A/N: Thank you so much to Kermit 304 for their review on Chapter 15!

Only two more chapters left after this...I can't believe that this story's made it so far. Thank you all for your continued support despite the long waits between updates at times. :)

RxExR!

Pictures on a Wall

Chapter 16 - For Better or for Worse

"I can't believe you told her that." Ginny was fuming as she entered Number Twelve Grimmauld Place, Harry hot on her heels as he closed the floo behind them to ensure that nobody would interrupt them for now.

"What do you mean, you can't believe me? I just told her the way I saw things!" He was beginning to get frustrated with Ginny's lack of understanding towards the situation.

"You mean, the way you would like things to be seen!" Ginny spat, turning to face Harry, her eyes furious.

"Well, can you really blame me for not wanting to rehash on some of the more disturbing aspects of my childhood. Fourth and fifth year weren't exactly a walk in the park for me Gin!" He threw his jacket on the sofa in frustration.

"But you had to bring up Cho Chang!" Ginny clutched her handbag, her fury causing her to exercise a vice-like grip upon it.

"Well, that was one of the few things for the most of my fifth year which wasn't completely screwed up!" Harry replied, his own voice beginning to steadily rise.

"I was in the same room!" Ginny's voice was shrill now.

"And? Am I supposed to lie to reporters when they ask questions depending on who's in the room with me?" Harry was starting to become furious himself. "Once I start lying about something it'll be a downward spiral! I don't know if you do, but I remember Rita Skeeter only all too well and hell if I don't want to end up in a position like that ever again!" His eyes were cold and angry, a stark contrast to Ginny's own heated fury.

"Fine. Be that way." Ginny spat out and with a sharp 'pop' she was gone, leaving nothing but a heavy silence to settle over the room as Harry sank down onto one of the chairs, wondering what the hell had just happened.

~.~.~.~.~

"And then he continued, even knowing that I was in the room!" Ginny exclaimed angrily as Hermione watched her pace up and down in the dressing room while Luna paid for their coffee at the counter. Pansy was starting to look slightly annoyed and Lavender was rubbing her eyes in a valiant attempt to stay awake as Hugo had kept her up all of the previous night.

"Don't you want to sit?" She asked in a last ditch attempt to calm Ginny down. Ever since the fiery redhead had entered the café a good ten minutes ago, they had been listening to her rant about Harry and the way he had conducted an interview three days ago.

"Yeah, okay." Ginny flopped down in the chair and all the fight seemed to leave her, leaving behind a dejected expression on her face.

"Gin, I'm sure he didn't mean to insinuate that he was happier with Cho back then than he is with you right now." Hermione said cautiously, placing her hand on Ginny's arm.

"Yeah, but that's what it sounded like. You should have seen the expression that reporter had on her face when she heard that." Ginny burried her head in her arms, refusing to look up at her friends.

"Ginny, I spent seven years sharing at least half of my classes with Harry and I can tell you that most of the time he spoke before he thought." Lavender yawned and looked at Hermione. "And if Hermione, one of his best friends, is sure that he didn't mean it like that then cupcakes," She shrugged, "He didn't mean it like that."

"Cupcakes?" Pansy looked at Lavender in confusion.

"I'm avoiding any and all swear words, because I just know that Hugo will be able to say them before anything else otherwise." Lavender blinked owlishly. "And it's actually been quite a bad habit of mine to swear inappropriately at times. It's a good thing to get out of."

"But confectionary?" Pansy raised an eyebrow at her.

"Easier than fruits. If I start swearing on apples and pears people will start to think I'm losing my mind, which I think is happening anyway due to sleep deprivation." Not a moment later, Luna arrived at the table and set down all their cups, Lavender happily grabbing hers in order to wake up with the help of a healthy dose of caffeine.

"If you want, Ron and I can take him for a couple of days so that you can get some rest." Pansy suggested tentatively, knowing that it was more than likely that Lavender would rebuff her suggestion.

"I might actually take you up on that." Lavender took another sip from her coffee. "I think I might collapse soon otherwise." Pansy looked surprised but then smiled at Lavender who returned it.

It was a long ways down the road, but both women hoped that they might be able to become close friends at some point.

"I suggest you forgive Harry." Luna suggested, having heard part of the conversation before and having caught just the ends of it as she had returned.

"Easier said than done." Ginny sighed. "I sort of lost it when we got back home. I don't even know if he still wants to talk to me about it." She looked so completely and utterly dejected that Luna gave her part of her biscuit. Ginny sent her a small smile and then sighed. "But enough about my problems, we're here to find you a dress today!" She grinned at Luna, although the smile didn't reach her eyes, who smiled radiantly back at her.

