Neville sat in Luna's front yard helping her peel gurdy roots from the branches of the bush in front of them, in the house he could hear Luna's father and his Grandmother talking about the finer points of transfiguration and how it cold be used in tracking. Beside him Luna hummed gently under her breath, when he had asked why she had simply stated that she was trying to get herself in tune with the Wrackspurt and he shouldn't worry himself over it. He found it quite relaxing to spend so much time with the Lovegood's, His Grandmother was a lot less aggressive when she had been around Luna's father and the Lovegood's off beat house was slowly becoming more and more like home.

Neville's thoughts however were not on the mundane but useful jobs that he and Luna were currently busy undertaking. They were across the hill to the north and with Ron and Hermione who were stupid enough to still not have told their families or anyone else about the fact that the two of them had finally done what they all knew was destined to happen anyway.

Neville had sat on this bit of knowledge for far to long, a week had passed already and still the two of them had not told a sole.

"Luna, Neville time to eat." Called the voice from the doorway.

"Coming Daddy." Said Luna, she reached down and helped Neville to his feet. "Come on, you need to stop thinking so much, maybe you should try and hum."

Neville left his hand in hers as they walked towards the house.


"What is that toad doing in my yard." Said Ginny staring at the figure that stood by the large pile of wellington boots by the door.

"I should go." The blond head turned to leave but Harry reached out and placed a hand on his shoulder.

"Ignore her, she's just a little hot headed." He said to Draco as he turned back around. Draco's eyes scanned the yard and the house. It was as if he was drinking in the family home of the Weasley's as if he had never seen a real family home before. Harry thought that looking at his family that was probably the truth.

"No Harry, I just don't like known Death Eaters on my front doorstep, Just because he saved you don't make him a good person."

"I'm sorry you feel that way Ginny, but Draco needs to see Tonks and Bill."

Ginny refused point blank to move from the doorway. Harry looked her in the eye and she could see the look of mistrust in there.

"No, He's a Death Eater, you let one in they all come calling there like vampires."

"It's ok." Said a very small voice behind Harry. "I can talk to them outside, if Ginny doesn't want me in her house I must respect that." He retreated away from the house and headed towards the picnic bench that had become a solid piece of the yard in the long hot summer that had caught them up.

"What you being like that for?" Harry said walking past Ginny and in to the house.

"Being like what?"

"He has no one." Said Harry trying to explain to her with just a look that he knew how that felt, to feel alone and scared.

"And if you recall I said that my family would always welcome him, I just…"

The two of them looked at each other, yes Draco Malfoy wasn't top of the list of people that they would ever have thought they would befriend, but he was reaching out to them when he had no one else to turn to. Plus he saved my life and my best friend's life not once but twice.

"He deserves a chance, everyone deserves at least that." Harry said before retreating and going to fetch Tonks and Bill.


The warm air lay heavy as they all walked down to the tiny tavern in the village of Ottery St Catchpole. Ron and Hermione talked in hushed tones, Ron now only using one crutch was able to walk with a arm wrapped around her his fingers resting on the bare skin at the bottom of her back the way they had done so many times before. A little way ahead, Tonks walked with her now almost comical waddle that she had developed in the last few weeks. Charlie and Bill walked either side of the blond that was now a member of their motley crew. " It doesn't taste great, but it works…" said Bill shaking his overly long hair out of his face.

"Remus used to say it tasted of old socks." Said Tonks.

Ron cast a side ways glance at Hermione who smiled and kissed him on the cheek.

"The aroma of old socks will always make me think of you." She said as her eyes traced the scar that ran along the freckles on his face.

"At least you didn't have to drink it."

" No just kiss it." The two of them both laughed, the sound carried in the dip between the hills.

Harry glanced over his shoulder at the two of them, and Ron found himself wishing that Harry wouldn't look at the two of them like that. It made him feel like he was under a microscope.

Ginny led the group in to the village where the tiny cross roads made the social point for miles around. A shop, a post office, a old blacksmith with some of the older wizards from the village sitting around outside smoking pipes, and the village pub, The Drunken Mule. Here sat Luna and Neville who waved from the beer garden as the small group approached.

Hermione and Ron fell back a little as the others found their places on the wooded benches.

"I'll get the drinks then?" said Ron rolling his eyes.

"Well I can't yet can I?" said Harry. He looked around the table and no one else seamed to be very interested in offering to go to the bar in his wake, shaking his head he let Hermione lead the way.


Harry watched as Neville's eyes traced the path that Ron and Hermione walked to the bar.

"Neville want's to tell us something." Said Luna in her dream like voice.

Neville averted his eyes from the pub door, to Luna.

"What is it?" Ginny asked looking to Neville for an answer.

Neville's eyes widened. But Luna answered, "It's the stupid Gryffindor pride, he has something that he's promised not to tell."

Harry looked at Neville who had resumed looking at the door.

"Neville were all Gryffindor's…(he ignored the 'not likely' from Malfoy and the two disgruntled coughs from the two Ravenclaws at the table.) …You can tell us."

"Well he needs to tell someone because I'm afraid he's going to burst." Said Luna hooking the paper umbrella from the glass in front of her and placing it in her hair.

Neville looked from the door to the table all eyes were on him, he looked nervous and mouthed something that no one could make out.

"What?" Said Ginny looking at him blankly.

Neville shot a glance at the door, before miming a long line down his face.

"Ron?" Asked Harry. Neville nodded.

"Oh charades, I like them." Said Luna smiling at the table.

"Ron what?" asked Ginny sounding worried.

