A/N: For those of you who asked about the dinner with Ginny's brothers and Harry ... I skipped that part. But you can read a bit about it in "Three to Go," which is chapter fifteen of One Big Happy Weasley Family.
The following morning, Ron lay sprawled on the stairs outside Ginny's room. She scowled when she saw him waiting for her.
"What do you want?" she asked, stepping over him and continuing up the stairs with a basket of clean laundry on one hip.
He stood and followed her. "How was your date?"
"None of your business."
"It is, actually."
She set the basket down on their parents' bed with a sigh. "Just because Harry's your best friend doesn't mean you can poke your over-long nose into our relationship."
Ron grabbed her wrist as she turned to put a handful of Dad's socks away. "I'm not asking about Harry. I'm asking about my little sister." He didn't play the big brother card very often—not with Ginny herself, at least—and she softened.
"I had a wonderful time."
"Yeah? Where did you go?"
"He took me to see a film. Ever After: A Cinderella Story."
"I know that! It's a Muggle fairy tale, right?"
"Mm-hmm." She turned her back to him again, carrying another stack of clothes to the chest. "Then we went to the hotel and had dinner."
Sure they did.
"You didn't know he was planning to stay the night, did you?"
Her plait swung across her back as she shook her head, still fiddling with the contents of a drawer.
"But … you were okay with it? I mean, it was your decision too?" Ginny was not easily swayed, but if anyone were able to talk her into something, it would be Harry.
"Harry was perfectly lovely," she assured him, finally closing the drawer and sitting down on the bed beside him. "I'm sorry about worrying Mum and waking everyone up and everything."
"That's going to become family legend, I think," Ron said, bumping her shoulder.
Ginny smiled beatifically. "That's okay."
Ron studied her. "You really love him, don't you?"
"I do. So much that it scares me sometimes."
He sighed, picturing brown curls and brown eyes and a slow, sweet smile. "I know just what you mean." All too well.
()()()()
Hermione, Ron, and Harry sat on the floor in Ron's room. Hermione had come to the Burrow ahead of Ginny and Percy's joint birthday party so the three of them could discuss their upcoming meeting with Gawain Robards, Head of the Aurors, on Monday morning.
"Where do we even start?" Ron asked.
"With the Horcruxes," Harry said. "The diary I destroyed in the Chamber of Secrets, Marvolo Gaunt's ring that Dumbledore destroyed two years ago, Slytherin's locket, Hufflepuff's cup, Ravenclaw's diadem, and Nagini."
Hermione scribbled all of these down in order.
"Saying we were hunting Horcruxes explains why Ron and I weren't at Hogwarts last year, the locket explains why we broke into the Ministry, the cup explains Gringotts, and—"
"The diadem explains why we showed up at Hogwarts when we did," Ron said.
"Exactly."
Hermione added no Hogwarts, Ministry, Gringotts, and Hogwarts beside their respective events.
"That's—actually very simple," she said, staring at her notes. "Except … what about Xenophilius Lovegood?"
Harry winced. The destruction of Luna's home was still a sore spot for him.
"We could always just say Lovegood is crazy," Ron said. "It's true enough, and I bet they would believe us if we said he made it up, that Harry wasn't really there."
"I hate to do that," Harry said slowly, "but otherwise we have to get into the Hallows, and I really don't want to do that."
Hermione tapped her quill against her mouth. "The Invisibility Cloak, the Resurrection Stone, and the Elder Wand," she mused. "Mmm, the Elder Wand is really the only one that gives us a problem."
"I dunno, I'm not wild about the Auror Department knowing I have the actual Invisibility Cloak."
She shook her head. "No, I don't mean that—I mean your fight with Voldemort. The Elder Wand came to you because you were its true master, because you wrestled Draco's wand away from him and he earned its loyalty when he disarmed Dumbledore on the Astronomy Tower. It's the only Hallow we actually need to explain."
"No, we don't," Ron said. "We say Harry used Expelliarmus to disarm Voldemort and that's that. No Elder Wand, no Hallows."
"Expelliarmus against a Killing Curse?" Hermione was doubtful.
"It worked, didn't it? Everyone who was there knows that's the spell Harry cast. No one is going to argue because it is what happened."
She looked at Harry, who nodded.
"We can't talk about one Hallow without talking about all of them, and I do not want a bunch of people flooding the Forbidden Forest looking for the Stone or desecrating Dumbledore's tomb to get the Wand," Harry said firmly. "And I'm not giving up Dad's Cloak."
Hermione wrote down Expelliarmus and underlined it. "Okay. What about … what about Malfoy Manor?"
"They must know we were captured and where we were taken," Harry said. "Scabior notified the Ministry, remember?"
Hermione remembered little of that night other than the crushing terror and inescapable pain.
"So … you don't think we'll have to talk about it?"
"You won't," Harry promised. "I'll explain it was Bellatrix's panic that someone had been in her vault that tipped us off about a Horcrux being hidden there."
"Tipped you off," Hermione reminded him.
Harry waved this detail away, and she smiled at the characteristic modesty.
"What about Snape and the silver doe?" Ron said.
Harry nodded. "I want everyone to know Snape was on our side, that Dumbledore was right about him all along."
Hermione added Snape—sword of Gryffindor to her notes and drew an arrow placing it between locket and cup.
"What do you want to say about the Forest?" Ron asked. "You know they're going to ask how you survived."
He sighed. "Hermione?"
She'd already thought of this. "Magic," she said simply.
The boys stared at her.
"The sacrifice your mum made when you were a baby gave you magical protection," she explained. "It's sort of true—it's how you survived the first time—and a lot less complicated than explaining you were a Horcrux. If that ever gets out…."
Harry ran a hand through his unruly hair. "Ginny still doesn't know that, by the way."
