A/N : The beginning letter from Dudley is from a prompt on Tumblr. I did not come up with it and will not take any credit for it. This is also my very first fanfic so any and all feedback would be extremely helpful. Thank you.

Dear Harry,

My daughter got a Hogwarts letter today. I don't know why I'm telling you this, but I just felt the need to apologize for putting you through seventeen years of hell. If my daughter grows up to be like you I will be the proudest father in the world.

Sincerely,

Dudley.

Harry folded the letter and tucked it into his shirt pocket, patting it warmly and smiling. "Are you crying?" Ginny asked softly, circling her arms around his waist.

"No, not yet at least. It's just touching is all," Harry said digging the paper out and handing it to her. As she read it her hand flew to her mouth and her eyes crinkled the tell-tale signs of a smile. "Oh that'll be a treat for Petunia and Vernon to find."

"I hadn't even thought of how they'd react!" Harry gasped and blinked away the joyful tears that had come to his eyes from the touching apology. "Why, Petunia will flee the country, you know she will."

"I sure hope you're right, I've had my eye on that house for quite a while now."

"That house? The very house I was practically enslaved for half of my childhood? That's the one you want to raise our kids in?"

"Exactly Harry, I want to RAISE them there. Not enslave them."

"We both know if we raise our kids in that house I'll tell many more stories about the past than is necessary."

"Which is exactly why we're doing it, our kids need to know what happened. All of it. They need to know about Fred, and Hagrid, and Snape and Dobby. They need to know who they were and why they're gone. And why we're not gone with them."

"Why we're not gone with them..." Harry whispered.

"Because of you of course, Harry!"

"It's not just because of me of course, it's because of everyone. Everyone who was willing to fight. I mean, think about Neville. He was the hero of that battle; I don't care what anyone says. Even when I was dead he was willing to fight Voldemort. He knew it wasn't over even when everyone else thought it was. "

"Exactly, Harry. Stuff exactly like that. I want you to explain everything to our children because god-knows their history books aren't going to cover much of it."

Wizards, though exceedingly brilliant at wizardry, oftentimes have difficulties agreeing on how things happened, which can make official history very tedious to record.

"And I will tell them those stories, regardless of where we're at or whose listening. But kids are in the future, for tonight I think it's far past time we've seen Hagrid," Harry said pulling out his wand.

"Oh very well, Hagrid it is then. Is it alright if I invite Hermoine and Ron? She says they've had some difficulty finding things to do since there's no reason to be heroes anymore."

"Of course! I miss the two of them as well. Why, I've got an idea. Why don't you send a message out to the class? We'll have a meet up at the Leaky Cauldron, see what everyone's up to and all that."

Ginny loved the idea, just as she loved all of Harry's other ideas. She sat down at the wooden table in the kitchen of the Burrow, pulled out a piece of patterned parchment, and a feathered pen, and wrote in beautiful calligraphy, a simple invitation. With a wave of her wand it doubled, then tripled, and then sixty letters sat on the table, all packaged up and ready to go.

"They're ready, love," Ginny said.

With a wave of Harry's wand, they were enchanted and slowly flew off the table and out the open window, each with a different target.

Quite suddenly, there was a commotion within the fireplace. "A-A-ACHOO!" a great sneeze roared throughout the house.

Harry and Ginny exchanged a look before running into the family room. "Hagrid!" They both exclaimed.

Hagrid towered within the family room and beamed. It was so wonderful for him to see two of his favorite students from old standing there married. There was soot in his beard from the fire, and a bandage around his arm.

"What happened there, Hagrid?" Ginny said pointing.

"Awh, tis nothing but a scratch from the new surprise I have for me class," Hagrid said blowing it off as he did most any animal inflicted wound. As the Care of Magical creature's professor at Hogwarts, he was used to getting into a few scrapes here and there. He found it more than worth it because he loved the animals he cared for, even, or might I say especially, the monsters.

"How are you still finding creatures to surprise that class with?" Harry asked, "I thought you showed us everything."

