Severus and Claire's wedding went off very well. The two exchanged vows, as the bridesmaids, groomsmen, their families, and the staff at Nightwind School looked on. Six-year old Dora Tonks, the only young girl that they knew well, was the flower girl. Reverend van Herten was beaming as she blessed the couple and pronounced that Severus could now kiss the bride. The Protestant chapel in the town was decorated with lovely white and pale gold roses, and all the bridesmaids wore pale gold dresses, with Lily, as the maid of honor, having a darker gold border around hers.
After the ceremony, the group went to the Windmere Inn for the reception. The food was delicious, everyone toasted the couple with glasses of wine or mead, and the bridemaids and groomsmen told some stories about the Phoenix Club and Severus and Claire's relationship. After some dancing and the cutting on the cake, Claire stood up to toss the bouquet. All the unmarried women (except for Lily, who stayed out of it due to the fact she was engaged) gathered together and Claire, standing on the podium, turned her back to them. She threw her bouquet of white roses and silver lilies over her shoulder, and after some jostling, Amina ended up catching it.
Everyone congratulated Amina and then Claire sat down so that Severus could do the new tradition of the groom tossing the garter to the unmarried men. For this one, James stayed out of it. As the other guys gathered, Severus made note of where Remus was standing. Since Amina had caught the bouquet, it was only fair for Remus to catch the garter, as the two were in a serious relationship.
After Remus had caught the garter, there was quite a bit of teasing from the others. Sirius said, "Well, it looks like you'll be the next one to be leg-shackled, Remus, besides James of course."
"What about you?" Remus shot back. "When are you going to ask Fiona to marry you? You've shown no inkling of wanting to break up with her."
Fiona smiled sweetly. "Yes, Sirius, when are you going to propose to me? I had Katya do a reading for me last week, and she Saw that the two of us would be married one day and have at least two kids."
"Don't worry, I'll propose to you someday," Sirius replied. "It's just that with the war and everything..."
"Dear, you know either one of us could die any day. That's why Sev proposed to Claire when he did and why they had a wedding as soon as possible."
"I'll propose once I get a ring," Sirius said. "Okay?"
Fiona accepted that and dropped the subject. Amina set down the bouquet, adjusted her gold head scarf, which had gotten a bit crooked during the jostling for the bouquet, and took Remus to one side. "So, are we going to follow the tradition, since we caught the bouquet and garter? And don't you dare say that you're not suitable for me because you're a werewolf, Remus. We've been dating for the past three years and four months."
"I would love to, but how would I ever be able to properly support us?" Remus asked. "Britain isn't as accepting of werewolves like some other countries, thanks for Greyback and his handful of followers. I would have difficulty holding down a job. As it is, our friends are supporting me while I fight in the Order."
"Professor Dupond plans on retiring within the next five years," Amina pointed out. "By then, the war should be over, if my last prophetic dream comes true. You're great at teaching others, considering the tutoring you've done for younger students, and you have a Mastery in Defense. So you can take over as the third year Defense teacher once he's retired."
"So you're saying that after the war, we move to Windmere and I teach at Nightwind School," said Remus. "Well, that's a good idea. I'd be accepted there, be able to something I enjoy, and my time at school were the best years of my life."
"See?" said Amina, beaming. "Now, let's have one last dance before the reception is over."
When Claire and Severus returned from their honeymoon two weeks later, Sirius and Fiona had gotten engaged, and so had Amina and Remus. Meanwhile, Lily and James had set a wedding date of April 10th, which was five months away, and their respective parents got together to help plan the wedding.
The war against Voldemort got worse. By this point, the Ministry had authorized the use of Unforgivable Curses for Aurors and Hit Wizards when they were dealing with Death Eaters. Alastor Moody, a respected Auror and a member of the Order, didn't particularly like this, since he felt that it was too much like stooping to the level of the enemy, and those Aurors that were also part of the Order agreed with him.
By the summer came around, the engaged couples had gotten married, and Yun and Makena were engaged. Katya actually eloped with Regulus shortly after he had graduated and joined the Order as well, though it was only an elopement in the sense that they had didn't actually have a wedding and invited all their friends to attend the Romany-style ceremony on September 12th, followed by a celebratory dinner, the day before.
"Katya, why did you have to cheat us out a proper wedding?" Lily complained during the dinner. "Even Sev and Claire had a nice wedding despite the fact that they rushed into a marriage."
"I just wasn't in the mood to have some drawn-out ceremony," Katya said. "And Reg just wanted to get married to me as soon as possible, since after his first Order mission, he was afraid that he or I could die before we could be married. You're lucky that we didn't do an outright elopement and made sure that all our friends were present for the quick ceremony, and got my father, who qualifies as a Romany elder, to officiate."
"It would have taken us ages to forgive you, if ever, if you two had actually eloped," Fiona said with a slight laugh. "And at least you had Sirius be the best man, Reg, and your cousin Petra as your bridesmaid for the ceremony, Katya."
Two months later, Bridget and Ethan unfortunately died while on an Order mission. Fiona was inconsolable for days following her sister's death, and the rest of the Dragon Club were upset and mourned deeply. Caleb, who had been Ethan's best friend in the group, promptly quit the Order right after the funeral and returned to the United States, saying that he couldn't deal with it at the moment and needed time to recover. Also, Eileen Prince died during a Death Eater attack on Diagon Alley, which hit Severus the hardest, but also upset the others in the Phoenix and Dragon Clubs, who had known and liked her. Sirius and Regulus were almost as sad as Severus, considering that Eileen Prince had been a mother to them after they had been disowned.
