Three weeks later, Harry was back at the Burrow. He and Ginny had gone on three dates already: After the Weird Sisters concert, he took her out for Ethiopian food ("Sure, Harry, it's great. I really like yams, I promise"), and most recently, dancing. He was very happy to have someone to take to all these events, and Ginny was very happy to go. As it happened, Harry was quite a gentleman, a moderately capable dancer, and a good judge of cuisine. All in all, he was very pleased with how things were going, even if there were some uncomfortable incidents (He discovered, one night, that they often mixed signals. He sometimes tried to kiss her on the mouth and ended up on her eye or nose or ear). But Harry was confident that they would pass this shy, awkward stage and in due course be quite happy together.

"Harry," Hermione prodded him out of his thoughts. "What are you doing? Do you need something to drink? You've been staring at the cupboard for a long time."

"I'm just thinking, 'Mione."

"Well, it's a shame she pulled you out of that, then, seeing as how you might never do it again," said Fred, feigning concern.

The three of them were sitting around the kitchen table at about five in the afternoon. Mrs. Weasley was pulling out thick cookbooks (Harry thought that perhaps she was going to try and impress Dumbledore or Lupin, as they were going to attend tonight). Ron had disappeared upstairs, George was in the next room playing with fire, and nobody else had showed up yet.

Mrs. Weasley held these family dinners every few weeks. Harry thought that she must be a little lonely, what with all her children grown up and moved out. She had begun to volunteer at the local Muggle charity shop. The women there were amazed at how fast Mrs. Weasley churned out knit items. When she came in with twenty hats one week, they gave her some very curious looks and, cottoning on, she decided that she should probably take it down a notch.

A whoop came from the living room, where George was seated on the floor, experimenting with some new affordably-priced, water-proof fireworks that were about to be released. He had obviously lit one, and it zoomed around the room, emitting horrible screeches before George opened the front door and let it out.

"WILL YOU PACK IT IN?" shrieked Molly, dropping one of the heavy recipe books on her foot in surprise. She groaned and sat down at the table as Fred hopped down to get the book.

"I cannot believe that you've been given a license to perform magic! I just don't believe it! George, don't bring those things into my house. You can leave the loud, dangerous ones at home."

After the commotion had died down, Harry asked, "What's Ron doing?" Fred answered, "He's plotting his revenge for my Quidditch foul. Remember, he said he was going to maim me? I think he forgot when dinner was served. You know how he is around food. A roast beef can really clear his mind of troubles."

Hermione giggled at this. "It's true. All I have to do to make him happy is feed him, bathe him, and put him to bed."

At that moment, Fleur Apparated right next to the stove.

"Sorry, Molly, I 'ave poor aim. I meant to land on ze doorstep."

Outside, they heard Bill do just that. He ducked the rogue fireworks that were still soaring around the house and ran inside.

"Fred, George, is that one of your creations?" His deep voice resonated throughout the front room. "Really nice use of color, boys. How much is one of those?"

"Three sickles," said George proudly.

"Bill, if you buy one of those from your brothers, I will disown you," threatened Mrs. Weasley.

"Mum, I never buy anything from them." He paused. "They just give things to me for free!" Bill was in the kitchen now. He nodded his acknowledgement to Fred and Harry, put his hand on Hermione's shoulder and sat down next to her at the table.

"Molly, what can I do to help?" Harry asked. Honestly, he didn't want to peel potatoes, but he felt that with her recent foot injury, he should help her.

"Oh, you're such a dear. The potatoes need peeling. Just charm them if you would. And Fred, maybe you could see what there is to drink."

Smiling to himself because he had correctly guessed the chore assigned to him, Harry rolled up his sleeves and went into the pantry, where a large sack of potatoes was leaned against a bottom shelf. He heaved the bag into the kitchen and pulled out his wand. Pointing at the sack, he muttered 'Wingardium Leviosa' and several potatoes rose out of the bag and floated to the sink. He then located the peeler and set it to working on the tubers as he came over and stood by Mrs. Weasley.

Looking around the table at the family, Harry felt euphoric. He then remembered that tonight, he would tell them that he was romantically involved with their little sister and youngest child. His stomach did a little flip-flop and he looked away from the table.

By seven-thirty, everyone had arrived (except Charlie and Camelia, who were back at work in Romania). As it was early spring and therefore quite windy, everyone was crammed inside the kitchen, all seated around the large table except Ginny and Mrs. Weasley, who were serving.

Dumbledore was wearing pale green robes and looking quite spry. At more than one-hundred-fifty years old, he was still moving quite freely and hadn't shown many signs of aging since the Second War ended. Next to him, on the other hand, Remus Lupin sat wearing his usual tatty robes of gray and looking very old indeed, thought he must have been a century younger than Dumbledore.

"Arthur, Molly, I'm glad you invited me," Dumbledore scooted his seat a little closer to the table and took a deep breath. "I wanted to tell the family: Next year will be my last at Hogwarts." There was a small gasp heard around the table. "I'm a very old man, and I no longer wish to be burdened with the maintenance of the school. Minerva will instead take my place as Head."