Neville's eyes scanned the table looking for some way to communicate what he wanted to say, diving forward he grabbed Bills hand and pointed to the gold band that lay there.

"Ring?" Said Ginny looking blank again.

However Harry looked Neville straight in the eyes. "When?" Neville pointed at the three Weasley's and at Tonks. Then pretend to fake crying.

"I can't believe they didn't tell me." Said Harry looking at Neville.

"Tell you what?" Said Ginny, looking at Harry for an answer.

However it was Bill that answered.

"Ron and Hermione are getting married."

"What!" exclaimed Tonks and Ginny.

Neville nodded in agreement relaxing in his seat now that he had finally let it off his chest.

"Apparently he asked her the day we buried dad, he had dad's blessing, he's just been waiting for the right moment to tell us."

"Any moment would be the right moment." Said Ginny shaking her head at her brother's stupidity.

Neville leant over to Luna.

"Neville says there planing on doing it in secret."

"Over my dead body." Said Ginny, " Or possibly over there own."


Ron had never walked in on people who had so obviously just been talking about him a second before.

Neville was peering in to his empty glass, Luna picked at the moss on the bricks at the side of the inn and the others looked pointedly away from the two people coming from the doorway.

"Don't try not to look shifty or anything." Said Hermione shoving Ginny up the bench and making room for him and her. She passed the drinks around the table.

"Don't stop talking about us on our account."

"We weren't actually we were talking about the Snorlack horn that daddy had on order from Romania, Charlie was just saying how rare that must be." Ron looked at Hermione who had automatically bit down the retort that had formed on Luna's random ramblings. He shrugged the thought that his friends and family had been talking behind his back out of his mind, one of Luna's theories could cause the same awkward silence that he had walked in to at a drop of a hat.


But to Ron's dismay as the week drew to a close the awkward silences seamed to build, and It wasn't only him that noticed it, Hermione had as well and it was upsetting her more by the day. His family would go silent, Fred and George would leave or else disappear behind sheets of parchment. Tonks and Charlie always seamed to be disappearing off to Diagon Ally or ' on a little errand' for Mrs Weasley. Even Little Tyler was avoiding them.

The two of them had taken one of their late night ramblings up to the orchard. It had become a tradition now since Ron was out of his wheel chair. He couldn't help but think at how things had changed as Hermione helped him over the sty at the bottom of the track. The night that they had first kissed ran through his mind, how far they had come, why had it taken so long for him to realise that she was all he had ever wanted.

As they lay in the long grass gazing up at the stars, he felt Hermione seek out his hand.

"What have we done wrong?" she said in a hushed voice, Ron knew that she was on the verge of tears.

"I don't know Hermione, but it's their problem not ours."

It was the coldness that Harry seamed to be showing towards them that tormented Ron the most. They were outside their comfort zone, there had always just been the three of them and then later four, but now they were two separate couples.

Harry seemed to spend more and more time at the Lovegood's with Neville and Luna, it felt like an age since they had done something when there was just the two of them, Ron and Harry against the world.

"We should leave." Said Hermione eventually.

"What it's only early yet."

"No silly, I mean me and you we could go live somewhere else, get jobs, get married start a life with just the two of us."

Ron squeezed her hand gently. "I wish we could but I promised my Dad that I would look after them all I can't just walk away from-" he was cut short as Hermione pulled herself on top of him and kissed him hard silencing him as he drew her in.

"What was that for?" he asked when they finally broke free.

" You, in this place, talking like that…it's all the reasons I love you."

He closed his eyes as her hair ran across his cheek.

"You know there might be something in the just running off to get married." He said quietly.

"Yeah, I was thinking that myself."

Ron opened his eyes and looked at her, she was serious.

"Really?"

"But we would need witnesses, even if it was a Muggle wedding." She said pulling herself in to her favourite position with her knees either side of his chest.

"Then we need to tell Harry and Ginny then." Said Ron resting his hands on the bare skin below her knees.

"I want Neville there to, its only fair." Said Hermione. Ron nodded slightly.

The two of them sat listening to the silence around them, the world felt so calm, Ron wondered if it could have ever got like this if Riddle was still alive.

"We do it tomorrow." Said Ron eventually. Hermione squeezed her hand over his.

"We can't it's Harry's birthday…"

" Then we do it the day after…I can't wait anymore Hermione, I don't want anything else to come between –" he stopped talking. He held up a finger to Hermione who hadn't heard the breaking of twigs. He pulled her down on top of him and listened.

"I don't know, is there enough room?" Fred's voice carried somehow on the stagnant air.

"It should be." Said the Voice of Ginny not too far from where the two of them lay hidden by the long grass.

"We could lay it there." Said the voice of Charlie's voice indicating some unknown spot.

"You can't that's a holly bush its infested with Glumbusters , there incredibly bad luck."

Hermione mouthed ' What's a Glumbuster.' At Ron who was trying not to laugh. He relished these stolen moments together.

"Well there coming at six." Said the voice of Tonks, as the invisible group became quieter. They had begun the descent to the house. Ron and Hermione moved to look at the party that moved below the star strewn sky.

"Nice of them to ask us if we wanted to help organise Harry's birthday." Ron said glumly.

"They probably think you have enough to be getting on with." Said Hermione watching as Charlie helped Tonks over the sty.

"Doing what? How am I supposed to look out for them if they won't even talk to me."

Hermione pulled him over to her.

"The day after tomorrow." She said kissing him again.

"The day after tomorrow?" he asked her as Hermione pulled him down towards her.

"Yes, no question. Then you can look out for me because I'll be a Weasley to."