"Well I certainly tried," Hagrid laughed, "but there are too many creatures out there to ever meet all of them."

"Well at least you can try," Harry smiled warmly, "I'd invite you to sit down, but I've just invited everyone from the old class out to the Leaky Cauldron. We'd best be going unless we want to be late to our own party."

"Yer throwin' a party and didn't invite me?" Hagrid asked, pretending to be hurt.

"of course you were invited Hagrid, we sent you a letter actually but we figured you were already on your way here."

"And just how did you both know somethin' like that?"

"Well I would say it was a hunch, but that would only work if this owl's name was Hunch," Ginny said nodding towards the Owl that had minutes before delivered a letter that stated very clearly Hagrid was on his way.

"Oi, right," Hagrid said turning his head to scratch his neck so they couldn't see him blush and smile sheepishly. "Forgot about that."

"Right well, if that's all clear then…Leaky Cauldron?" Harry asked.

"Let's go," Ginny agreed.

With that they all nodded at each other and apparated. Seconds later there they were standing in the leaky cauldron. Surrounded by Ron and Hermoine and Seamus and Cho and Neville and Luna, even students they no longer recognized or had never known. Everyone was there.

"We made it!" Ron suddenly screamed, and everyone laughed and cheered and started asking each other whether he meant from the battle or completing school and no one cared. Because in those moments, they were reconnected with all of their best friends, and that was good enough.

"You know," Luna said quietly to Hermoine and Ginny, "everyone is acting like there's no longer bad or evil in the world. I'm very glad we're free of Voldemort forever, but I fear that we are getting too comfortable. Evil still exists, it is out there, and it is angry."

The pub roared on with the chatter of former students and the bartenders very confused with the sudden party, and the few regulars sitting in their booths and grumbling about the noise, but for Ginny and Hermoine everything went very quiet.

"I hope you're both having lovely times with your husbands by the way, there's a new pond that's formed out south a ways from here if you like things like that. I'd be careful about what lives in it but it's quite a beautiful place…" Luna kept going but Hermoine and Ginny had stopped listening.

After she had finally walked away to go talk to Hagrid about animals, Hermoine said, "what on earth could she possibly mean by that?"

"I don't know, if it's about the creatures living in the pond we can imagine that they probably don't exist. But if it's about evil being out there and angry, I'm not sure, and I'm a bit frightened."

"She said it so definitely, like she knew it for a fact."

"She says everything as if it's a fact, doesn't she?"

"No, not like that. She says things quietly, she said that firmly. And it was terrifying."

"Should we talk to the boys about it?"

"Of course, let's find a booth."

After they had called the boys over, they sank into a booth at the back of the room away from the party and Harry took his wand out.

"Hey you!" One of the bartender's shouted pointing directly at him, "can't ya read the signs? No enchantments in here. I run a 'spectable business I do, and I won't have even the likes of 'Arry potter ignorin' that!"

"Oh I'm sorry, Sir." Harry said putting his wand away and biting his lip to keep from retorting.

"Damn right, ya are."

"It's not like I knew," Harry whispered to everyone at the table and they laughed,

"tough luck, mate." Ron said, let's all go upstairs just for a moment.

"By all you do mean-""just the four of us, dear." He said squeezing Hermoine's shoulder in what he thought to be a reassuring gesture.

The four friends went up the stairs one at a time at spaced intervals so as to not draw too much attention. Some would say they were being overly cautious but considering the world they grew up in… it could never hurt to be overly cautious, which is why the girls were making such a big deal of what Luna had said.

When they had all gathered at the top of the stairs, Ginny explained to Harry and Ron what Luna had said and the dark tone in which she had said it.

"You know Luna though," Ron laughed. "Always so…believing," the way his face twisted you could all but see that he know 'believing' wasn't the proper word for what he was trying to say. Trusting? Naïve? No. These words hardly suited Luna, but from the outside looking in, there was definitely something off about her.

"That's what I thought too at first," Hermoine said. "But there was something different to the way she said this. Something, telling about the way she looked over her shoulder.