Chapter 2: Hard Thoughts and Diagon Alley
As they walked through the large oak door, they saw the headmistress Minerva McGonagall sitting in Professor Dumbledore's big leather chair. Her hands were grasped tightly together as though she were hiding a small, yet very important package. "Please sit down. You too Molly, go on sit". "Today we are here to discuss your future at Hogwarts. I beli-"Professor, I have already told you I am not returning to Hogwarts, as I have much more important things to do," Harry interrupted. "What can possibly be more important than your education? Potter, you will refrain from interrupting me. Please sit down". Harry hadn't even noticed that he had gotten up. "Yes ma-am," replied Harry whilst sitting down.
"Now back to the topic. I believe that your education is one of the most important things in your life. Once this war is over Mr. Potter, what do you expect to do with only passing six years at Hogwarts?" Harry was dumbfounded. He hadn't thought about what he would do after the war was over-if he survived. He couldn't think of anything to say back to the new headmistress. He made a feeble attempt. "professor…I…. um…. honestly professor I have no idea what I would do after the war is over". "Just as I suspected, what about you two?" she motioned towards Ron and Hermione. " I was thinking about joining the Magical Law Enforcement Department" Hermione said under her breath. "Me, I was thinking about becoming a auror." Ron said ecstatically. "Those are very good career choices but how do you expect to get into the Ministry of Magic with only completing six years at Hogwarts?" Professor McGonagall said. The room was silent for several minutes before the headmistress spoke. "So what I am saying is that you must come back to Hogwarts. I will allow you to leave the school grounds to find the remaining horcruxes- yes I know about the horcruxes and so does you mother, as long as you attend all of your classes and hand in all of you homework. Does this sound like a suitable arrangement?" Ron glanced across at Harry with an unsure look but Harry nodded his head along with Hermione. Ron joined in. "Well seeing as all of this is agreed, how about a few butterbeers?" Professor McGonagall proclaimed. Several butterbeers later, Molly Weasley said, "Seeing that all of this is sorted and done with, we must be off. Goodbye Minerva". "Yes, you must. I want to see you here on September 1st" the professor said. "Oh, they will be" Molly Weasley replied with a fierce yet reassuring voice. With that they all spun around and walked through the large wooden door.
Several days after that event occurred, Luna Lovegood received an owl from her friend Ginny Weasley saying:
"Dear Luna,
Please come to diagon alley with me on Sunday the 28th of August. Trust me, you will want to come because you know who will be there. We will be waiting outside of Gringgots at 1:00pm, we can go get our books together and maybe I can convince Ron to come with us (just for you). Send back an owl if you are able to meet us there!"
Love, Ginny"
Almost immediately, Luna picked up a piece of parchment and said
"Dear Ginny,
of course I will come! Please ask Ron to join us in getting our books
Love, Luna"
Luna woke with a pleasant smile on her face, knowing that she would see Ron today. For the first time in her life, she put makeup on. After half an hour, Luna was strolling down the stairs towards the fireplace. "Come on Dad, let's go. I don't want to be late for Ro- I mean Ginny". "Phew I almost said Ron's name! I don't want Dad knowing that I have the hots for someone," Luna thought to herself.
"Alright, lets go," Luna's dad said. "Do you want to go first or shall I," "Oh don't worry Dad I'll go first," Luna said, grabbing a handful of floo powder.
She threw the floo powder into the fire, which made the flames turn big and green. She walked straight into the flames without any hesitation at all and said in a loud, clear voice "Diagon Alley".
Straightaway she was pulled up fireplace-the force was unbearable; it felt like someone or something tugging her from both sides trying to rip her apart. Forgetting to tuck her elbows in something whacked her elbows with immense power.
This all happened in a very small time frame, as soon as it started it finished. Getting out of the fireplace and brushing all of the dust off her, Luna looked at her watch and saw that it was already 1:10pm. "Oh no! My first date with Ron and I'm already ten minutes late! Oh no …oh no". She thought to herself
Just then, her father arrived out of the fireplace. Seeing his daughters face, he said in a reassuring voice, "Don't worry, its only ten minutes. Your friends won't care if you're only a little bit late. As I say, its always good to be fashionably late".
Luna and her father walked out of Madam Malkins robe shop to go to meet Ginny and the others. It was 1:15pm when they saw Ginny. Luna sped over to Ginny and gave her a huge hug and whispered into her ear with a look of disappointment on her face "were is Ron? Ginny saw the very sad look on Luna's face and said in a gentle voice "he is off buying ice creams for us, he'll be back in a few minutes, don't worry, he is coming back". "Oh that's good then, I just hope he didn't buy me gillywater flavour because they have little flabbergasters in them" Luna mumbled. "Now were did you read that?" a familiar voice said, Luna turned around to see Harry Potter standing there eating a chocolate sundae with a abnormally large grin on his face. "It was in The Quibbler, my father wrote a collum about it" Luna said defiantly.
"Ha, no wonder Ron likes you" Harry laughed then once noticing what he had said he stopped laughing and said with a trickle of fear in his voice "oh whoops I didn't mean what I said, oh shit, Ron's going to kill me". "Oh well what's done is done" Hermione interjected.
Luna's face turned a bright red after that comment and did not change back for several minutes. "Now were is Ronald with our ice creams? Ah there he is" Hermione said point towards Oliver's wand shop, Luna spun around to see Ron trying to balance 5 very large ice-creams in one hand and in his other he was holding serviettes and his extremely light money pouch.
As Ron was walking towards them Ginny whispered into Luna's ear "remember what I said, play it cool". Luna felt there was no need to reply so she continued to stare at Ron and his balancing skills.
After Ron had handed out the ice creams Hermione suggested "why don't we go get our books from Flourish and Blotts?" Everyone agreed with a grunt because they had a mouthful of food but Ron made an attempt anyway, all he managed to get out was "I…ink….phats…..aie…fate…imea". Ginny gave Ron a hard smack over the head and murmured something about eating with you mouthful.
After everyone had gotten their books they decided to split up and get all the other stuff they needed and meet up at gringots in an hour to go to Fred and Georges joke shop. Harry and Hermione went to go get food for their pets and Ron, Luna and Ginny went to get more ingredients for potions seeing as they were running low. After half and hour of walking around/gathering potion ingredients Ron and the others went to meet Harry and Hermione at gringots. "Get all the stuff u needed?" Harry asked Ron "yeah then we just dawdled around for half an hour" Ron replied. "I say we head off to the Weasley Wizards Wheezes joke shop," Luna said in a high-pitched voice.
"Luna can u please um... come over here please I want to talk to you"