A/N: Whew! After a bunch of new interviews from J.K. Rowling on the post-Deathly Hallows situation, I've had to basically revamp the entire plot. Now I'm glad I didn't get to the start of term! Anyway, here is the new, canon-ified version of chapter 1!

One sunny July morning, a rather unremarkable tawny owl flew above the village of Ottery St. Catchpole, its talons tied to two different letters addressed in emerald green ink. Flying across the clear, bright sky, it quickly approached its destination- what looked almost like an overgrown cottage and was in fact only held up by magic.

In this house, a teenage girl with flaming red hair stumbled sleepily down the stairs, where a girl with rather bushy brown hair was already reading her day's Daily Prophet. The tawny owl had passed by the Daily Prophet owl some time ago, and now it swooped down into the open kitchen window and landed on the table.

Hermione dropped her Daily Prophet and excitedly untied the letters from the impatient owl's leg, who was quite happy that this year delivering to the Weasleys' didn't mean an overly heavy load of letters. The owl flew away quickly as Ginny sat down next to Hermione.

"Are these our letters?" asked Ginny, even though she was aware of the answer. Grabbing hers, she tore it open somewhat lazily.

Ginny hadn't been the same since the battle—no one had. She seemed older somehow, her face thinner and less bright. Hermione, too, seemed to have a weight on her shoulders even though the wizarding world's greatest threat had been dead for two months.

Harry and Ron, both barely awake and in their pajamas, lumbered down the stairs and joined the girls. They too, were shaken from the war. Neither had gotten much sleep, which was hardly unusual considering the circumstances.

Harry looked curiously at the two letters- one addressed to Ginny, and the other addressed to Harry, Ron, and Hermione. Hermione opened the beige letter.

"Dear Mr. Potter, Mr. Weasley, and Miss Granger,

We would like to inform you that, if you so choose, you will be welcomed back to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry for your seventh year. Many of our students unable to attend the past school year due to Anti-Muggle-Born policies will be attending again this coming year, and we extend this invitation to the three of you, considering that in this rare instance, your mission in the past year has been far more important than schoolwork.

The option is yours, and if do wish to attend this coming year, we will send you a list of schoolbooks immediately. We await your owl.

Sincerely,

Prof. Minerva McGonagall

Headmistress"

Harry blinked as he stared at the letter. He hadn't thought about going back to Hogwarts. It had been his home for so long, but—

"QUIDDITCH CAPTAIN!" Harry's thoughts were interrupted by Ginny's loud shriek.

"I've been made quidditch captain!" she exclaimed much more quietly, somewhat embarrassed by her outburst.

"Brilliant!" said Harry and Ron at the same time, while Hermione said "Congratulations!"

Footsteps were heard on the stairs, and another redhead trotted downstairs.

"I could've heard you from twenty miles away, Ginny," said George with a grin, which was much rarer nowadays. "You really could have been a bit more discreet, oh, maybe turned it down to the roar of a dragon."

Ginny rolled her eyes, but couldn't think of a retort. "I wonder who's teaching Defense," she wondered aloud, changing the subject. "Honestly, they've got to run out of candidates sometime."

"Well, it's not as if there's a curse on it anymore," said Ron, "I mean, surely there's got to be some Auror or something. There's probably loads less to do now that Voldemort's dead."

"Well, I bet there are plenty of Death Eaters to round up now," said Hermione.

"Like the Malfoys," said Harry with a triumphant smirk.

"Speaking of rounding up Death Eaters, why did you get a Hogwarts letter, Harry?" asked George, looking at the letter that now resided in Harry's hand. "Aren't you starting Auror training?"

"McGonagall still sent us a letter inviting us back if we want to finish school."

"Yeah, I don't think she'd exactly kick you three out after all that. So, what are you going to do?"

"I'm still going into the Auror department," Harry said shortly.

"Me too," agreed Ron.

"Excellent!" said George smugly. "I wasn't much for finishing school either."

"I think I'm going to go back," said Hermione.

"Why?" asked George and Ron with curiosity.

"Well, seeing as I'm not joining the Auror department, I want to take my NEWTs and finish school."

"Well, that's Hermione for you," scoffed Ron. "Famous enough to get any job without NEWTs but wants to go study anyway."

Hermione shot an irritated glare at Ron. "Maybe I don't want to skate my way through life just because I can use my fame to my advantage."

"You could do anything you wanted," said Harry. "We're the 'Golden Trio' now, apparently. No one would think twice about hiring you."

