Harry Potter and Changing Destinies

Note: the prices are made up I'm not smart enough to do the American to British money math and later on ranking of martial arts belts are as accurate as we could make them. Heck we even brought in a couple of friends with martial arts training to help with that part. Hope you like and review PLEASE!!!!!

Chapter 14

While the boys went church shopping the girls went dress shopping. Not just any dresses though, wedding dresses. Well, two wedding dresses and one bride maid’s dress. Ali before the girls knew what was going on was pulling them into a designer store, but not just any designer store, it was Harrods. Where something simple could go for hundreds. “She walked right up to the cashier and asked for the manager, who happened to be the one the store was named after, who would have thought,” Hermione thought.

The two greeted each other like old friends. After the greeting and joking was done, Ali got right to business.

“We need to look at your wedding and bride maid’s dresses.”

“Oh, really? You finally caught you a man.”

“Yeah and so, did my new best friend and sister to be…” she stated pointing to Hermione.

“And this third lovely lady, I presume is the lucky bride maid who is pulling double duty.”

“Yep, that’d be me.”

“Follow me then ladies,” and with that the girls began their dress shopping.

Harrods actually shut down for the three girls so they could shop without interruption. They had been looking and trying on every dress that caught their eyes for almost half an hour when Ali squealed and ran over to one of the many racks and grabbed a white halter top, full-length, fully embroidered and with matte beading and a small train which when Hermione and Bri came to her side could see by the tag was a Oscar De La Renta gown that went for almost 20,000 pounds.

As Hermione was gasping for breath out of shock from seeing the price Ali went to try it on. When she came out wearing it and looked into the mirrors she was smiling hugely. She turned to the girls who also had matching smiles and said to Harrods, “This is the one. This is it.”

“Alright, my dear I’ll put it at the register for you until you all have dresses picked out.”

“Thank you.”

“Ali, don’t you think that’s a bit much? It’s a designer dress. We could find something just as nice,” said a slightly worried Hermione.

“No, hun it’s no problem. I can afford it and so can Harry by the way. So, my dears you pick the dress that speaks to you and get it.”

Hermione sighed with a smile, but went to the cheaper priced of the dresses to look while Bri sidled over to Ali and said, “Hey lady, I think we should get her that dress she was eyeing early today that she couldn’t bring herself to take off even when she saw the price tag.”

“That’s exactly what I was thinking too my brutally honest pal of mine.”

Bri called over to a worker and told them to go get the dress while Ali went over to Hermione to talk to her.

“So, see anything that catches your eye?” Ali asked.

“Not yet,” Hermione sighed.

“That’s not what Bri and I would say. Something caught you in its clutches earlier. Why don’t you get that? It was perfect, is perfect. And hell girl you only get married once in your life if you’re lucky and if you didn’t know it yet babe you’re one hell of a lucky girl. Your man loves you. Get it. You loved it and he’d love it on you…and I’m not trying to make you uncomfortable or anything but I bet he’ll love taking it off you too.”

As Hermione blushed the worker and Bri walked over with the Dolce & Gabana Artistic Gathered V Neck Halter Evening Dress in white that Hermione had been eyeing. Hermione touched it lightly as if afraid to ruin its elegant perfection and mumbled, “But it’s an evening gown, not a wedding dress and besides it’s too much. Its something you can wear for many occasions…”

Bri broke in the way she’s known to saying, “So? It’s beautiful like you. It’s perfect for you. It shows that you and Harry don’t need all the frills and thrills to be how and what you are. To be with each other. Get it.”

“But its 21,000 pounds…”

“So? I said Harry or I could handle buying for the dresses,” Ali replied.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

“Well…ok…but I’ll pay you back in installments.”

“No, you won’t! Think of it as my wedding present to you.”

“But…”

“No and that’s final.”

“Ok.”

After that Bri went off to find a dress to wear that would fit beautifully with the two girls’ but not take over their moment. After a few minutes she had found it. It was a gathered waist crepe back satin cowl evening gown in white by Alfred Angelo that at the moment was going for 15,000 pounds.

While Bri was off looking Hermione and Ali were sitting down in some comfy chairs by a couple of full length mirrors talking.

“So, Mione what’s the problem?”

“Problem? There’s no problem.”

“Says the girl who’s engaged to the most famous wizard of the wizarding world and not buying her dream…”
“Really its nothing…”

“It’s something or you wouldn’t be twisting your hands together like you are and nearly jumping out of your skin. Getting cold feet?”

“No! Never that…its just…”

“Just what?”

“I know Harry cares for me, but sometimes I wonder if he really loves me…or if because he’s so desperate to be normal and have a normal life…because he thinks he may not make it through this war that he just chose me so…he could…”

“Could say he did it. That he lived and loved and had a normal life before he was dead at 17.”

“I know that’s cruel to think, but…”

“It’s a fair question.”

“It is?” Hermione asked surprised that Ali agreed with her.

“Yes, Mione it is. No girl wants to be a means to an end. They want to be the center of their guy’s world. His reason to fight, to live, and all that. So, yes I agree. It’s okay to doubt, we all do. But tell me this, and then I’ll tell you something Harry has only shared with me and me alone, even if you were a means to an end, would you still go through with it? With getting married and possibly widowed to Harry?”

Hermione thought for a long while and then looking straight at Ali said, “Yes,”

“Why? Why go through that pain?”

“Because no matter what I am to Harry I…I love him and I’d rather have a few moments, days with him in my life as my husband, friend, and lover before losing him than without him and always having that nagging thought of ‘what if…’,” she replied to Ali’s smile.