There was one spot of good news, however. Fiona was pregnant, and Sirius promised that if they had a girl, her middle name would be after Bridget. This cheered Fiona up slightly, enough that she pulled herself together for Sirius's and the unborn child's sake and went on with her life. Two months after that, Lily, Katya, Claire, and Alice Longbottom all announced that they were pregnant too. Amina exchanged knowing looks with Remus, the only other person in the Phoenix Club that knew the complete contents of the first prophetic dream she had regarding Voldemort's defeat. The others had only known the basics, but not the identity of the parents of the children with the potential to defeat Voldemort, besides the Longbottoms.
On April 4th, Fiona gave birth to a daughter named Arista Bridget. A few days later, there was a short christening ceremony, where James and Lily and Regulus and Katya were named as joint godparents (due to the war, it would be better to have backup in case something happened to one of the godparents.) Later on, at the celebratory lunch following the christening, Andromeda Tonks started laughing.
"What's so funny, Andi?" asked Sirius.
"What you named your daughter!" Andromeda answered between giggles.
"Arista isn't a funny name!" Sirius protested indignantly. "It's a very lovely name."
"Yes, but there's more," Andromeda said. "When you heard Dora's middle name, you chided me for following the Black tradition of naming our children after stars and constellations, and did the same to Cissy when she said she was naming a son 'Draco.' Then you said that you had no intention of doing the same thing, not even for a middle name, unless you felt like giving Reg a namesake."
"So?" asked Sirius, looking annoyed. "What's your point, Andi?"
At that, Fiona started laughing. "I understand what she's getting at. Sirius, you really should have paid better attention in Astronomy, considering that it was the one exam you failed during the Basic Levels. You know the constellation Virgo? Well, the brightest star in it is Spica, which also goes by the name Arista!"
A dumbfounded look came to Sirius's face as he stared first at his wife, then at his cousin. Once he had fully processed the information, it changed to a look of chagrin. "Damn!" he swore. "I said I wasn't going to follow Black tradition and I unknowingly end up doing so. Is it too late to change my daughter's name?"
"Sirius Orion Black, you will do no such thing!" snapped Fiona. "Arista is a pretty name, and it was already difficult enough for us to decide on a first name that we both liked. I'm not having another long discussion with you about an alternate name."
"But I don't want to follow the Black tradition," Sirius protested.
"Sirius, I don't want to go through the hassle and fees to get our daughter's birth certificate and official records changed," said Fiona. "Her name stays as it is. If you try to change it, then you can sleep on the couch tonight, and get up to feed Arista or change her nappy every time she wakes up during the night."
"Fine," said Sirius with a sigh. "Arista is still a nice name, even if it is also a name for a star."
A week after that, the Longbottoms, Princes, Potters, and the other Black couple were called in for a private meeting with Dumbledore. "A month ago, I interviewed a witch named Sibyll Trelawney for the post of Divination teacher at Hogwarts," he said. "Since she is the great-great-granddaughter of the celebrated seer Cassandra Trelawney, I had agreed to meet her, though at the time, I wasn't sure if Divination should still be a subject taught at Hogwarts, considering how few people there are that have the Sight. Anyway, Ms. Trelawney didn't seem to have inherited her ancestor's gifts, so I kindly told her that her services weren't needed. However, right after that, she went into a Trance and said a genuine prophecy, though she has no memory of it."
"I assume that this prophecy has something to do with us," said Claire.
"That is correct, Mrs. Nightwind-Prince," said Professor Dumbledore. He proceeded to tell them the contents of the prophecy. "Since the prophecy states that a child born 'as the seven month comes to a close' and to parents that have 'thrice defied the Dark Lord', it seems that any one of your children could fit."
"Well, Amina did say that her prophetic dream showed her two girls and two boys that had the potential to defeat Voldemort," said Lily with a sigh. "She only told us that you, Frank and Alice, were one of the set of parents. She didn't say who the other parents were, probably because at the time of the dream, we were only in second year and not thinking at all about dating, much less getting married. I suppose she didn't want any of us to feel compelled to get together just because a prophetic dream said so."
"In any case, the eight of you are in great danger," Dumbledore continued. "Lucius Malfoy had been commanded by Voldemort to spy on the interview. While he only told Voldemort the first part of the prophecy, claiming that he had been caught before he could overhear the rest, it is still enough for you to be targeted. Voldemort no doubt had worked out that you are all due to have your children at the end of July, and you have all faced him in battle three times and survived. I think he will decide to ignore you, Frank and Alice, for the time being, since you are both pureblood and he may feel that someone who is a halfblood like him would be more likely to possibly defeat him."
Frank and Alice nodded at that. Professor Dumbledore went on, "The same would apply to you, Regulus and Katya. However, Lily, as you are Muggleborn, he would want to target your son. And Severus, even if he assumes that you are pureblood due to taking on your mother's last name, well, you are a Nightwind, Claire. You are descended from the founders of a school that denied him admission after meeting him. Voldemort no doubt hates Nightwind School for that, and would have no doubt targeted you even if you weren't carrying one of the potential prophecy children. In any case, I would suggest that you all go into hiding. I know that you aren't involved in any Order missions due to your pregnancies, but he can still go after you at your homes."
"We'll figure something out," said Katya. The four couples then thanked Professor Dumbledore for telling them about the prophecy and warning them and returned to their respective homes to discuss what they would do.
Author's Note: When planning out the sequel, I thought that Arista would be a nice name to give Sirius and Fiona's daughter. After looking up the name, I found out that not only was it the name of one of Ariel's sisters in Disney's A Little Mermaid (I had forgotten that, since it's been awhile since I saw the movie), but it was also an alternate name for the star Spica in the Virgo constellation. Considering that I wrote Sirius as saying that he would never name any of his children after a star or constellation, I thought it would deliciously ironic to have him do just that without knowing it, and so kept the name.