The wedding was in two months and all of them were more than just excited about it. In fact, they were all looking forward to it.

"So, where are we actually going?" Pansy asked, adding some sugar to her tea.

"A boutique called 'Madame Bernadette's'." Luna replied, tearing her gaze away from the window and back to the table.

"It's small but absolutely amazing." Hermione grinned. "I got my wedding dress from there and I thought that it might be a nice place to start. It's a well-guarded secret, the shop can't really be found unless you know about it." The look in Hermione's eyes was warm, yet conspiratorial.

"How did you find it then?" Ginny asked, playing around with her spoon as she stirred it randomly.

"Remember Cecilia, the one Draco and I told you about?" Hermione looked at Pansy who nodded after a couple of seconds, remembering that she had been brought up in conversation a couple of months ago. "Well, her mother runs the shop and back when Draco and I were getting married, Cecilia took me there, telling me that it would be the only shop I'd have to go to as her mother apparently had that great a collection of dresses. She did." Hermione smiled.

"But is the dress going to be finished on time then if it's a Muggle store? From what I remember, Muggle wedding dresses normally take four to six months to be made." Lavender asked, remembering that Parvati had once complained to her about her cousin's indecision in choosing a wedding dress and how that might lead to the wedding being called off.

"Ah, but what Cecilia doesn't know, and what I didn't know either before arriving there, is that her mother is a witch but the genes weren't passed on to Cecilia." She looked slightly sad at that. "Therefore, her mother's renown 'speed' at making the dresses is in part due to her being magical. Although she is quite talented at making dresses even without it."

"And Cecilia doesn't know?" Ginny asked and Luna looked at Hermione, also interested in hearing the answer. It was rare enough in itself that the child of a witch wasn't magical but it was even rarer that the child didn't know that their parents or part of their family were magical.

"No, her mother gave up magic in a sense when she married Cecilia's father as she believed that he wouldn't accept her otherwise." This time Hermione's sadness was obvious. "The tragic thing is that they got divorced when Cecilia was sixteen, but that was because he was cheating on her, or at least, that's what Cecilia says. Two years after that, her mother inherited the boutique from her own mother, she'd been working there on and off over the years, and started to use magic again. Only at that point, she felt that it would be better to not say anything to Cecilia as she'd already kept that secret for so long." Hermione shrugged.

"That is tragic." Luna agreed.

"How did you even find this out?" Was Lavender's incredulous question. That was nearly the whole sordid history of one generation of a family.

"I don't actually know. Some of it I know from Cecilia, she warned me against getting married at first and when I asked her why, she finally told me about her parent's divorce. The stuff about the shop I got from her mother when she was making my dress. Well, more like while I was choosing it and then when I had to come back to get it adjusted. When she found out that I was a witch we immediately got talking and it sort of just evolved from there. Madame D'Aramitz is quite an open woman, she warms up to most people quite easily." Hermione took a sip from her own cup of tea.

"Does she make the bridesmaids dresses too?" Luna asked, a small crease of worry appearing on her forehead. The closer that they got to the actual wedding itself, the more Luna seemed to succumb to the normal 'pre-wedding jitters', something that Hermione would not have pegged her friend for previously.

But in the end they were only human after all, magic and all other strange things aside. And the jitters most definitely belonged to that.

"Yes, she does. Although we do actually have to find you a dress that you like first." Hermione smiled reassuringly.

"Okay, then lets go and do this." Lavender downed the rest of her cup of tea in one whole gulp and got up. "We have a wedding dress to find." She grinned and the others got up as well, finishing their tea quickly.

Luna just smiled serenely.

~.~.~.~.~

"Luna, my daughter is missing." Hermione felt mild panic settle within her as her eyes flew over the various racks of dresses in the small boutique.

"I saw her heading towards that rack over there." Luna pointed out helpfully before turning back to Madame D'Aramitz to pay for her dress and the bridesmaids dresses.

They had been extremely lucky when they had entered the shop a month previously. It had taken Luna all of two hours to find a dress that she adored, a mint green dress that Hermione had to admit fitted her friend to the 't' and from there it had been quite easy to commission some fitting dresses for the bridesmaids.

And by choosing a dress straight off the rack, Luna also had gained the advantage of being able to pick up her dress a good three weeks before the wedding as the actual adjusting of the dress didn't take that long. Madame D'Aramitz had also been ecstatic in being able to design the bridesmaids dresses from scratch with Luna's help and they had been completed two days ago, where the final adjustments had been made for them too.