"Have you told her we're going to the Ministry on Monday?"
"Not yet," he muttered.
"Harry!"
He leaned back against his camp bed, staring at the ceiling. "I know, it's just—she feels left out when it's just the three of us, and we argued about it last night, and—I just didn't want to upset her any more."
"So … what does she think we're doing now?" Ron said.
Harry looked guilty. "She doesn't know you're here," he said to Hermione.
She huffed. "That's why you asked me to Apparate directly to Ron's room."
"Yeah."
"And I suppose I'm to Apparate back outside and appear at the garden gate as if I came from halfway across the country?"
"Please?"
Hermione set down her quill. "Well, I've done worse things than that for you, Harry Potter."
()()()()
Percy glanced round the Burrow's rapidly-filling garden. It was the beginning minutes of his and Ginny's joint birthday party, and while guests continued to arrive, there was one Weasley still missing.
He left his older brothers sitting on the fence and approached Lee Jordan, who was chatting with Ron, Hermione, and Harry as he queued albums to play on his magically modified phonograph.
"Hey, Perce," Ron said.
"Have any of you heard from George?" Percy said, looking at Lee.
They all shook their heads.
"I offered to help him close the shop so he could be here on time, maybe help your mum, but he refused," Lee said.
"She's worried," Percy said bluntly.
Ron leaned around him for a better view of their mother where she stood between the food and drinks tables, directing traffic as guests arrived with dishes and bottles to share.
"Should we go after him?" Ron asked.
"I thought maybe you could take some friends with you?" Percy said.
Lee nodded. "I've got this set to play for a while," he said. "I'll find Angelina."
"Go," Hermione said, giving Ron a quick kiss. "I'll see you when you get back."
()()()()
Ron, Harry, Lee Jordan, and Alicia Spinnet stood back as Angelina Johnson banged on the service door of Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes.
"Open up, George, we know you're in there!"
She was pounding for the third time when the door opened abruptly and she nearly fell through.
"Been walking long?" George drawled.
"Shut up, prat," she said, straightening to her full height, which equaled his. "Did you forget what day it is?"
"Unfortunately, it's not the day my so-called friends do as I ask and leave me alone."
Lee threw his weight against the door before George could close it. "Your family's expecting you at the Burrow, man."
"My family expects a lot of things. They're destined to be disappointed."
"Percy is asking about you," Alicia said.
"Bill and Charlie too," Ron added quickly, having seen his three oldest brothers together before Percy came over.
"Free Firewhiskey!" Lee said. "And I've seen the puddings. You don't want to miss those."
"Gin-Gin will be disappointed if you don't show," Ron said, using their pet name for her to emphasize his point of brotherly duty, however onerous.
"Gin-Gin needs to come up with better titles if she wants people to show up," George retorted.
All right, Ron could see his point there; the Weasleys' We Have Plenty To Celebrate Party didn't exactly trip off the tongue, even if it was an improvement on Percy's suggestion of End of Summer/Ginny's Birthday/Ginny's Captaincy/Percy's Birthday/We Actually Won and Harry Lived.
"It's her birthday," Harry said.
"It is not, and I was there for her birthday, thank you very much."
"It's a birthday party, George," Angelina said. "For two of your siblings. At least you still have enough family to throw one."
Ron heard Alicia suck in her breath; Angelina's parents and older sister had been killed in the war.
The guilt trip worked. Scowling, George allowed himself to be dragged off to the nearest Apparition point.
()()()()
Hermione took another sip of her Butterbeer and tried to look like she was having a good time. Ron and Harry had gone with several of George's friends to fetch him from the shop, and while she knew almost everyone here, she'd never been very good at parties, and definitely not without the boys. Glancing round for someone she knew who was also standing alone, and trying not to think of this as portent of things to come at Hogwarts this year, Hermione finally spotted Ginny coming her way with two of the girls in her year.
May her read head live long and prosper; she shoved a tin of biscuits at her even before Hermione had a chance to say hello.
"Biscuit?"
"Thanks. Hi, Libby." Hermione took one and smiled at the other sixth—no, seventh-year Gryffindor.
"How's your summer been?"
"Good, thanks."
"You know Siân, don't you?" Ginny said, indicating the second dark-haired girl beside her whom Hermione knew she should know, but couldn't quite place.
And then it clicked. Siân Jernigan, Ravenclaw and top of Ginny's year.
Now her year.
"Congratulations on Head Girl." The name had been listed in her prefect letter, along with the Head Boy and other prefects.
"Thanks. Ginny said Harry and Ron aren't coming back to school this year."
Hermione shook her head, wondering if it would be too presumptuous to reach for another biscuit. "Auror training," she said.
"Have you heard about anyone else?"
"No," Hermione said. "I assume Dean Thomas will be there, since he missed the whole year like I did, but I don't know."
"What will they do about the dormitories, do you think?" Libby asked as they began walking.
"What do you mean?" Ginny said.
"Well, they'll need what was the seventh-year dormitory for the first-years, right? So … I bet that means you'll be rooming with us!" Libby gave Hermione a big smile.
"Oh, I—I suppose so." She hadn't thought of that. She wasn't overly fond of Parvati and Lavender, and their instant friendship had left Hermione somewhat on the outside from the beginning, but they had lived together for six years. Six years of swapping notes, and sharing sweets, and telling nighttime ghost stories (Parvati knew the best). Not to mention Hermione's bed was charmed just the way she liked it, and on a clear night she could roll onto her left side and see the moonlight gilding the trees of the Forbidden Forest.
"Cheer up," Ginny said. "You know the magic in the castle makes room for as many people as needed."
Hermione nodded, then reached for the container in Ginny's hand. This was worth a second biscuit.