“Good. Now what I’m gonna tell you is right from Harry’s memories. He’s only shared this things with me. So, you can trust their true…”

“What things? What memories?”

“Memories of you. Over the years. Proof he loves you and always has even when he didn’t know it. That Cho and Ginny never stood a chance in Heaven or Hell of getting Harry.”

“Huh?”

“Just sit and listen, k?”

“Okay?” Hermione said looking at Ali with questions in her eyes.

“First year, he’s the one that thought of you in the girl’s bathroom alone. He’s the one that thought to go get you and warn you. Second year, while you were petrified, he stayed by your side as much as possible every day. He brought fresh flowers, every day. He would sit there and talk with you all the time. It killed him to see you that way. Then after you were unpetrified and came through the Great Hall doors…who was it that saw you first? Who was it that grinned like an idiot and caught you in a huge, bone-crushing hug? Ron, nope. Harry, my dear. I think even then he felt something, but being only 12 didn’t know exactly what it was. Third year, well third year I don’t have to explain, do I? Fourth, the Tournament…the tasks…you know all this, right? Not, the part he told me…He held your hand in the tent before the first task after you came to warn him to be careful, didn’t he? Why would he do that?”

“Because…”

“Because he was worried, because your friends, yes those could be reasons why. Hell, they could be a part of the reason why he did, but I think it was because he wanted your comfort, the reassurance that you were with him, beside him even if you could be beside him. Then of course is the Yule Ball, you might not of noticed but Harry did. He told me his jaw hit the floor when he saw you enter. You struck him dumb, hun. He knew you were his friend of four years, the bookworm, know-it-all Hermione Granger, but that night he also saw you as a girl and not just any girl but a beautiful and amazing girl. You know he wanted to ask you out to the dance and not as a last ditch effort, but with how Ron and those articles flying around he thought he better not.

Then of course, the second task, saving someone special to the contestant from merpeople in the lake at your school. Do you know he swam to you first before he headed to Ron? You, Mione. Out of his two best friends, he went to you first. He stayed in the water knowing it was the right thing to do saving Fleur’s sister, making sure no one was left behind, yes, but he wanted to save you first before he even thought of going to Ron. Plus, do you know that seeing you were alright after he got out of the water freezing and worn out was the happiest moment of that day to him. Knowing you were alright made him alright.

Then there’s fifth year, when he came to Headquarters do you know that your hug made him feel like he was finally home more than anything else ever could? Did you know he almost came unhinged when he thought you were dead, he couldn’t do anything until Neville told him you were okay. Now sixth year, you were a real bitch but love forgives and you two have forgiven each other. You fought all that year, you second guessed him to the point that he didn’t want to share with you, but like I said love forgives and you two worked it out. There are other things about last year that need to be talked and discussed but not now. Are you beginning to see what I mean when I say Harry loves you and always will?”

“Yes, but I still think 21,000 is too much for a dress. I should pick something else.”

“Hermione, do you know how much money Harry or I actually have?”

“No, not really. I know Harry’s parents left him a trust, he let me go get some money from it earlier on this year and that Sirius left him some estate and money, but no…I don’t know.”

“Well, let’s just put it this way Harry alone with the Potter, Black, and Gryffindor inheritances can live for a millennium or five and still have money left. Now I alone with the VanLint fortune not counting the portion of the Potter fortune that’s mine for being Harry’s sister could live off that for maybe 10 or 20 millennium. Plus I am the heir of Ravenclaw and all that entails and I’m marrying a Malfoy. So, buying yours, mine, and Bri’s dresses out right for me is like an average muggle person buying something with a five dollar bill.”

“Really?” Hermione asked surprised.

“Yep, plus we can’t just buy the dresses we have to buy other clothes too.”

“Really? What clothes?”

“Clothes for the honeymoons of course. Hun, we’re gonna get married and be going on our honeymoons sooner or later. We’ll need to be prepared to knock the socks off our men and the people we run into when and if we go out to eat wherever our honeymoons are, right?” Ali asked with a smirk.

Bri cut in as she walked up, “Oh, yeah. You’ll need to be at your hottest if you ever go out to eat or dance on those honeymoons of yours. Your men will want to show you off and you’ll want to show them off too. Well, that’s if they let you out of the room you’re in…” and she let that thought run away on its own.

As the girls let the cashiers hang on to their dresses they shopped for other outfits while they laughed and jibbed each other. After a while Ali got a call from Draco on the communication mirror about the boys’ thought they had found the perfect church for their weddings after the war was through. So, the girls got everything rung up and when the total came to 70,900 pounds Ali paid with a check and they left for the address Draco had given them.

When they arrived they knew instantly just as the boys had that this was the place. As they walked in the old priest greeted them and wished them well. Then as the boys appeared from the main part of the church with huge smirks on their faces the girls began to think something really was up.

Finally, Hermione asked, “What’s going on, Harry?”

“We’re having a wedding…two actually…today, right now.”

“What! How? What?” the girls asked confused.

“The Father here has agreed to marry us and keep it secret until we say. So, what do you say girls up for a wedding?” Draco commented.

“What? Oh, really…” Hermione looked to the old priest who just smiled back.

Hermione looked to Ali and Bri who were smiling like idiots and silently agreed that this was the most romantic, spontaneous thing ever to happen to them all. They all agreed to it, but as they all walked to the altar to discuss how this quick but romantic wedding for two was going to go Hermione said, “What about you guys? You don’t have suits…”

“Its okay, Mione. While we were waiting for you all Draco got an old wizard clothes designer to come over and help us out. We have suits, wonderful ones if I do say so myself,” Harry replied.