Chapter Seven - Chaperones in Love

Harry couldn't sleep. Even wearied from the day-long Occlumency training, he was too stressed, too embarrassed from dealing with the public revelation that he was going on a date with Luna Lovegood.

Some of it had to do with Uncle Vernon's reaction, veering from paranoia to outright hostility, as he had indulged in another hour's worth of warnings, threats, and total lies regarding the whole sex thing. They had to be lies, Harry mused, some of the things his uncle described just couldn't possibly be real, not so much violating the rules of biology but also the rules of physics. Some of those things couldn't happen even with the aid of magic...maybe...nah, they couldn't happen...

A lot of it had to do with Harry's fear of how the Wizarding world would react once word got out. If Neville loathed the attention he was getting for stopping a Dementor, he never had to deal with a lifetime's worth of full-blown celebrity status the way Harry had. Even in his early childhood years of exile, everyone involved in magic knew his name and recognized his scar. And the past two years he's had to deal with over-hyped media coverage, starting with Rita Skeeter's horrific embellishments during the Triwizard Tournament, right up to the accusations of insanity and glory seeking of the past year. That meeting with Hermione, Luna and Skeeter on Valentine's Day, where Skeeter practically foamed at the mouth when his date with Cho was mentioned, reminded Harry that the press would be just as rabid in digging up his social life.

They'll go crazy when they hear about this, Harry groaned inwardly. Mrs. Weasley's heart is in the right place, I know she means well, but that look on her face, she was so thrilled to hear about it, she's bound to talk to others like it's good news. Even Ginny couldn't keep it under her hat.

And Luna! Harry tossed to the other side of his bed, flopping the pillow over his face. Her dad OWNS a paper, the Quibbler. She's had to tell her father about the date, and what are the odds he'd resist the temptation to plaster it all over the celebrity gossip columns, just next to the Page Three Veela?

So Harry kept tossing about, kicking off the bedsheets, and wondering if Hedwig would show up soon so he could write Hagrid about where his hiding cave is so he could move there for about a month.

Sunday was worse. Uncle Vernon had, of course, told Aunt Petunia about Harry's date and after recovering from her fainting, she insisted they go to church. All of them. Harry had never been to church, he reasoned when he was younger that it was the Dursleys not wanting to admit they were related, but after the whole wizard issue came to light he realized they were worried his presence would cause them to be struck by lightning. Which Harry found odd, since his textbooks on magical History conclusively proved that Divine Retribution toward Muggles was due to poor hygiene and the overuse of artificial turf in sports.

Nothing like falling brimstone or a plague of toads happened, even though they arrived an hour before regular morning services were held and Harry sat there in full view of the sainted stain glass windows. Uncle Vernon tried to speak with the bishop before the sermon, asking then begging then demanding that the sermon focus on abstinence, lust, sin, and scaring teenage boys into never having sex for the rest of their lives. Thankfully the pastor stuck with his original topic of being charitable and neighborly, which naturally cheesed off the Dursleys to no end.

Harry didn't pay too much attention to the sermon, though. He learned something about churches that Muggles apparently could never sense: he learned that the figures in the stain glass windows moved and talked much like the portraits at Hogwarts and elsewhere in the Wizarding world. He was dazzled to watch St. Jerome get into a lively discussion with St. Lawrence about the catering the church was scheduling for an upcoming feast. Some of the other stain glass windows slowly realized they were being watched, and gave Harry friendly greetings when he looked their way.

"It's been awhile since we've had a wizard stop by for services," St. Julian noted. "Nice to have you, young man."

Harry couldn't really answer back, being surrounded by unaware Muggles, so he gave a quick nod that Uncle Vernon spotted and took for twitchiness. "Can't sit still in this place, you little heretic?" he hissed with a twisted angry gleam in his eye.

