Dear Rick,

I take it you got out of the Yule Ball, then, seeing as only Fran put in a request for appallingly overpriced evening wear. Thank God for machismo! The mind boggles at Fran will be getting up to, though. You're well out of it.

I, unfortunately, haven't been so lucky- the office Christmas do is in a fortnight. I hope we aren't going to have somebody photocopying their rear end and breaking the glass again; the paramedics couldn't lift the stretcher for laughing, and poor old George from office supplies needed five stitches.

I enclose your allowance for this half-term. Try not to spend it ALL on booze and dope, please.

Regards,

Dad.

"Booze and dope? I'm not at university yet, Dad!" I said to myself. There was a fair chunk of cash in there, though. I'm not especially well up on exchange rates (Gringotts base them on the value of the gold which Galleons are made of), but this was at least a few hundred quid. I wondered if I was supposed to split it with Fran; Mum probably hadn't sent any after the huge amount of money she'd spent on that dress robe.

I returned to my new Terry Pratchett book, missing my Walkman, and was surprised to observe that he'd actually got quite a few things dead right. I deliberately refrained from looking up as the portrait opened and two drunkenly giggling individuals vanished in the general direction of the dormitories. Best not to ask who they were, I decided. One of them mght be somebody I fancied. The portrait took a few seconds to close, on account of somebody else -who presumably didn't know the password- diving through and getting their t-shirt caught.

'Somebody' turned out to be Luna Lovegood, who was evidently about as enthusiastic about the ball as I. She was wearing a pair of faded and tattered jeans and a T-shirt with 'I Love LA' on the front; well, I think it was the front, because it looked like she had it on backwards.

"Aha! A fellow Yule Ball refugee!" I remarked, offering her a Polo. She accepted, sitting beside me in a remarkably friendly manner given that we had only exchanged maybe a dozen words.

"Ron asked me, but I said no. I can't dance."

"Me neither," I replied. "And God knows what Fran's up to!" We shared a laugh.

"I kind of like Fran, actually," she said after a while. "I think she and Hermione are a nice couple." Sounds which shall remain unrecorded began to emanate from the dormitories. "I think," she added with an impish grin, "that they have reached the same conclusion."

I cringed. The whole concept of my sister's sexuality wasn't a problem; I'd had the last three years since she came out, to me before Mum or Dad (albeit when I caught her nicking the naughty magazine which was my most prized posession at age fourteen), to get used to it. However, its side-effects weren't something I was happy listening in on, though if it had been different people involved I would have quite enjoyed it. Luna began to blush, despite the fact that she was giggling uproariously. I resolved to take decisive action.

"KEEP THE BLOODY NOISE DOWN!" I bellowed up the stairs from the common room.

"Sod off, Rick!" Fran replied. "I'm busy!"

//I can hear that,// I nearly said. Luna and I exchanged glances. "The Ball appears to be the lesser of two evils," I suggested.

"Yes, you're right. Give me five minutes to change?"

I dragged on my old school trousers, along with a pale green shirt and matching tie that I had last worn for my baby cousin's christening, and waited outside the common room. Punctually, Luna reappeared in a rather pricey looking red ballgown; having a fabulously rich dad must compensate for that same dad editing a much-derided scandal sheet magazine- think GQ meets Vogue.

"Ready?"

"Whenever you are!"

As we headed for the Great Hall, Luna slipped an arm into mine. I drew upon reserves of willpower I hadn't known existed to avoid jumping when she did this. I glanced down, and decided that the perpeptually surprised set of her face was cute rather than outlandish.

The Ball was in full swing when we arrived. Harry and Cho were dancing enthusiastically to some song I'd never heard before, by a band I'd never heard of, and they seemed to be enjoying themselves. Ron and Lavender were watching, grinning at each other triumphantly. They looked somewhat less cheerful as Ginny hauled a miserable-looking, slightly drunk Draco onto the dancefloor, having apparently taken pity on him. Pansy had loudly and publically dumped him earlier that week, listing all his personal and sexual deficits and pointedly shagging Crabbe AND Goyle, Draco's henchmen/penis extensions.

"Don't look like that, Ron," Luna remarked cheerily. "It'll irritate that pug-nosed bitch Parkinson no end. And he DOES have quite a nice arse."

"Merlin's beard, you really are mad, Luna!" Ron said, though without excessive malice. "She's got a point about his arse, though," Lavender added.

"I surely couldn't comment," I replied. There was general laughter.

"Hi, Rick. How come you're down here? I thought you weren't coming," Harry observed, leaving the dancefloor with Cho joined to his hip. "Hi, Luna," he said by way of an afterthought.

"Well, I was sort of camped out in the common room," I explained. "But Fran and Hermione-"

"Ah, so THAT's where they've got to!" More laughter, but affectionate laughter.

"So," Ron said to Harry and Cho, "you two finally stopped misunderstanding each other, then?" Talk about stating the bleedin' obvious! Cho just giggled, and Harry glared at him.

Before this intriguing development could progress any further, Ginny appeared, Draco in tow behind her. There was a collective groan.

"Oh, come on, you lot," I said, feeling genuine sympathy for my cousin. "He's not so bad when you get to know him. 'Specially when he's had a few!"

"Oh, hi Luna. You found Rick, then?" I shot Ginny a curious look.

"She said you were all on your own," Luna explained. "I thought you'd want somebody to talk to, and I was all on my own, so I came over to see if you were okay."

