Harry was returning from his extended British holiday on New Year's Eve, and intended on spending the evening with us. Ron and I had waffled between a quiet night in or going out to one of the many parties in town, but in the end Ron had decided he wanted a "complete New York experience," whatever he meant by that, and so we were headed to a wizarding bar uptown after dinner.

The knock on my door was not unexpected, as Harry was due to meet us at my flat before we all went out together, but the surprise was Ginny standing in the hall with him, looking quite as if she had raided a Muggle souvenir stand on the way over: she was wearing a glittering pair of glasses in the shape of the new year, her brown eyes blinking out of the zeroes in the middle, and a large paper party hat, and she was blowing loudly into a noisemaker as she entered my flat with a flourish. Harry followed, grinning sheepishly. "She wouldn't let me leave London without her."

"As if you lot know how to have fun without me, anyhow," she retorted as she hugged me and then Ron in greeting. "Shall we tell them?"

I immediately looked down at Ginny's left hand, finding it still devoid of an engagement ring. I supposed it could've been in her pocket pending an official announcement, but Ron was looking at Harry with a similar confusion, and I couldn't imagine Harry not telling Ron before he proposed. I was also assuming that I would be consulted on the ring, and he hadn't said a word to me about it.

Harry rolled his eyes at Ginny. "You really don't know the meaning of subtlety, do you?"

"I do, but I find it has no place in my life."

"Tell us what?" Ron asked, interrupting their banter. Of course, he had only seen them both a few days ago, so I was very curious what could have changed in such short order.

Ginny nodded at Harry. "Go on." Harry looked between Ron and me with a surprising amount of trepidation. Maybe he had proposed to Ginny and was worried which of us would be more irked by not having been told. Ginny huffed impatiently and took advantage of Harry's hesitation. "He's moving back to Britain!"

"What?!" Ron and I chorused in stunned unison, both of us now fixated on Harry, who was now glaring at Ginny. She shrugged, wholly unapologetic, and moved to sit on the couch.

"Best to just rip the plaster off, y'know."

Harry took his glasses off and rubbed at the spot between his eyebrows, looking for the moment much older than his twenty-two years. "Nothing is set in stone," he said, taking a seat on the couch next to Ginny, who was now twirling the noisemaker around her fingers. "It's just that, Teddy is getting to be a lot for Andromeda full-time. So, yes, as Ginny less-than-delicately announced, I'm going to start looking at arrangements to move back."

Ron's brow was still furrowed, and I could feel the look of shock that remained on my face. "And what exactly are you going to do with a toddler, Harry?" I asked finally, putting my hands on my hips. "Cast a locking charm on his crib while you go out on dangerous missions?"

Harry was obviously very used to my scoldings after all these years—just as I was used to scolding him, and Ron, for a multitude of hare-brained schemes—because he looked at me calmly and replied, "We haven't worked out all the details yet. He won't live full-time with me either. But I'm his godfather, Hermione. That means something to me, and he's getting old enough for it to mean something to him too."

Ron gave a nod to his sister. "And where does this nutter fit in? Strapping a high chair to the back of your Comet and flying Teddy around at practice?" Ginny shot Ron the finger.

"Look, this was not how I intended to tell you both," Harry said apologetically, his eyes flickering briefly to Ginny again before returning to me and Ron. "I've only just decided. It's not like I'm packing my things and heading back tomorrow."

"And you'd think you could offer your best friend a bit more support," Ginny added, earning glares from all three of us.

"Gin," Harry sighed. "Give us a minute?" She looked at him sharply, ready to protest I was certain; I knew she had insecurities about being an outsider to our trio, and Harry's request to speak to Ron and me alone was sure to cause a flare-up. But the wordless conversation that passed between her and Harry swayed her, and she hopped off the couch and headed for the guest bedroom I used as an office, scooping up Crookshanks along the way. Though I did hear the door close a bit harder than was necessary.

Ron moved first, taking the chair closest to Harry, and I followed, sitting beside him on the arm of the chair. Ron slipped his arm around my waist, his fingers barely brushing against my side. "Sorry mate, you caught us a bit off guard here," Ron said, his voice still a bit tight.

"Well, your sister's a force of nature if you hadn't noticed. That wasn't my plan." Harry shook his head. "Teddy is my responsibility. One I wasn't remotely ready for when Lupin and Tonks died, and thank Merlin for Andromeda. But it's not fair to her to go on like this."

There were a million thoughts running through my head. I realized I had sort of taken it for granted all this time, having Harry with me in New York, a link to home. Then there was Ron; he should have been thrilled to have his best mate back, but he didn't seem to be, which was odd. Them working as Aurors together had always been the plan until Harry had derailed it.

"You'll join up with the British Aurors then?" I asked Harry, plucking that thought from my head as the best place to start.

"Most likely. If they'll have me."