Monday came, and Harry had another sleepless night to shake off. Today was it, the Daily Prophet was going to have his social life back up on Page One, he just knew it. He had realized last night that the deal Hermione struck with Skeeter, forcing the reporter to keep quiet for a full year, no longer applied. He had an image of Skeeter in her illegal Animagus form, skittering about on beetle legs atop the presses, watching each page fly out with Harry and Luna's names encircled with heart shapes...

Breakfast was quiet. Dudley, for some reason, had asked his mother for just one grapefruit this time, no eggs, no toast, just a grapefruit, and he asked for it. And Harry swore it smelled like his cousin had finally taken a morning shower, by the fact there was no smell at all.

Uncle Vernon had cleared out earlier, not wanting to be present when Mrs. Weasley came to retrieve Harry, leaving it to Aunt Petunia to shoot angry stares at the other woman as she came to the door. "Ready to go, Harry?"

Harry's walk with her went quietly. At least at his end. Mrs. Weasley attempted about five questions regarding the how and the why and the when and the where surrounding the Date With Luna Grand Event. Finally she realized Harry was too embarrassed to say anything about it and stopped. The fifth question, for the record, was if Harry was going to get a haircut.

Only Mrs. Figg and her cats greeted them as they arrived at her house. This time, instead of guiding Harry to the kitchen, Mrs. Weasley escorted him to Mrs. Figg's fireplace. "This is connected to the Floo Network, dear," Mrs. Weasley smiled, "we got the Ministry to connect it, we knew your relatives were not keen on having their fireplace as a gateway, this is if you needed to get anywhere. Especially helpful until you learn Apparating."

Harry stared at her, unsettled just a bit. "We're travelling somewhere? Through the Floo?"

"Yes, to my home." Mrs. Weasley picked up some powder from a cat-shaped bowl on the counter and dumped a good amount into Harry's hands. "This time it should be easier than getting to Diagon Alley, it's hard to mispronounce the old Weasleys' residence. Do it like before, dear, and say aloud 'the Burrow!' Shouldn't be any trouble at all."

Harry followed her instructions and stepped into the green flame. Like before, he spun in and about the flames as they grew darker, then brighter as he found himself sliding feet first into the Weasley's living room. His feet, in fact, slid right into Bill Weasley's legs as he sat in the nearby recliner glancing over papers covered with red, green and gold ink.

Harry's sneakers didn't leave much damage on Bill's dragon-skin boots, but it got Bill's attention as he spilled his Gringotts paperwork all over the teen. "Ah, this is what I get for not paying attention," the eldest Weasley sibling groaned, struggling to round up every parchment across the floor. "But I wasn't expecting you to be here...better get out of the way, Harry, mum's coming through any second now..."

Harry kicked some of the paperwork out of the way as he stood up, just in time as Mrs. Weasley came hopping out of the large green flame into her home, landing on her feet. Harry wanted to find out how exactly you do that, otherwise every other Floo trip would end on his end.

"Here we are, oh, Bill, it's so nice you're greeting us here, give me a minute Harry, I've got to get things set up for the lessons." Mrs. Weasley spun about, talking faster than she could move, somehow energized into doing fifty different things at once.

"It's you," Bill noticed with a grin when Harry shot him a worrying glance. "Mum's all aflutter when she heard about you and Luna."

"Oh, yeah, that," Harry did his best to sound deflated, hoping to avoid the topic.

"Well, it's a distraction for her, especially since...well, you've seen today's Prophet yet?"

Harry shook his head. He was dreading this.

"Oh, ah." Bill finished getting all his papers back in a manageable pile. "Lemme get today's paper then. Here it is."

Harry glanced at the front page. There were more reports about the aftermath of the Dementor attacks, with the Ministry worrying that "You-Know-Who may have been distracting us from another objective," something about getting giants back inside England. He kept flipping the pages, scanning for the society gossip columns, not seeing much of anything about him or Luna. He wasn't too sure what he was looking for.

"Right there, you just passed it," Bill pushed a finger into the page that Harry just flipped over.

