halliwell, this is Doctor Trumble's office. When you came in for a check-up a few days ago we determined something from those tests we took," said the voice from the doctor's office.

"Yes?" Pepper said, still very confused. She wondered if she was sick.

"You're pregnant, Mrs. Halliwell, congratulations."

Pepper hung up the phone on the office representative on the other end of the phone. She felt faint and her hand flew to her stomach. "What is it, babe?" Harry asked. Pepper leaned against him.

"I'm pregnant," Pepper said, in a shocked daze. She wasn't as shocked as the time in her sixth year when she thought Draco had gotten her pregnant, but this news still came as a surprise.

"You're p-pregnant?" Harry stammered.

"Yes, yes I am," Pepper replied. "And we're happy about it, right?"

"Ecstatic," said Harry, grinning like a madman.