Chapter One: Ron's Finest Hour

ONE MONTH LATER

"GINNY! OY! GINNY!"

"IN A MINUTE!" She called down the steps.

"WE WANT TO PLAY QUIDDITCH!"

"I SAID I'LL BE THERE IN A MINUTE!" She cursed her stupid brother under her breath, tugged on her shoes, and raced downstairs. Ron was waiting for her.

"What took you so long? We need another player to make even teams," He said seriously.

"I was getting dressed, you idiot."

"Well, come on then."

They went outside where Harry, Hermione, Bill, and Percy were waiting for them. They picked teams and Ginny was soon up in the air with the wind on her face, playing Quidditch with her brothers Hermione and Harry. It still surprised her sometimes how happy she felt. She had dreams sometimes, dreams that she was back at Hogwarts without Ron and Hermione, and most of all without Harry. She always felt so helpless in the dreams, not knowing what was happening to him, not even knowing, really, if he was still alive.

But it was over and they had come out of it relatively unscathed.

Relatively.

Fred's funeral had been a week after the battle. And they had all cried. But maybe the worst was George, who had looked so young and lost.

Ginny snapped out of her reverie in time to hear Ron taunting Hermione about her flying abilities.

"Top of her class in everything, Witches and Wizards!" He shouted. "But she can barely stay on a broomstick!"

"-barely stay on! Now really! Besides I wasn't top of our class in everything – Harry was in defense—"

"Well, my mistake," Ron said. "Top of her class in almost everything…but she can barely stay on a broomstick!"

Hermione, on an old Cleansweep, shot towards Ron. He easily dodged her and laughed. Harry was watching the two with an amused expression on his face.

"Lunch!" They heard a call from below. Mrs. Weasley was signaling them inside. They landed and dismounted their brooms, still good-naturedly ribbing each other as they made their way inside.

The table was loaded with sandwiches. Ginny sat down with the rest of the Weasleys, Harry, and Hermione.

"Are you going to see your parents today, dear?" Her mother asked Hermione.

"I'm going this weekend," she told her. "Thanks again for letting me stay here."

"You're always welcome, dear."

"So did you tell your parents everything that happened?" Bill asked curiously. "Ron told me you had memory charmed them."

"I had to go find them," Hermione explained. "Once I removed the memory charm, it was fine. I did tell them everything, and I mean everything. They weren't too pleased that I took matters into my own hands, but they understand I was protecting them and they're just glad I'm safe."

Suddenly, an official-looking owl came through the window. Mrs. Weasley grabbed the three letters the owl was carrying and then offered it some owl treats. The owl turned its beak up at them in a noble sort of way.

"Must be special delivery," Mrs. Weasley muttered as she handed Harry, Ron, and Hermione letters. "The regular post already came. Which, by the way Harry, you might want to start going through some of that mail. I know you'll just ignore the newspaper requests, but you do have a lot of people that want to thank you for what you did, dear."

They ripped into their letters as everyone else watched curiously.

"NO WAY!" Ron shouted with a look of excitement on his face. Harry and Hermione looked up, smiling.

"What is it?" Percy asked.

"They want to put us on Chocolate Frog Cards!" Ron shouted, grinning.

Bill, Percy, and Ginny laughed. Their mum seemed to be trying to hide her amusement.

"The letters have what they want to put on our cards and ask us to sign off on them," Hermione said.

"Well go on—" Ginny said. "Read them."

Hermione began, "Hermione Granger. Integral in helping to defeat The Dark Lord in 1998. She, along with Harry Potter and Ronald Weasley, located and destroyed The Dark Lord's horcruxes, helping to bring about the destruction of the most evil dark wizard the world has ever seen."

"Mine's the same," Ron said. "Ronald Weasley. Integral in helping to defeat The Dark Lord in 1998. He, along with Harry Potter and Hermione Granger, located and destroyed The Dark Lord's horcruxes, helping to bring about the destruction of the most evil dark wizard the world has ever seen."

"What about you, Harry?" Ginny asked.