But while Luna now had her dress, which took a considerable amount of weight off her shoulders, Hermione had the issue of her daughter deciding to go traipsing through the dress racks.

"Ella!" She called out, carefully peering underneath each rack and between each dress. Her daughter was even more adventurous than Cassie had been at that age and it was proving to be quite a bother as Ella was also pretty quiet where Cassie had been loud, and therefore when she did take off, it normally took her and Draco a couple of seconds to notice that she was gone.

A childish chuckle met her ears and Hermione sighed in relief, walking briskly over to the rack from which the sound had come. Pushing aside a rather puffy cream dress, she was confronted with her daughter's chocolate brown eyes peering back at her, amusement clear within them.

"Mummy, mashmallow." Ella pulled at the skirt of the puffy creamy dress.

"No, Ella sweetheart, that's a dress." She told her daughter, the corners of her mouth twitching upwards as her little girl looked at the complicated contraption, otherwise known as a rather elaborate wedding dress, in complete and absolute wonder.

"Dwess?" Ella pulled at the skirt gently again and then looked at her mother for confirmation.

"Yes, a wedding dress." She held out her arms and Ella walked towards her, giggling happily as her mother picked her up and held her close.

"Wedding?" Ella was picking up words left and right, despite her slight inability to pronounce the letter 'r'. Which Hermione had assured Draco would probably go away with time.

"Yes." Hermione nodded and began to walk back to where Luna was with Madame D'Aramitz.

"What's wedding?" She asked, grabbing Hermione's shirt and pulling herself up slightly so that she could look over her shoulder before looking back at her.

"What's a wedding." Hermione corrected gently. Ella blinked at her and Hermione sighed. "A wedding is when a man and a woman get married and choose to live together like Uncle Blaise and Aunt Luna."

"Like you and daddy?" Ella asked, her intelligent eyes watching a lock of Hermione's hair dance across her forehead.

"Yes, like me and daddy." Hermione nodded.

"Pwetty dwess." Ella said as she finally saw Luna's wedding dress.

"It is, isn't it?" Hermione asked rhetorically, smiling brightly as she watched her daughter's attention be captured by the silken patterns adorning the dress.

The dress was beautiful and seeing Luna wearing the adjusted version of it had Hermione smiling warmly, and not only because of her daughter's delight at the 'pwetty colour'.

It was perfect.

~.~.~.~.~

"Jasper, if you lose the rings then I think your uncle may never give you some of those sweets that you love ever again." Draco told his youngest son seriously as the little boy looked up at him with wide eyes.

"Never again?" For all of the genius that Jasper was, he was still a small boy who was only a bit over three years old and therefore the threat of never receiving his favourite sweet ever again was very potent.

"Never." Draco stated solemnly and Jasper looked over to where the wedding rings lay on the cushion. He had been asked to be ring bearer, being the calmest of all the little boys in Luna's and Blaise's acquaintance but Draco knew his son. He knew that his son had a natural curiosity that often led to him being easily distracted so therefore he had to make not losing the rings or being distracted an attractive option for his son.

And he could see that his plan had worked as his son looked back at him, completely serious, or as serious as a three year-old could be, as he stated that he would not lose those rings.

Draco nodded, patted his son on the back and nodded at Neville, who had agreed to give Luna away in place of her deceased father (and he was feeling slightly awkward about it and yet greatly honoured as he and Luna had a friendship that many envied), to make sure that the other man also kept an eye on his son.

Neville nodded in return and smiled warmly at him and then at Jasper, before calling the small boy over in order to tell him about some of the more amazing plants out there.

One thing less to worry about.

And now on to making sure that Blaise didn't actually lose his mind while destroying the poor carpet with his pacing. Having gotten married himself eleven years ago, Draco knew how nervous one got right before the actual wedding and given that Blaise already had commitment issues (that he had largely overcome, thank god) and that he was naturally inclined towards the melodramatic, Draco was pretty sure that his friend was having a full-blown 'freak out'.

Hopefully Harry and Ron were preventing him from jumping through the window.

Entering the room where Blaise was meant to be, Draco was resigned to find that he had been too optimistic in his hopes, both concerning Blaise's 'freak-out' and Ron's and Harry's abilities in calming him down.

As it was, he should probably try his luck as a fortune teller at some point in the near future.

Blaise was half-way out of the window with Ron and Harry attempting to pull him back into the room, all while Blaise was incoherently shouting something along the lines of 'she doesn't want to marry me anyway!'. Really, his best friend needed to tone down on the melodrama.

"Blaise, Luna loves you and if you don't get off that ledge right now and get back into the room, I'll not only do nothing to prevent my wife from castrating you, but I'll probably help her do it as well." That had Blaise back in the room quicker than a flash of lightning.

