A/N:Part 2 ends the wedding vignette. I'll have a three-part next for the birth of each of the children. Thanks for reading.

Harry, standing on the raised dais in the garden of the Burrow, in front of their wedding guests, waiting for Ginny, was more happy than ever that they had insisted on keeping the wedding small.

Not that the assembled Weasley family and their friends made a small, intimate gathering.

Something simple, he and Ginny had said. At the Burrow. Family and friends. A small reception.

Of course, there had been the usual and expected tussles. After all, Arthur and Molly Weasley only had one daughter.

Tussles over who paid what. Molly and Arthur didn't want to accept any money from Severus. Harry and Ginny wanted to foot the bill themselves.

Over the dress. Ginny wanted a Muggle style wedding dress. Molly thought she should wear bridal robes. They'd compromised with Ginny in a beautiful Muggle dress but wearing Aunt Muriel's tiara while Harry wore formal wedding robes.

Over the guest list. Harry really didn't want anyone from the Ministry there except for Kingsley. He compromised on Percy.

Over the date. The time of day. The decorations.

He understood, now, the reasoning behind having a best man. Ron stood right behind him, occasionally muttering something amusing that took the edge off his nervousness.

"Hagrid's crying already," he whispered. "Mum's given him a tablecloth to use as a hanky."

Or –

"Percy's been put in charge of Aunt Muriel. Maybe we can get him drunk at the reception and get him to model the tiara."

Or –

"I've got a great tent you can borrow in case you and Ginny want to do a little camping on your honeymoon."

The music started – Severus had insisted on paying for the string quartet – and Harry looked to the back of the center aisle where Molly now stood, arm in arm with Severus.

A lump rose in his throat and he blinked furiously, willing away the tears.

When he'd asked Severus to be his best man, to stand up for him at his wedding, Severus had stared at him thoughtfully for a long time without speaking, and then had pushed Harry into a chair in his sitting room and had gone into the kitchen. He came back with two glasses of scotch, and had pressed one into Harry's hands while he sat across from Harry.

Harry still remembered his response, nearly word for word.

"While I am honoured – deeply, deeply honoured – that you want me beside you on your wedding day, I think the best place for me is beside Molly and Arthur, as your father. Ron cannot fill that position, but he can be your best man."

Today, now, in this exact moment, as he locked eyes with Severus for the space of two heartbeats, he was beyond thankful that he had a father like Severus.

Severus escorted a beaming Molly slowly down the aisle. And while Severus certainly did not beam, there could be no mistake that he was happy. He sat beside Molly, leaving space on the aisle for Arthur. There was no bride's side and groom's side – Harry and Ginny had nixed that tradition in the early stages of planning.

He saw Hermione get into place before he say Ginny, holding Victorie and Teddy by the hand, guiding them into their places behind the bride. Hermione looked up and they, too, locked eyes briefly. She gave him an encouraging smile, then Ginny was there, on Arthur's arm, and Hermione was smoothing out her short train, and the lump that had started when he saw Severus, and the tears he had been trying to blink away, were back with a vengeance.

He felt something in his hand, and looked down to see that Ron had pressed a handkerchief into it.

"Mum gave it to me just before I came up here," he whispered.

"She's beautiful," Harry whispered back, eyes still on Ginny, who was beaming even more widely than her mother.

"Yeah, she is, isn't she?" answered Ron, but his eyes were locked on Hermione, holding the childrens' hands as they walked together – carefully in step – behind Ginny and Arthur.

It was over so quickly that Harry hardly knew what happened. There were rings – which Ron and Hermione produced without fail, and there were vows, traditional Wizarding vows, and there was a kiss – rather a long one judging from the laughter and whistles.

And there were hundreds of butterflies, and they seemed to like Harry's hair, and a good many of the photographs taken at the end of the ceremony featured Harry with a crown of butterflies and Ginny laughing so hard there were tears in her eyes.

And there was dancing.

And Severus had made sure that Harry knew how to dance, that he'd had formal lessons, and plenty of practice. And the first time Harry danced with Ginny, he still had a butterfly in his hair, but it flew off and landed on her tiara, and rode there like a king on a throne, spreading its magnificent blue and black wings quite regally. Harry danced with Molly, and Hermione, and Luna, then claimed his bride again just as the moon was rising, and danced with her in the moonlight.

And there were photographs. Every combination one could think of, formal and informal, posed and candid. And while all of the photos were special – the photos of the wedding party, and of their individual families, and the little ones in their tiny formal robes – the one he liked best after that lovely one of he and Ginny dancing in the moonlight, was the one of the combined family.

Arthur and Molly and Severus, Ginny and her brothers, their wives and children, and Harry.

It made him recall, somehow, that time when he was eleven years old, and he'd found the ancient Mirror of Erised hidden in the castle, and had sat in front of it for hours on end, gazing at the family he'd never known. And always, always in the mirror, he was there, in the middle of them, and their arms were around him.

And while there were, indeed, parallels, and he was very happy to be a formal member of the Weasley family, what made him happiest about the photo was that he hadn't come into the family as only Harry, orphaned, parentless.

He had Severus. A father of his own.

And his eyes were drawn always to Ginny. He'd married her, not her family. True, they came along with her, and he couldn't imagine ever having another quiet Christmas. But he loved her far and beyond her family, knew he would love her if she were an only child, or if her family had been made up of a dozen Percys.

