Author's Note: Gosh, even though this a crap chapter, I'm just happy my computer would let me publish it! Thank god! So this one is kind of short, and I do apologize for that and the long wait. I know that this wasn't as awesome as you were expecting because I made you wait so long. But again, I hope you don't hate me, it's just that summer is almost over and I need to set my affairs in order. Haha.
Anyway, this year George and Angelina have moved to a beautiful house and the wives of Aurors Ron and Harry have disappeared.
Plus, what is going on with Teddy and Victoire? (Not that that's new, there is always something going on with those two!).
Disclaimer: Let's all bow down to Joanne Rowling because none of this would be in existence without her!
Ron had decided that today was a good day to have some bonding time with his best mate. Hermione had disappeared before he woke up, leaving a note. Ron flooed to Harry's place at Godric's Hollow to find him alone as well.
Harry was still in his pajamas enjoying coffee and toast when Ron arrived in his living room.
"Hey mate!" Ron called, to announce his present.
"Hey," Harry said noncommittally while scanning the Daily Prophet. When he was satisfied with his daily dose of news, he looked up, expecting to see Ron and Hermione, he frowned when he saw just the former. "Where's Hermione?" asked Harry with a quizzical look through sips of coffee.
Ron flicked his wand at the coffee machine, which started bubbling again, and he made himself a mug of coffee before answering. "I don't know," he said nonchalantly while sitting down. "She left me a note saying something about 'needing a break'." He rubbed his eyes.
Harry looked up at him quickly, "Really?" he said slightly incredulously, "Do you think she's with Ginny? Because she said the same thing."
Ron shrugged, "I don't know."
There was silence for a moment while Ron took his turn with Harry's newspaper and Harry finished his toast. "So what are you doing today?" Ron asked, lazily tossing the paper back on the table.
Harry scratched his temple in thought. "Well, I have to go to Hogwarts to get Teddy and Victoire. Then I was just going to go to the Burrow. You?"
"Well Biggins called me in, but I don't think I'm going to go." Ron said, as though he often didn't turn up to work when his boss told him too. Harry chuckled so Ron justified himself, "Well he knows that today is a big deal for our family yet that git still told me to go to bloody work."
"You could always quit, Ron." Harry joked. Ron rolled his eyes at him. "Do you wanna come with me to Hogwarts to get Ted and Vic?"
Ron shrugged again. "Eh, well I have nothing better to do."
"Uh, Hermione? What is this place?" Ginny asked disgustedly when they walked into a shop.
"It's called a spa, Ginny. Muggle women come here to relax, and I find it to be quite relaxing myself." Hermione said matter-of-factly.
"Was this your 'surprise'?" Ginny asked disbelievingly.
Hermione shot her a look to match an Unforgiveable curse and said, "Yes. Trust me, you will love it."
Ginny sighed and rolled her eyes. "Fine, I trust you," she mumbled.
"Oh don't give me that," Hermione continued sternly, "Are you telling me you would rather be hanging out at your parents house with our annoying husbands?"
A look of mingled fear stretched itself across Ginny's face and she shook her head frantically. Hermione gave her an I-told-you-so look, grabbed her arm, and pulled her toward the counter.
It was late afternoon when Harry and Ron arrived at the Burrow that day, yet their wives were still nowhere to be seen. The two men had spent the rest of the morning playing a scrimmage match of Quidditch, and spent most of the early afternoon pigging out in Muggle restaurants and flooing into work to tell Biggins that Ron could, in fact, not skip out on the day's festivities, as it was too important to their family. When they finally stopped procrastinating long enough to fulfill their one task of the day, it was pretty late. They flooed into Percy's office to an odd sight. Teddy and Victoire were sitting next to each other on a couch. Next to each other, but as far away from each other as it was possible to be on a two seated sofa. They both had their arms crossed and their lips pursed. When Harry spotted them, he stopped short and cocked his head. Ron, however, being as tactless as his younger self, addressed the problem immediately. "Who died?" he asked jokingly to the two kids. Teddy fidgeted a little at this and dropped his head, while Victoire looked straight ahead and didn't move. Harry turned to his best friend and whispered, "Leave it." Ron nodded. Harry did, of course, want to know what the problem was, but he wasn't going to risk embarrassing both of them by asking while Victoire was in the same room.
After arriving at the Burrow and a good long twenty minute search for their wives (with no success) was over, Harry finally had his chance to talk with his godson. While Teddy was in the kitchen exclaiming about all of the wonderful things at Hogwarts to an eight year old, excited James, Harry pulled him aside and into the living room. "What's going on with you and Victoire?" He asked bluntly.
"I don't know what you mean," Teddy said, avoiding eye contact with his godfather. Harry gave him a don't-act-dumb look and Teddy rolled his eyes then sighed. "There's nothing going on. We're not friends anymore, that's all."
Harry had expected a "we're in a fight" or "she's mad at me", but he was not expecting that the two inseparable best friends had decided that it would be best if they weren't inseparable, it was impossible to imagine in Harry's mind. Harry furrowed his eyebrows and asked him why the two had decided to break off their friendship.