"Castrate me?" He gulped and for once Draco was glad that his friend could get distracted relatively easily, especially if his subconscious wanted him to be distracted from whatever the hell he was attempting to do in that moment in time.

"Yes, you know the thing that normally prevents men from ever having kids again?" Draco asked blithely, his left eyebrow reaching upwards to show his annoyance with his friend.

Yes, he was married and he knew what the situation felt like. That didn't mean that he would condone it though.

"Thank god you're here." Harry finally managed to wheeze out, getting back up from the floor which he had fallen on when Blaise had returned into the room so suddenly.

"Yeah." Ron nodded, swallowing heavily as he looked at Blaise wearily while closing the window with a resounding 'click'. Blaise's eyes danced nervously towards the window but Ron stood in front of it, eyeing Blaise cautiously, as if he were a wild animal that could not be trusted.

"And seriously Blaise, the window? Did you forget that you're a wizard?" Draco asked, casually twirling Blaise's wand (which he procured from him as soon as he'd entered the room) between his fingers.

Another sign that Blaise didn't really want to leave. He was just getting the usual 'cold feet' practically everyone got before getting married.

"How- when-?" Blaise spluttered, instantly recognising the piece of wood as his own wand.

"I've gotten married before." Draco stated and then looked at his friend seriously. "Okay, on a more serious note now. You're due to get married in about five minutes and I need to trust you to not run off again, or attempt to leave in any way, form or manner known to Muggle- and humankind. Understood?"

"Yeah." Blaise nodded, now looking defeated. Draco handed him back his wand. "But what if I'm doing the wrong thing? What if we're getting married too young and she'll want out of it in a couple of years?" His best friend's brown eyes met his. "What then?"

"Oh for god's sake." Harry exploded, having had to listen and attempt to reassure Blaise for the past hour while Draco had gone off to make sure that the wedding was running smoothly. "She loves you. She asked you to marry her before you proposed to her in return. She's not going to run off any time soon!" He glared at Blaise, his green eyes boring a hole in his skull.

"And she's Luna." Ron shrugged helplessly and Draco believed that that was one of the most profound things Ron might have ever said.

"Okay, now let's get this show on the road." He rubbed his hands and then proceeded to push Blaise out of the door quite literally with Harry and Ron joining in to pull him by his arms as he began to flail again.

As if Blaise would ever make this easy on them.

~.~.~.~.~

An hour later found everyone seated at their various tables, happily chatting as the food was being served. The wedding ceremony itself had finished a good half an hour ago and afterwards everyone had trickled out of the hall rather slowly so therefore their belated lunch was only really starting now.

"Scorpius, if you even think about firing that pea at your sister then I'm confiscating your broom for the next week." Hermione said as she helped Ella sit up in her chair. Scorpius sent his mother a worried look, wondering how she had been able to see his loaded spoon catapult with her back turned.

Harry, who was sitting a couple of seats further down chuckled, causing Scorpius to look at him quizzically.

"She's got eyes at the back of her head." He pointed to the back of his own head and Scorpius' eyes widened, his eyes flying back to his mother. Draco watched the whole affair with amusement, chortling himself when Ginny whacked Harry on the arm, telling him to 'not scare the little kids'.

They'd gotten over their argument almost two weeks after they'd had it, after which everyone had been practically ready to shove them in a broom cupboard or something so that they would finally hash it out.

Next to him, Blaise was literally glowing as he and Luna told everyone to dig in and help themselves should they want more and Draco smiled as he watched his friend from the corner of his eyes. For all of his melodrama and the whole chaos before the wedding, Draco was immensely glad to see how happy the two of them were. Apparently even Luna had 'freaked out' in her own fashion before walking down the aisle, at least, that was what Hermione and Pansy had both said.

A couple of speeches and a lot of food later found the Malfoys turning circles on the dance floor while Scorpius and Cassie imitated their parents and Jasper sat next to Ella, telling his attentive little sister all about how strange grown-ups could be in conspiratorial whispers.

"We're going to attend a lot more of these in the future, aren't we?" Hermione asked as Draco twirled her around, his arms tightening around her.

"Yeah, I believe so." He sent a cautious glance at Ginny and Harry, who were also dancing not too far away from them and then at Pansy and Ron, sitting at one of the tables at the side, chatting while they watched all the other couples.

Hermione laughed. "You look so worried about that."

He sighed and turned back to her. "Considering who they are, I think I have every right to be." He was completely and utterly serious but the laughter that erupted from his wife after that statement caused him to grin as well.

It would all turn out fine.

Somehow.