Harry glanced back. He spotted a basic news blurb (REPAIRS OF KHAZAD-DUM BRIDGE DELAYED ANOTHER MONTH), then saw what Bill was pointing at: the Weddings and Engagements column.

"What the...? Percy's getting married?" Two familiar faces, Percy Weasley and his long-time girlfriend Penelope Clearwater, beamed from the accompanying photo, although Percy's seemed a bit forced. The engagement had apparently been on for some time but had just been announced, with a November wedding schedule and gift registry set with Titania's of Diagon Alley.

"Yeah," Bill answered, placing his scrolls onto a nearby table. "It's been on for some time, and we didn't even know about it. He proposed the day she got back from her studies in America, with that transreligious organization she's a part of."

"You didn't know?" Harry paused. "That would explain why Ginny still calls him a git. But still, how did you find out?"

"From her. Penelope's a good girl, really, she did get along well with mum and dad once Percy mentioned they were steady a few years back. She's upset with Percy for his refusal to speak to us again, to speak to dad mostly, even though they're still at the Ministry..."

"Harry," Mrs. Weasley's voice echoed out from the kitchen. "I'm almost ready, dear, get your wand handy..."

"Anyway," Bill continued, speaking faster, "Penelope's been trying to get Percy to apologize, mum's been trying to get our dad to apologize too, but they're stubborn, the both of them. And I have to admit, it'd be nice if we could get them to talk, to let up on the hostility, because until then I can't really...well..."

"Harry, dear! Let's get started, shall we?" Mrs. Weasley's insistent voice cut off Bill in mid-rant, and with a shrug Harry hurried off to the kitchen.

The Occlumens training went a little better for Harry this time, his head didn't feel as drained so quickly, and he felt encouraged by how easier it was for him to retain his sense of location while unwanted memories and thoughts threatened to overwhelm his perceptions.

There was one instance where Harry felt he slipped up, when he reacted too harshly at a direct Legilimens assault that Mrs. Weasley piled onto him before lunch break. He threw his wand out with a Protego spell, only to find himself performing the reaction thought readings into Mrs. Weasley's head.

All of a sudden, Harry was embarrassed to see things from her memories, as he witnessed her standing in the same kitchen years earlier, trying to comfort a thin, scratched-up young boy with a broken set of glasses who cried about his younger brothers breaking his Quidditch broom during a family game while a young, earring-less Bill kept pointing out the poor boy had broken his own broom flying into a shrub; another image of that same boy, slightly older, returning back from a Hogwarts Express train ride trying to hide his tears as a set of young freckled-face twins bounced about with glee; it was her son's happiest day, flashing the Head Boy badge that just slid out of the annual Hogwarts letter; he was standing in the distance with a curly-haired young woman, trying to kiss out near the large pond in the moonlight thinking that no one was watching them...

Harry broke off the connection as quickly as he could, and the two of them stood there quietly for a full minute. It was awkward. Harry knew exactly what was on Mrs. Weasley's mind, and mixed in with his shame at having entered her thoughts was a desire to do what he could to find Percy and slap some sense into him that his poor mother couldn't keep anything else on her mind but her most cherished son.

"Ah, well, very good Harry," the Weasley matriarch finally spoke. "You need to maintain an aggressive defense with your Occlumency skills, helps you maintain that edge you'll need in your...well, I shouldn't be thinking that..."

"Mrs. Weasley," Harry whispered. "I'm sorry."

"Oh, posh." With a wave of her wand, the kitchen table sitting between them rattled a bit as plates and serving trays move about. "Nothing to apologize over, dear. Besides, it's time for lunch. Take a break, go see if you can find Bill and warn him I'm serving cold cuts today."