"Harry Potter. Also known as The-Boy-Who-Lived and The Chosen One. Is the only known person to have survived the Avada Kedavra curse. Faced The Dark Lord and lived several times, finally working with Ronald Weasley and Hermione Granger to locate and destroy his horcruxes. He cast the spell that eliminated The Dark Lord forever."

"Are you all going to give permission then?" Bill asked.

"Of course!" Ron said, already grabbing a quill to sign the piece of parchment. "This is my finest hour," He finished solemnly.

He passed the quill to Harry who signed his parchment as well and then onto Hermione.

"It is kind of neat, isn't it?" Hermione said.

"Neat?!" Ron asked incredulously. "Hermione, this is the dream. Now kids on the Hogwarts Express will be trading us."

"Yeah, how many of you do you think someone would have to trade in order to get Harry?" Ginny asked playfully.

"Please," Ron said. "Harry may be the more famous one, but I'm much better looking."

"If you're done eating and telling us about your fantastic looks, I want to go look at a some flats before dinner," Harry told him.

"Are we still all meeting up at The Leaky Cauldron later?" Ginny asked.

"Yeah," Harry said. "We'll see you two there," he indicated Ginny and Hermione. "Come on, Ron."

"Alright, alright," Ron said, stuffing the last half of a sandwich in his mouth. "See you later," he said to Hermione, spraying crumbs everywhere. She removed a crumb from her robes and rolled her eyes as Ron and Harry headed out the door.

~*~*~

"This is it. This is the place," Ron said.

"How many times are you going to say that?" Harry asked.

"Until you say we're going to take it."

"Alright, we're going to take it."

The truth was, the place was perfect – exactly what they were looking for. Though they had only looked at flats before, they had seen the advertisement for a small house and decided to check it out. It was the eighth place they had visited that day. There were two bedrooms, a roomy living room, an adequate kitchen for two blokes living on their own, and a sizeable basement. The house also had a sort of charm, Harry thought. It was clearly an older home and showed its age in certain characteristic ways – a banister that was a little loose, two steps that creaked, and a floorboard that lifted up in one of the bedrooms that reminded Harry strongly of Privet Drive. It was located in a small town known as Locke's Landing, which the realtor told him was home to Wizards and Muggles alike.

"Do you want to go check out the town?" Ron asked.

"Sure." He told the realtor that they would be taking the place. She left to draw up the papers, ensuring them that they could move in about two weeks' time.

He and Ron made their way towards the shops; Ron was excitedly talking about he was going to decorate the new place.

"—we can do the basement in all orange. Strictly Chudley Cannons. What do you think? It would be—"

"I think it would clash horribly with your hair," Harry said with a grin. Ron shoved him and a scuffle ensued. Eventually, they called a truce as they reached the shops. They passed a variety of stores and restaurants. Some were Muggle, but the majority were Wizarding shops. Harry figured they must have some sort of spell on them to ensure that Muggles couldn't see them.

"Oh look! A pub!" Ron said excitedly. The place looked old, but well-cared for. A sign above the pub read The Lucky Griffin. "Fancy a drink?" Ron asked. Harry followed him into The Lucky Griffin.

They sat down on stools and a cute Witch who was tending bar approached them. "Can I get two pints of mead and two shots of firewhisky?" Ron asked. He set a few silver Sickles on the bar as the Witch served them their drinks.

Ron raised his shot glass. "To being a Chocolate Frog Card!" Harry grinned and clinked his glass against Ron's. The firewhisky gave him a warm feeling in the pit of his stomach.

Two hours later, the shot glasses had been re-filled several times and Harry couldn't stop laughing as Ron told him a story about the joke shop.

"—so George tells me to eat this candy. Says I need to try it out. While I'm not stupid. Of course I wasn't going to eat it. Probably turn into a Grippohyff—"

Harry let out a bark of laughter. "A Grippohyff—A—Grippo—" He couldn't finish the thought and continued laughing. Ron joined him and it took a few minutes for the boys to catch their breath.

"So I told George 'no, I'm not eating that' and it turns out that he put a spell on the candy that was activated by a certain word…and of course the word was no—"

"What happened?" Harry asked.

"—it turned into a boxing glove, punched me right in the stomach. I fell right on my arse—"

Harry roared with laughter.