"Yeah, I just felt a bit sorry for you," Ginny explained. "So what brings you down here?" I hesitated, uncertain as to whether Slytherin's chief complete and total bastard should hear this. Not that it needed much deduction.

"Oh, I SEE," Ginny smirked. "I thought I saw them leave together."

"Me too," Draco added, trying to deduce the piss-taking potential of such an occurrence. Having been on the recieving end of Fran's left hook, he concluded that the risk of personal injury outweighed the opportunity to mercilessly ridicule either party.

The music changed to something slow and romantic. I glanced over at Luna.

"Well, even I can't tread on you with this one. Want to dance?"

"Why not?"

Ron and Ginny glanced at each other, and nodded in satisfaction.

I forget how long we were on that dancefloor. It felt like an age, with neither of us really aware of the other dancers. Luna had been too modest; she was actually a brilliant dancer. Once we finally sat down for a bit things were drawing to a close.

Ron and Lavender had disappeared, and Harry and Cho were busily snogging over by the punchbowl. That left Ginny and, to my dismay, Draco to talk to.

"Glad you joined us after all?" Draco asked, suddenly without his usual arrogance and condescention. Luna's hand intertwined with mine, and squeezed.

"Yes," we chorused.

When the Ball finally drew to a close, I walked Luna back to her house's tower. I risked giving her a quick kiss goodnight. As I turned to go to bed, I glanced behind me. Luna was still standing there, a faint but beautiful smile on her face.

Without realising it, I began to smile too.

Of course, the next day was painful for some of us. Fran awoke late, and staggered down looking like she badly needed a coffee.

"Busy night?" I asked cordially.

"Hell yes!" she replied, beaming. "Who would have thought that somebody as bookish as Hermione would have all that sexual energy dammed up inside her?"

"I don't want to hear the rest!" I said hastily. "And for the love of God do something about that lovebite." Fran looked in the mirror hanging by the fireplace.

"Oh, shit! Where's my Erase?"

Hermione appeared, and performed a Concealment Charm. "Much as I'd like to show off," she said, "I think after ten minutes the blushing would obscure it!"

I sighed, and went to go and have some breakfast. Filch was waiting outside the portrait, scowling.

"If you see Granger, tell her that if that damn cat of hers goes near Mrs Norris ONE MORE TIME...!" he began, incoherent with fury.

"Oh no. Crookshanks hasn't got into a fight with her, has he?" I groaned.

"Hah! No, boy, it's worse than that!" Filch made the appropriate gestures. I tried extremely hard not to laugh, and even harder not to be obvious about it, but there was a sudden screeching noise; cats mating.

Filch gave a kind of hoarse scream, and ran off waving his mop and yelling curses, leaving me doubled over with helpless laughter.

As a finale to the term, it was a damn good candidate, but there was more to come.

The train pulled in on time, an indication of how the magical world had its benefits. If the Ministry would let me, I might go into infastructure maintenance, and probably earn a knighthood before I was forty.

Harry's aunt was waiting, looking thoughroughly hacked off about it. This may have been something to do with my father's Mondeo parked near her Astra estate. Ron's dad was chatting to him, probably about wizard/normal person relations, a shared passion of theirs.

Luna walked with me to the car, and then gave me a kiss. Not a chaste peck like at the end of the ball, I might add, but the real McCoy with tongues and everything. "Write to me," she whispered almost pleadingly.

"You bet I will," I replied.

Fran and Hermione were making their own fond farewells. "My, my," Dad remarked. "You two HAVE had a busy year!"

"You could say that," I laughed. "So, Harry, you've got at least one pal in the neighbourhood now. I'll call round for you some time, yeah?"

"Oh, he WILL, will he?" Petunia Dursley enquired acidly. "Come on, boy, get in the car!" Something in my normally placid father broke.

"Look," he snarled. "If he's SUCH a burden on you, then we've got a spare room, you know. I'm surprised your sister doesn't come back and bloody well haunt you!"

Dudley emerged from the car. Feeling unable to show solidarity with his mother in any other way, but thinking he ought to out of anti-Potterism, he took a swing at me.

This was a bad move on his part. Instantly, a fist slammed into his ample midriff, knocking the wind out of him and pitching him to the ground.

"Did I ever mention," I said smoothly, "that I got really into kickboxing over the last couple of years, Harry?" The 'oh, BUGGER!' expression on Dudley's face was a true joy to behold.

I'd been waiting ten years to do that, for him to give me an excuse, for him to be without all his cronies. Boy, was it worth waiting for!

Dad put a Reductio on Harry's trunk, enabling it to fit in the boot, and we headed for home. Much later, Harry said that this was the first time he'd ever been anything other than deeply depressed when returning from the end of term.

#~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~#

Coming up in Part 2: Harry will have a chance not only to defeat the Dark Lord, but bring back his parents. As Rick perceptively puts it: "The Dark Lord might have spells on the go to protect him against every form of magic on the planet, but I'll bet he wouldn't think of wearing Kevlar!"

Will a mere twelve bore, double barrel sawn-off shotgun defeat Voldemort once and for all? Will Snape finally get to punch James Potter's lights out? And why in hell does Draco Malfoy end up wearing a Weasley sweater?

Yes, I'm bonkers, aren't I?

Regards to my faithful reviewer/beloved girlfriend Amber, by the way. Hope you enjoyed this.