Harry nodded and hurried out of the kitchen. He realized that Bill was no longer at the fireplace, he had probably gone upstairs to one of the bedrooms, so Harry hurried up the stairs. It was when he got to the second that he noticed how quiet it was in the Burrow. His previous visits were when the Weasley children were here, the ones he knew like Ron and Percy and the twins and Ginny, and even more so that summer of the World Cup when Bill and Charlie visited, there was activity here, a bustling, constant talking, things exploding in the twins' bedroom. And now, it was all quiet. Not even the ghoul in the attic made any of its customary banging and rattling. Harry stood for a moment and measured the silence, of what it must be like for a large family to have all its children growing up and going away...

He searched the halls and bedrooms. Ron was nowhere to be seen, most likely off in France still visiting with Hermione. Fred and George's bedroom had been completely emptied out. Percy's door was locked, even an Alohomora spell didn't open it. Ginny wasn't in her room, Harry wondering for a moment where she went to. Two extra doors opened into nothingness, possibly Bill and Charlie's old bedrooms long removed, which explained why they had to shift bed assignments during the World Cup get-together. There weren't any other places in the upper floors that looked like office space, so Harry went back downstairs and looked outside.

Harry found Bill under a large oak tree along a rock wall well past the pond that seemingly bordered the Burrow's property line. And Bill wasn't alone, there was a long-legged young woman with silken hair (so blonde it was nearly white) sitting with him, rather closely with him. Harry knew her instantly: Fleur Delacour. Bill's girlfriend. He was apparently teaching her proper English diction.

"The rains...in Spain...falls mainly...on the plains." Harry could hear the grin in Bill's voice.

"Why zhould I zay that, when I 'ave never been to Spahn?" Fleur giggled for some reason.

"Perhaps I should take you there, then, for the honeymoon. Barcelona can give you an incredible view of the Mediterranean..."

"Oh, Beell, 'ow romantic." Fleur moved closer to Bill, almost sitting atop his lap...

"Uh, guys?" Harry realized he was interrupting, but lunch was lunch. "Sorry if I'm interrupting..."

Fleur screeched and quickly hopped up from where she was sitting, which apparently was painful for Bill because he curled up and uttered "ouch" about twelve times before struggling to stand up on his own. "Well, actually," Bill groaned through gritted teeth, "you are interrupting..."

"Um, it's lunch time, your mom asked me to find you..."

"Ah, food." Bill stood a little straighter, giving Fleur a quick smile. "I hope you can stay and eat with the family, Fleur, maybe this time mum's got something you can enjoy noshing on."

"I zhoold 'ope zo, darling." She smiled at him and then at Harry. "'ello, excuze me, 'Hello, Harry,'" she struggled with getting the 'H' letter pronunciation. "I zee you 'ave, have grown a leettle zince I last saw you."

Harry smiled and nodded back. If Bill was trying to improve her language skills, it didn't seem to be working, even though the pair were rather pleased somehow. Still, he wasn't going to make any comments on it.

Harry followed the pair back to the Burrow, and he couldn't help but overhear the conversations the two kept as they walked. Some of it seemed rather embarrassingly personal, stuff he could never imagine saying to another, even with someone else nearby who could hear these things. Bill seemed to wax poetic at times, each of those moments followed by a girlish giggle out of Fleur. By the time they reached the door leading into the kitchen, Harry realized they were flirting, and shamelessly so.

Should of taken notes, Harry mused to himself, wondering if any of it would be any good whenever he when hooked up with a girlfriend. He paused, then shook his head. C'mon, he thought, it's just a date. Just friends, that's all.

Fleur seemed to enjoy the sandwiches that Mrs. Weasley put out for their lunch, although Harry vaguely remembered her and her fellow Beauxbatons students disrespectfully turning their noses up at Hogwarts food. He noticed, however, that her sandwich was mostly lettuce and carrot slices, which agreed apparently with Fleur's diet. Harry also noticed there were two additional plates set out for people who had yet to show up.

"Go ahead and eat, I've sent an owl over to let them know about lunch," Mrs. Weasley smiled at Harry. "This is informal, it's good to have a large gathering at the table again..."