"We're only the 'Golden Trio' to the Rita Skeeters of the world. That doesn't make us better than anyone else."

Just then, Molly Weasley bustled into the kitchen.

"Oh, your letters are here!" she exclaimed before looking at them expectantly.

George saved them the trouble. "Ginny's Quidditch Captain, Harry and Ron are still going to be Aurors, and now Ron's arguing with Hermione because she wants to go back to Hogwarts for seventh year." Ron scowled at him, but George just shrugged.

"Hermione, I'm very happy that you want to finish your education," said Mrs. Weasley before frowning at Ron. "And you should respect her decision, Ronald Bilius Weasley!" Hermione smiled a little too smugly.

"And congratulations, Ginny!" continued a suddenly cheery Mrs. Weasley, "I'm so proud of you—all of you! I suppose we'll have to go to Diagon Alley later. Now where is Arthur?" she wondered in vain. Mr. Weasley hadn't been around much lately, even when he was home from work.

"And Harry! Your birthday's only in a few days! We'll have to get something together…"

"No, you really don't need to," Harry interrupted.

"Nonsense! We'll have to do something!" Molly was rather intent on being as busy as possible, and in the past few months she never seemed to sit still. Harry supposed it was her way of coping with her son's death. He fleetingly recalled Mrs. Weasley's boggart, that summer three years before.

"Crack. Dead twins. Crack. Dead Percy. Crack. Dead Harry…" (OOTP, 176). He wondered if she had ever considered losing only one of the twins. It had seemed impossible to have one without the other.

The afternoon before Harry's birthday, Harry and Ginny headed back towards the Burrow after a long walk—well, it hadn't actually been a long walk, but that's what they were going to tell Ron. It had actually involved quite a bit of snogging.

They happily wandered into the kitchen holding hands (that is, of course, until they saw Ron), before sitting down in the living room. Mrs. Weasley was cooking dinner, and there was a wonderful smell of pumpkin and cinnamon wafting into the room. The kitchen doorknob turned, and a delighted but tired looking Mr. Weasley strode into the kitchen.

"You'll never believe it—" he said, slightly out of breath, "Kingsley's finally been made Minister!"

Mrs. Weasley practically squealed with delight. "How wonderful! We'll have to have him for dinner—in fact, why don't we make Harry's party a joint celebration! As a congratulations to Kingsley too!"

This was the first Harry had heard of any party, and he didn't have a particularly good feeling about it. Nevertheless, the next day decorations had managed to hang themselves up, and at precisely 6:00 people began to arrive.

The guests were a mixture of friends from the Order (which were many less now than before the start of the war) and Harry's friends from Hogwarts. Luna Lovegood had merely walked over (they saw her quite often now, partly because she was quite skilled at getting rid of the Rita Skeeter clones who so often camped out at the Burrow when the news was getting boring).

"Hello!" Luna said airily, a large present in her hands. "I'm sorry my father couldn't come. He had an important interview with a woman whose husband habitually turns into a pair of trainers," she continued breezily. Harry was glad—after his last meeting with Xenophilius Lovegood, he wasn't sure he wanted to see him again just yet.

With that, Luna and her radish earrings sauntered into the house, placing her present on the table. Soon after, several other members of the DA apparated to the house, a few with presents, others without. It didn't matter to Harry, as he was still uncomfortable with the entire arrangement.

As was to be expected, there was quite a ruckus when Kingsley Shacklebolt arrived, looking very dapper in deep blue robes. He smiled at Harry before Mrs. Weasley quickly ushered him outside to the table in the garden, where most everyone sat chatting loudly. Harry, however, was much more excited when Andromeda Tonks arrived with his godson in tow. Although Teddy was living with his grandmother (they had both agreed that although Harry had killed the darkest wizard of all time, he had no idea how to care for a baby), Harry took him on outings practically every other day—there was no stopping Harry from being the godfather Sirius was never able to be to him. He enthusiastically took Teddy in his arms and went into the living room.

While much of the former Order were sitting outside, the DA seemed to have situated itself inside the living room. Harry sat down between Neville and Ginny, who quickly asked to hold Teddy (she adored him, and had eagerly lapped up the role of godmother). The baby tended to always unintentionally change his hair and eye color, and when handed to Ginny, his hair turned to his mother's signature shade of bubblegum pink.

The room went oddly silent for a moment, as if in remembrance to Tonks.