"—yeah, George thought it was pretty funny too. Hey, what time is it?"

"It's almost six," Harry told him, glancing at his watch. "We better go to The Leaky Cauldron now."

"How cool is it that we didn't have to take our apparition exams?" Ron said. "Just gave us our licenses."

Harry stood up raised his wand in the air. "That's because I'm Harry Potter – The-Chosen-Boy-Who-Lives!" He fell to his knees laughing.

"Alright, alright. We have to pull it together," Ron said seriously.

Harry put on his most solemn face. He and Ron apparated at almost exactly the same moment and appeared outside The Leaky Cauldron.

"See!" Harry said triumphantly. "That was easy." He walked confidently towards the entrance, tripped over his own feet, and had to grab the door to keep himself from falling.

"Smooth," Ron said as he walked past Harry. The girls had not yet arrived. Harry and Ron grabbed a table and two more pints of mead for good measure.

"I'm starving," Ron said. He examined the menu while Harry used his fork to send tap-dancing peanuts flying across the room.

"Harry, what are you doing?" He looked up and saw Ginny standing there, Hermione beside her.

"You look beautiful," he said to Ginny.

"I'm wearing the same robes I was wearing earlier," she said skeptically.

"So? You still look great." He stood up and put his arm around her waist. She gave him a confused expression. Sure, it was unlike him to show so much public affection, but why not? She was beautiful and they were together and everything was good. He leaned in to kiss her.

"Are you drunk?" She asked, looking slightly annoyed, but also smiling.

He paused. "Maybe."

"Ron!" Hermione shouted. "Where did you two go?"

He looked guilty as he explained, "Well, we found a place; didn't we Harry? And we went to this pub and had a few drinks. Just celebrating you know – Chocolate Frog Cards, finding a house, no one trying to do Harry in for a month—"

"Okay," Hermione said, softening at once. "But you two need to sober up some." She ordered pumpkin juice for all of them and an order of chips to start out with. "You know, Harry, Kingsley Shacklebolt made an announcement today that anyone who participated in the final battle is welcome to start auror training in the fall, with or without NEWTs."

"Yeah?" Harry said. It was true that he had had an ambition to become an auror since he was fourteen. Ironically, it was Bartemius Crouch Jr. disguised as Professor Moody who had first put the idea in his head. And during his career consultation in fifth year, Professor McGonagall had defended his chosen career path.

"Do you think you'll have a go?" Ginny asked. "Think you can handle it?" She teased.

The pumpkin juice and chips seemed to be clearing his head a bit. "Yeah, I reckon I have a bit of experience in the area."

"What about you, Ron?" Hermione asked suddenly.

"Me?" He looked taken aback by the suggestion.

"Well isn't that what you always wanted to do?" Hermione said. "You took all the same subjects as Harry at Hogwarts – the ones necessary to be an auror. And it's not like you haven't faced more of the Dark Arts than half the aurors combined."

Ron's face turned a bright pink. "Yeah, I think I will. The training is supposed to be tough though, isn't it?"

"Somehow," Harry began. "I doubt it's harder than camping in the middle of nowhere for months while lugging around a horrible dark object, trying to find more of these dark objects with no clue as to where they are while a maniacal dark wizard attempts to find and kill you."

"You raise a good point, Harry." Ron said with a grin.

"So when do you guys move into this new place?" Ginny asked.

"In a couple weeks," Harry said.

"It's going to be nice to have our own space," Ron said, leaning back in his chair.

"Excuse me?" Hermione said indignantly. "Didn't know we were crowding you—"

"That-That's not what I meant—" Ron sputtered. "From my mum and everyone. Not you—"

"Are you still going to stay at The Burrow?" Ginny asked Hermione.

"Yes," she replied. "I can't live in the Muggle world anymore. I love my parents and I can see them whenever I want. And that's enough."

At that moment, the waitress came and took their orders.

The rest of the evening was spent talking and joking. Harry stroked Ginny's hand under the table, listening to Ron and Hermione bicker about house-elves. He felt content and like maybe things were falling into place.

Perhaps this normal thing wasn't so hard after all.