Harry grabbed a section of the sandwich on his plate, nodding to Mrs. Weasley before biting down into the meal. It tasted pretty good, a standard good old fashioned lunchtime sandwich, with roast beef, a hint of mustard, some cranberry jam layered on top between lettuce strips, and he...

"Hello, Harry Potter."

Harry choked when he heard that dreamy voice behind him. With a downward cough, he cleared his pipes and glanced over his shoulder to look at Luna Lovegood.

Luna looked a tad off from last Friday. Something different. Her hair seemed a bit shinier and slightly straighter. Her smile had a brighter shade of red to it, not lipstick like what Aunt Petunia layers onto her lips for the Dursleys' outgoing functions, but still some emphasis had been added. Her clothes were more, well, normal, not as tattered or frayed like he had seen before. And her necklace of butterbeer caps was gone.

Her smile was warm, and for once she made direct eye contact with Harry. "I know that tastes good. Mrs. Weasley always made good sandwiches." Luna went and took a seat next to Fleur at the table, leaving the remaining chair between herself and Harry.

Ginny rushed into the last chair, beaming at Harry briefly before grinning wickedly at her mother. "Hey, Harry. Guess where I've been!"

"Um, seriously?" Harry was worried this was a trick question somehow.

Luna answered it for him. "She stayed over with me last night. What did you call it, Mrs. Weasley? A slumber party?"

"Not much of a party if it's just two, dear, not unless you invited more people over." Ginny's mother paused for a moment before glaring at the two girls. "You didn't invite more people over, did you?"

"No, mum," Ginny groused, grabbing a piece of her sandwich and chewing down rather excitedly. "Hmm was juff mhe nn Luna."

"Dad was there," Luna added, finishing her bite of food before talking. "He's still getting plans together for the Sweden expedition, and it's looking rather exciting."

"Oh, that sounds nice dear." Mrs. Weasley nodded in the direction of Fleur. "Luna, I'm not sure we've introduced you to Bill's friend here, she's..."

"I know her. Her school sat at the Ravenclaw table for the Triwizard competitions." Luna glared rather listlessly at the part-Veela girl. "You're Fleur Delacour, Beauxbatons champion."

Fleur smiled. "Ah, yes. I remember you."

"And I remember you. You laughed at my necklace," Luna noted, no anger or bitterness, merely stating a fact, which still had the effect of making the lunch table a very uncomfortable place to be at the moment.

"Ah, Harry," Mrs. Weasley spoke up, breaking the awkward moment, "so you and Luna have that...cinema to go to this Friday, still."

"Well, yeah." Harry's black hole returned to its regular spot in his stomach. He needed to read an anatomy book just so he could specifically map that spot and declare a quarantine around it. "I need to double check the hours it's showing, I think we..."

He glanced at Luna, who was looking directly at him again, with a odd smile he never noticed before, not as forced as he'd seen just a moment ago, and not really creeping him out like he thought it would. But it was a warm smile, almost reminding him of the smiles Cho gave him before...before... "Luna?"

"Yes, Harry?"

"We...we agreed on something around six, right?"

"Whenever you want to go, Harry," she smiled, and the smile was getting warmer and more comforting in Harry's eyes.

Harry blinked, then faced Mrs. Weasley. "I think around six. Is that alright?"

"I think that's fine, Harry," Bill interrupted, tapping the table with a hand. "Me and mum's talked about it, said your uncle insists on a chaperone, so if it's alright with you the plan right now is that Fleur and I join you for the movie."

Harry gave it some thought. As far as escorts go, Bill was ideal: certainly the coolest-looking of the Weasley boys, hanging out with him wasn't bad at all. He certainly wouldn't be as publicly embarrassing as Fred, who goofed off all the times Harry had seen him with Angelina, although now he thought about it he never really saw them that much at the Yule Ball. Having Ron along would be odd, unless he found someone as a date to join in. Going by himself would have been...sad. Harry was slightly surprised Mrs. Weasley wasn't lining up Ginny to bring along Dean on the double date, but he realized that would have made HIM the chaperone, and the Weasley matriarch did promise someone responsible would be an escort for Harry and Luna's date...