I didn't have to be looking at Ron to know that he was rolling his eyes. "No, we all think you're a bloody tosspot," he retorted, his voice dripping sarcasm. But I felt his arm relax slightly around me. "How did this happen? I saw you this entire month and you didn't say anything about moving."

"Andromeda and I had lunch, day before last, and just got talking about everything. It's physically getting harder on her to chase him around all the time, but the emotional bit is harder for her as well. He's all Tonks, you know." That was certainly true; I wasn't even completely sure what Teddy actually looked like. "I just think it's time. For everything." He glanced pointedly in the direction Ginny had gone, then he and Ron shared a significant look.

Ron lowered his voice before asking, "And Ginny agrees?"

"Yes." Harry's answer was confident. I would have to turn the tables on Ginny for once and make her fill me in on what I had missed in her relationship.

Ron and Harry stared at each other for a long moment, and I wondered vacantly if I had missed more in these past three weeks than whatever had transpired between Harry and Ginny. Their relationship had never really been a sore spot for Ron, but at the end of the day, I knew how protective he was of Ginny.

Finally, Ron chuckled. "Reckon without Dad around, you'll have to get official permission from me for Ginny's hand."

Harry laughed in return. "Should I be worried?" Ron shook his head, and Harry finally looked at me. "I'm sorry to spring this on you."

I waved him off, though inside I was still reeling a bit. "Don't be, Harry. We just want you to be happy." I stood up from the chair. "I'll just get changed so we can get going."

The Thunderbird was way up on 56th Street, so it was much faster to go to the apparition point at the Congress than to take the subway. It was hidden on the top floor of a swanky Muggle hotel, with access to the roof, making it the ideal spot for New Year's and the ball drop. Of course, that meant it was also quite crowded. Ron and Harry went to the bar while Ginny and I scouted for an empty table.

"I am sorry, you know," she said as we walked the perimeter of the room. "About dropping Harry's announcement on you. I'm just excited to have him back in Britain."

"Mm-hmm." I raised an eyebrow at her as we quickly claimed a high top table that two other witches were vacating. "I've only been gone three weeks, Gin, what the hell happened?"

"He was there for an entire month. A month. D'you know how long it's been since we spent that much time together?" I shook my head. "Bloody Hogwarts! That's how long. And I still didn't want him to go." She shrugged and adjusted the hat she was still sporting. "We finally hit that point. So that's that."

"What about Quidditch?"

"What about it? He'll be in London, I can just Floo to Grimmauld on my off weekends, same as I do the Burrow now." She glanced over her shoulder, finding the boys still queued up at the bar. "And I'm sorry about leaving you alone over here. If it weren't for the Teddy piece of it, I might've gone out for one of the American teams for next season, but..."

"Teddy can't leave Britain, I know. Of course not. It's okay."

Ron and Harry found us then, and handed each of us a drink. "Let's go check out the roof," Ron said to me, but he looked like he had something a bit more serious on his mind.

Ginny nodded in the direction of the stairs. "Go on. We'll hold things down here."

Ron took my hand and led me up to the roof. It was a bit less crowded up there, even though that was where the view was. The whole area was covered with a warming charm, fighting back the bitter December cold. I followed him over to a vacant spot on the edge of the building, and he looked out over the skyline for a moment, anxiously rattling the ice cubes around in his cup. Then he turned to me. "Are you okay?"

"About Harry leaving?" He nodded, and I turned around to put my back against the railing. "Don't suppose I have much choice, do I?" I took a sip of my drink; it tasted like firewhiskey mixed with something I couldn't quite place. "But, yes. I'll be fine."

"I just..." Ron laughed lightly before continuing. "Don't hex me for this, but well...I worry about you. Not because I don't think you can take care of yourself, I know you can, but...I dunno. I like knowing that Harry's right here if anything were to happen. Or hell, just to make sure you're eating and sleeping properly when you're bogged down at work. I know how you get." He nudged me with his elbow and smiled hesitantly. "Suppose that makes me a git, hmm?"

"No. It doesn't. I worry about you too, off fighting bad guys all the time. That's what best friends do. That's what...people who love each other do." I turned to face him and slipped my arms around his waist. He looked down at me in surprise, his eyes reflecting the city lights around us. "I've been thinking about what you said, you know. And I can't let you go back to London tomorrow and not tell you...how much I love you. How much I'm in love with you."

A grin stretched across Ron's face as he leaned down to kiss me. "See, was that so hard?" he asked teasingly. I rolled my eyes, fighting a laugh, and made to pull away from him, but he pulled me in tighter and put a hand on my cheek. "I love you, too," he said, serious now. "So much."

He kissed me again, and there were fireworks off in the distance over his shoulder, and people celebrating down on the street, and it was bloody New Year's Eve, after all. The whole scenario was so horribly cheesy, but also so refreshingly normal, and after everything we had been through, I felt we had earned this one corny, romantic moment.