And when, at last, the evening had worked itself to its end, and the guests had gone, leaving them with toasts and best wishes and hugs and kisses, when Teddy had fallen asleep on Andromeda's shoulder and Victoire had cried and cried because she didn't want to take off her new robes, Harry and Ginny changed out of their wedding clothes and got ready to Floo to Shell Cottage.

There were more hugs, of course, and Molly, who'd made it through the evening in one piece, broke down in tears as she hugged them goodbye, and Severus kissed Ginny's cheek, then hugged Harry and handed him an envelope.

"Not here," he said quietly to Harry. "Open it when you get to the cottage."

It was a long envelope, heavy and fat, and Harry pocketed it, and looked at Severus curiously, then hugged him goodbye.

"Thanks, Dad," he said as he hugged Severus. "Thanks – for making us wait. For the music. For everything."

ooOoo

The cottage was dancing with candlelight when they stepped out of the Floo, Harry just behind Ginny.

They christened the evening with a kiss in front of the fireplace, Ginny's hands cupping his face, Harry's arms wrapped tightly around her.

Married. He was married. They were married.

"We're married," he said, and he grinned then kissed her again.

"Look at this place," Ginny said, turning around in wonder. "It's perfect."

Candles in glass jars were placed on the tables in the sitting room, on the stairs leading to the bedrooms upstairs, on the counters in the kitchen. They lined the window ledges on the screened-in porch, flickering in the gentle night breeze.

A bottle of champagne sat in a bucket of ice beside two glasses, with a plate of cheese and crackers and fruit.

Harry picked up a grape and dropped it into his mouth, offered one to Ginny. She bit it from his fingers, and they laughed, and she fed him a strawberry.

"Severus and his devoted house elves," she said. She pulled the champagne out of the ice bucket and popped the cork and poured.

"To my husband," she said, lifting her glass.

"To my wife." Harry grinned.

"To us."

They stood side by side on the porch, looking out toward the ocean, and after finishing their champagne, and the plate of cheese and fruit, they climbed into the hammock and rocked gently, then fell asleep, exhausted, listening to the sound of the surf and the whisper of the wind.

And on his wedding night, Harry dreamed.

He was dancing with his bride on the dance floor, and they were waltzing, keeping time with the music, and every time they turned Ginny was a bit older, a bit more beautiful. He saw her age before his eyes, and her hair lost its sheen, and her skin began to wrinkle, but her eyes were always his, always shining, and the laugh lines around them grew and deepened. And they waltzed off the dance floor onto a spot of grass behind a country cottage, and he had a baby in his arms, and Ginny had a little boy by the hand. And the colours changed, and there was a little girl now, and they were on Platform 9 ¾ and the steam was rising around them, and he was looking into eyes as green as his own, then running beside the train as it pulled away, chasing his childhood, feeling Ginny's hand in his own, pulling him back.

And there, at the end, he was sitting cross-legged on the rocky shore, gazing out toward the water where Severus knelt, holding the pudgy hands of a dark-haired boy, speaking to him so softly that Harry couldn't hear the words. And as Harry watched, the child nodded his head gravely, then looked up into Severus' eyes and bent his knees, sinking down into the water to his neck, then quickly standing up again, smiling brilliantly, holding up his arms to Severus, who lifted him up then dipped him back in the water again as the child giggled and screeched "Again, Grandpa!" And he looked to the side, where Ginny was reclined, and he reached out his hand to caress her swollen belly, and she looked hot and miserable and utterly beautiful.

"The only good thing about being pregnant in the summer is Shell Cottage," she said.

And she stood, and walked toward the ocean, and she was wearing her wedding dress now, and it trailed in the wind behind her as she waded into the water, and Severus and the child faded away. And she turned to face Harry, and a thousand butterflies lifted her veil and bore it away on a breeze.

He woke to kisses on the corner of his eyes, on the tip of his nose, on his ear, his lips.

"We slept through our wedding night," Ginny said, her voice rough with sleep.

And they stumbled out of the hammock, and made their way upstairs past candles still burning in magical jars, and fell onto the bed.

And Harry laughed until he cried, because it was a waterbed, until Ginny finally kissed him quiet.

It wasn't until they were up and showered, until they'd had breakfast and coffee, that Harry remembered the envelope Severus had given him.

Ginny had gone ahead to the beach with the first load of towels and chairs, and he stood on the porch and removed the bundle from the trousers he'd discarded before tumbling onto the hammock the night before.

Harry and Ginevra

He removed the bundle of papers, and opened it.

The lump in his throat was back.

"Oh, Severus," he said, staring at the letter, then lifting his eyes to gaze out the window, down to the shore, where Ginny was setting up chairs and laying out the beach blanket and towels. He looked back at the bundle of papers, turned the pages over until he reached the end, then stared at the letter once more.

He dropped the papers onto the table, smiling, and hurried outside, down the stairs, onto the little path that led to their little patch of sand and rocks and ocean.

Their path. Their beach. Their cottage.

The ocean called to him as he ran.

Severus had given them Shell Cottage.

ooOoo

Dear Harry and Ginny:

Congratulations. The day you have been planning for so long is finally here, and even more importantly, the life you have agreed to share as husband and wife has begun.

You hold in your hands the deed to Shell Cottage. It is yours, so that it may continue to be the retreat and refuge for you that it has been these past years. As you look ahead to the years to come, I pray that there will be less need for rest and recovery, and that you use the cottage to reconnect with the simple joys of life.

Shell Cottage has offered me these in abundance.

Christen the cottage well with the happy memories you make this week.

Regards,

Dad

Fin