"I'm okay, Luna are you okay with that?" Harry glanced at her, noting the just-revealed uncomfortable history between Luna and Fleur.

She nodded calmly at Fleur, as though she had already forgotten what was said. "I am fine with it. Going as a group is fine. This is a very nice sandwich, Mrs. Weasley."

The rest of the afternoon was rather hectic. While Harry continued his Occlumency lessons, he noted the distractions going on throughout the rest of the Burrow. Especially now that Ginny and Luna had arrived. While Bill and Fleur were elsewhere in the house being calm and quiet, the two young girls were giggling far too much and hopping back at forth between the fireplace and front window, where an ever circling deployment of small rather fake-looking post owls had suddenly appeared.

"It's a new service, called O-mail," Ginny explained. It was all the rage, a brand new charm spell that transfigured toy owls into near-living facsimiles, which could then be used for swift, easily carried letter deliveries. The O-mail owls didn't just fly off, they Disapparated and Apparated just as soon as they received the letter or bound packet within their claws, something that real owls couldn't do. Luna and Ginny were testing the response time with their friends through the Floo Network, seeing if the letters got to the right place and how quickly it was done. Harry had noticed Dean's voice through the flames at one time, when Ginny's giggling was the loudest.

"Ginny, dear, stop wasting the owls!" Mrs. Weasley shouted at one point. "We have to pay for a certain number of them and it's expensive to order extras! And you're tying up the Floo line!"

Along with that, Harry felt increasingly uncomfortable during the Occlumens training, which had been improving earlier but was now slipping, especially every time Harry got the odd feeling that Luna was watching how he was doing.

At one point, he did catch her doing it, and unlike when they were walking about Guildford and the Friary, where she was mostly glancing at him from the corner of her eyes, Luna was now staring right at him. And again, it wasn't spooky or unsettling, but genuinely caring. It was uncomfortable, though, because he couldn't focus. Mrs. Weasley finally had to shoo both girls outside of the house.

After the training wrapped up for the day, Bill popped up and waved Harry out toward the Burrow's garage. "Okay, so, I've got to ask you how you want to do the cinema then."

"Well," Harry thought it over. "I was going to pay for the tickets for Luna and myself..."

"Good, the gentlemanly thing do, but Harry, how to get there? This is in Guildford, right?"

Harry scratched his head. "Well, we can't get there by broom, people will see us..."

"We could go by Floo Powder, but that gets too messy," Bill grinned, "and we ought to look nice on our dates, Harry. I know Fleur wouldn't want to get soot all over her..."

"Oh, yeah, about earlier," Harry looked embarrassed just bringing this up. "I kinda overheard you two at the tree, that you're getting married too?"

Bill sighed, genuinely sad. "Not now, not with the whole Percy situation. I'm worried if I go and propose to Fleur, it'll look like I was competing with him, trying to bump him from view from the folks. No, I have to wait now, but I'm doing what I can regarding Percy. I dunno, I think hitting him with a trout freshly fished out of the Thames ought to whack some sense into him..."

He waved at Fleur, who was coming out of the Burrow and walking towards them. She flashed Bill a familiar kind of smile, although...on her it looked different. Just before Fleur got close enough to hug Bill, he slapped himself in the forehead. "Of course!"

"Are you alright, Beell?" Fleur looked concerned as she wrapped her arms about her boyfriend.

"I've just remembered something," he grinned, keeping his eyes locked on the Weasley's garage. "But from...I'd have to see how quickly they can catch it...Harry, Hagrid's still the Groundskeeper at Hogwarts, right?"

"Well, yeah."

"Hang on. GINNY!" Bill's little sister poked her head around the corner of the house. "I need one of those O-mail owls now!"