"Well she didn't decide, I did." He started defensively, "I mean, she's a first year and I'm a third year. That's not how it works. Being friends with her just makes me look like a loser."
Harry's mouth dropped open. He couldn't believe his ears. "And when have you ever cared what other people think?" he asked, slightly annoyed. Teddy did not have an answer to give. "Do you want to be friends with her?" Teddy looked away, thought for a few seconds, and nodded reproachfully. "See, Victoire?" Harry said to the room, "He does want to be your friend."
Suddenly, Victoire entered the room, with her mouth open. "How did you know I was listening?" She asked, amazed.
Harry just looked at her.
It had been exactly ten months, twelve days, and approximately seven hours since George and Angelina moved into their new house, and neither of them had missed their tiny flat since day one.
It had happened like this: George and Angelina got into a huge row at about this time the year before, and in the midst of it, George had decided that their small apartment that was attached to the first branch of Weasley Wizard Wheezes was just not big enough to contain their family, especially with Roxanne on the way.
The process had only taken them forty-five short days to transition from small London flat to beautiful mountain cottage in the outskirts of London.
Their house was magnificent. George had let Angelina do all the work on finding it, and she did not let him down. It was cozy, but not too small, and roomy, but not too spacious. It was relatively old, so it had a very old-fashioned styled, and the closest neighbors they had lived across the lake in the front yard. If you looked out the front (or back) windows, you would see beautiful mountain tops and a beautiful lake. Even though George was always more of the city type, he fell in love with this place almost as quickly as he had fallen in love with his wife. It was the perfect place to raise a family, and the joke shop was easily accessible via Apparition.
To top it all off, the couple had loosened the nooses on each other's throats right before the move took place. You could rarely catch them in a legitimate argument anymore, and that's the way they liked it. It was as if their two bursting personalities just could not be confined into the small flat they once called home. Their mountain cottage just screamed George and Angelina.
The two had left pretty early that day, Angelina with Fred and Roxanne on either hip, Roxanne being about nine months old and Fred almost two. The easiest way for the family to travel would have been by floo powder, since Apparition would be too hard on the young children. When they arrived at the Burrow, is was the same situation as usual: the only ones that had not showed up yet were Ron, Harry, Hermione, Ginny, Percy, and Audrey.
Angelina and George dumped Fred and Roxanne with Mrs. Weasley and their many nieces and nephews, and the two trudged up the hill to what they liked to call "their spot" (however, most of the Weasleys call it "their spot" as well), and sat down, backs against the tree, holding hands.
"I don't think I will ever like any place more than the Burrow," Angelina confessed, "not even our house. Are you disappointed in me?" she added, half-jokingly.
George laughed. "Of course not! The Burrow is my favorite place, too."
The two were in silence as they both stared at the raggedy old house George used to call home. He always found it odd that he grew up to live the exact opposite life that his parents had. It was a empty feeling and at the same time a feeling of accomplishment that his kids will never have to wear hand-me-downs.
"Okay, you win, Hermione. You are absolutely right. That was the best experience I have ever had!" Ginny exclaimed as her best friend stepped out of the fireplace of Ginny's childhood home.
Hermione smiled in triumph. "What did I tell you?" she said, clearly trying to hold in the "I told you so". "Now what was your favorite? Mine was probably the mud bath. Who knew that sitting in a tub of mud could be so relaxing?"
The two girls giggled as they walked into the backyard, greeting their husbands.
As expected, the two aforementioned husbands were in the air, playing probably their twelfth game of Quidditch that day. But when they spotted their wives, they immediately flew down and kissed them on the cheek. "Where have you been?!" Ron questioned quickly, "I thought you were pissed at me or something."
Hermione rolled her eyes and said, "No, we were just at the spa. It – doesn't matter," she added to their questioning looks, however, she could not find a proper way to describe what exactly a spa was, so she just let their question hang in the air.
"Oh, well," said Harry as he flicked his wand which made his Firebolt disappear. He did the same with Ron's and continued, "You two nearly missed dinner, though."
Ginny's eyes widened. "Oh no, nobody in this family is slow enough to miss dinner after what happened last year." The other three nodded in agreement.
Dinner that night was a quiet one. Like Ginny predicted, nobody in their family was brave enough to chance missing their dinner after what happened the year before. However, one change did occur: the adults agreed that since Teddy was now fourteen years old, he should probably get to sit at the adults table. This, of course, caused a fuss from Victoire, James, and even a little bit of a tantrum from six year olds Albus and Rose. Dinner actually had to be served almost a full hour later due to the parents of each kid having to calm them down and assure them that soon enough they would be sitting at the adult's table soon.
Ironically, the matter was settled due to the fact that Teddy didn't even want to sit at the adult's table, he did have a year of catching up to do with his best friend, and he couldn't likely do it sitting at a different table.
Author's Note: Again, I apologize for the length and the wait, but I had a major writer's block with this one. Cross your fingers that I get over it in the next one! But you know what would help? Reviews! ;) So please please please review, babes!