"Well, how has everyone's summer been?" asked Luna, breaking the silence and leading to a slightly more awkward one. However, soon enough Neville launched on a funny anecdote about a crazy reporter kidnapping the escapee Trevor and wanting an interview in exchange for the toad. Everyone began talking about their summers—however trivial the conversation was, it was comforting. Normalcy had been difficult to come by, and somehow, however silly it was, talking about Neville's toad began a world where they didn't need to live in fear, and they could talk about blibbering humdingers or the latest broomstick models like they should have as normal teenagers years before.

For Harry, knowing that there was a future beyond fighting, a future for him and Ginny, and Ron, and Hermione, and Teddy—it helped to ease the pain of losing so many people, and knowing that many of those people had died to protect him.

The friends' conversation was interrupted, though, by Mr. Weasley, who came inside and said, "There you are, Harry! Molly's baked a cake, you know, you all should come outside—you can't miss your entire birthday party!"

They all stood up at the same time and filed outside, to where Mrs. Weasley was bringing out a large cake. It was not snitch-shaped like last year's, seeing as they were also celebrating Kingsley's appointment as Minister, but they all sang Happy Birthday to Harry anyway before grabbing several slices of cake each.

It was not a lavish celebration, nor was Harry's birthday as significant as last year's, but it seemed that everyone needed a bit of cheering up, and in that the party certainly fulfilled its purpose. As Harry walked around, cake in hand, he eventually ran into Kingsley.

"Harry!" said Kingsley in his deep, resonant voice. "So good to see you. We'd like you to start working on assignments soon."

"Assignments?" said Harry, slightly surprised. "Don't we have to go through training first?"

"Normally, yes. But we're at the stage where we're discovering more and more hiding places of the Death Eaters who weren't captured after the battle, and we need recruits now, not in three years. Besides," he added, "I think you've had plenty of experience already. More than enough to pass over training." Harry nodded in assent. "I'll send you both a message when we need you. And thank you, Harry," he said somberly. Harry nodded again with a sort of half-smile, half-grimace, but Kingsley was soon whisked away by Dedalus Diggle, who congratulated him yet again.

"Harry," called Ginny, who was walking up behind him. Harry grinned. "We've got something for you." she said, leading him out to the lawn.

"We?" he asked. "You know, you could have given me the same thing as last year, I'd definitely like another," he added mischievously.

"I think that could be arranged," Ginny replied with a roguish smile, "but there's something else for you."

A deafening rumble was then heard by the side of the house, and about half of the guests swiftly pulled out their wands and pointed them towards the sound (Harry included). Ginny laughed out loud at this, and Harry glanced over at her.

"It's just your present, Harry!" she said, laughing. "It's not a Death Eater in disguise!"

The roaring continued, and Arthur Weasley came into view, riding atop a gigantic motorbike. Harry's experiences with this motorbike hadn't been particularly pleasant, seeing as the first time he was on it as a baby, his parents had just been killed, and the second time, one year before, he had been chased by Voldemort, Hedwig and Mad-Eye Moody had died, and he had violently crashed into a pond.

Still, it had been Sirius' motorbike—one of the few possessions he had really liked. Harry recalled his godfather's room at Number Twelve, Grimmuald Place—Gryffindor banners, posters of Muggle girls, and plenty of motorbikes. He could see why Sirius had liked them so much; to someone raised in a wizarding family as anti-muggle as the Blacks, not only would a motorbike be a fascinating machine, but another way to rebel against his pretentious upbringing.

"It was a nasty piece of work after that crash, you know, but I thought I might as well give it a go!" exclaimed Mr. Weasley proudly.

"Arthur!" exclaimed Mrs. Weasley, "All this time you've hardly been in the house for a moment, and it's because you were tampering with Muggle things? I thought we'd agreed you'd stop fiddling with all of that!"

"Oh, no," said Ron quietly, "She's going to go absolutely bonkers…"

"When you said you'd already gotten something for Harry, I'd assumed that—"

Harry decided to tune her out after that, and he turned to Ginny.

"Want to go for a ride on the motorbike?" he asked.

"I think that could also be arranged," she said. They both climbed onto the motorbike (which was rather large), and Harry and Ginny took off into the night sky.

A/N: Wow, was that actually five whole pages on Word? Wow… I didn't know I actually possessed an attention span. Any reviews you have would be great, whether it's a comment or a suggestion for where the story should go next. Well, that's it for now!