Ginny shrugged, picked one of the toy owl figures floating about her head and with a good flick of her finger tapped it in her brother's direction. It zipped across the field so swiftly that a miniature sonic boom popped across the open area.

Muttering something quickly, a small note and a quill appeared in Bill's hands. He scribbled a message, folded it, placed a large 'To: Hagrid @ hogwarts.uk.edu' on the front, and shoved it into the waiting claws of the O-mail owl. With a BANG it poofed into thin air.

"Let it be a surprise," Bill grinned, both to a perplexed Harry and Fleur. With a large laugh, he scooped up Fleur into his long, powerful arms, and with her laughing uncontrollably he carried her back toward the other side of the large pond, to the large oak tree.

Harry watched them hurry into the distance. "Is everything okay, Harry?"

Harry was getting used to Luna sneaking up on him like that. "Luna, could I ask you something?"

He turned to look at her, and she was again staring back at him, still smiling. "What's the question, Harry?"

"Why did you change?"

She blushed, which seemed odd for her. "What do you mean?"

"I mean the clothes, the hair, you're not wearing your favorite necklace..."

"What makes you think it's my favorite necklace?" Her blush had turned darker.

"Because you always wear it."

Luna's gaze turned away, back to her old habit of avoiding eye contact. "Maybe it was because Ginny warned me Fleur would be at lunch. I knew that she didn't like the idea of butterbeer caps as jewelry."

"So who cares what she thinks?" Harry leaned over a bit, trying to re-establish eye contact with her. "I thought you didn't care about how other people thought about you."

She sighed.

"Well, at least I don't mind. That butterbeer necklace, it's you. And it looks nice on you."

Luna smiled, a giggle almost escaped from her lips but she kept it in. She flashed a quick glance at Harry, then glanced away. "Thank you."

"You're welcome." Harry glanced back at the Burrow, watching Ginny disappear quickly behind her corner of the house while Mrs. Weasley grinned and waved excitedly at the pair of teenagers. "Well, anyway, about the film. I think Bill's figuring out how to get us there."

"That's nice."

Mrs. Weasley kept waving at them. "I think I have to get going," Harry whispered.

"That's nice."

Harry gave Luna a look, who suddenly realized she had said something rather odd, even for her. "Oh, I mean, well I suppose I will see you tomorrow then?"

"Yeah, tomorrow." Harry stood there, wondering if he should do something here. Maybe reach out for a handshake, or perhaps a quick hug, or...

Luna stepped back slightly. "I need to go home as well. Perhaps I should send you an O-mail owl tonight?"

"Ah, no." Harry felt bad. Really bad, for some reason. "My uncle's about one owl away from getting a rifle and a hunting license. Perhaps...I'll see you tomorrow."

"Tomorrow then."

"Yeah, tomorrow."

For people who had to be getting somewhere, both Luna and Harry were having a hard time walking away. Finally, Harry took one step backward, then two, then Luna turned and walked down the road, presumably towards her father's house, then Harry took a few more steps towards the Burrow, both of them turning to face each other whenever they paused in their steps. Finally, Luna turned completely around and walked over a nearby hill, disappearing from Harry's view.

Ginny somehow had gone inside the Burrow and was waiting for Harry when he stepped inside. "Honestly!"

"What?" Harry lifted both hands in a defensive gesture. "What was I supposed to do? What?"

"Boys!" Ginny got her eye-roll in for the day.

"Virginia!" Mrs. Weasley poked her head from the kitchen. "Give it time!"

Harry kept shrugging. "Give what time?"

Ginny's mother arched an eyebrow. "Ah, well, Harry dear, like I said." She glanced at the clock showing the whereabouts of her family, spotting her husband Arthur's clock-hand moving from 'Work' to 'Local Pub'. "Oh, dear. Let's hurry you home, Harry, I've got another clueless boy to take care of..."

Chapter Eight: Manuals