Percy was the first person to talk after a few tacit seconds. "I had hoped to send my son there under your tutelage, sir." He finished and looked around expectantly.

"Percy, I can assure you that Minerva McGonagall is most qualified for the job," he said, smiling.

"In any case, it'll leave me more free time to write a book or find a cure for werewolfism." At this, he looked over at Hermione, who flashed a grin back at him. Hermione had been working for a private pharmaceutical laboratory and was deeply involved in the search for a cure. Recently, a senior colleague had made a breakthrough and discovered that a simple combination of wolfs' bane, powdered dragon scales and lacewings had excellent results in preventing symptoms from appearing, so that during a full moon, test participants did not transform. There were, however, some side-effects from the wolfs' bane, and extreme irritability occurred instead of the transformation, but research was definitely going in the right direction.

Lupin glanced up and said proudly to Hermione, "You always were the cleverest witch in your year."

Suddenly, Fred hiccoughed and fell backward in his chair, hitting the floor hard. He kept hiccoughing as his brothers helped him back onto his feet. No sooner had Fred huffily plopped into his seat, than he shot back out of it, howling.

"RON!" He bellowed, his face red and his eyes narrowed. "WHAT -hic- HAVE YOU DONE TO MY -hic- BUTTERBEER?"

Ron tried to look innocent, but as soon as Fred had scuttled off to the bathroom to fix whatever problem he was having sitting down, he broke out laughing.

"What did you do to your poor brother?" Mr. Weasley asked.

"Just a little something I like to call 'payback'," he said smugly.

George watched Ron lean back from the table. He was frowning severely and looked angrier than Harry had seen him in a long time. Harry knew that George would get retribution for Fred. The twins always stuck together, and this would be no exception. He just hoped that they wouldn't be throwing punches.

Ginny and Mrs. Weasley finished serving the soup and took their seats. Harry couldn't help but beam when Ginny sat down next to him and winked before tucking into her soup. Harry continued grinning madly at his soup while Mr. Weasley and Percy talked about work and Bill and Lupin talked about the most effective method of freezing Ashwinder eggs. This sudden exhilaration on the part of Harry was not lost on Hermione, who raised an eyebrow at Ginny and gave her a quizzical look.

"So," Hermione was speaking rather loudly and staring at Ginny, "Harry tells me that the two of you went to the Weird Sisters concert a couple of weeks ago. That must have been fun."

Ginny rolled her eyes and responded, "Yes, he had VIP passes. We got to meet the band. It was great."

"I didn't know that you two were such good friends. Do you see each other often?" Inquired Mrs. Weasley. Harry choked on a piece of roll at this moment, making everyone at the table except Corinthus stare at him. He wiped his mouth as he turned red.

"Yeah, Mum, we've seen a lot of each other recently. We've been dating, actually," pronounced Ginny fearlessly.

A full minute of silence ensued, the only sound that of Corinthus humming tunelessly and spoons clinking a little as the relations dropped them into their soup.

Again, the first one to speak was Percy. "Well, Ginny, I think you've made a very good choice. I couldn't stand some of the other characters you've dated," he concluded.

The audacity of this statement caused Ginny, Harry, Bill, Lupin and Hermione to burst out laughing, and the others soon followed, even Corinthus, who obviously had no inkling as to what was going on, but liked to laugh anyway. Only Percy was left, frowning perplexedly. "What? What did I say?" He kept asking.

"Hey, congratulations to the both of you," said Bill, chuckling merrily and raising his glass. "Cheers."

The rest of the evening progressed much as it had at the previous dinner three weeks ago. Percy and Penelope were the first to leave because they had a four-year-old to put to bed. Dumbledore stayed for some conversation but soon said that he, too, needed to retire. Mrs. Weasley was again knitting in a large chair, while Bill talked to his father about the curses his team was now trying to crack in a remote part of China (Bill had kept the desk job he had had while working for the Order of the Phoenix). Fred had returned from the bathroom after about forty-five minutes. He was now perched self-consciously on the edge of the sofa, conferring with George in undertones and glowering at Ron, who was asleep in Mr. Weasley's big magenta armchair. After Lupin said he'd better get going, Mr. and Mrs. Weasley went up to bed, and Bill and Fleur went home. The twins had been waiting for this chance all night. George sprang off the sofa and flopped onto Ron, who was very rudely awakened when he felt George's hands around his neck. Fred pulled out his wand and lifted it into the air. Hermione was on her feet, pulling out her own and aiming at Fred. Ginny gripped Hermione's arm and Harry cringed and shrunk into his seat.

For a split second the room remained in this condition, before Ron broke free of George's stranglehold and slumped onto the floor in front of Fred. Ron got onto his knees and eyed Fred's wand as it pointed to his chest. He heard George creeping up behind him and thought immediately of the one thing that might save him…

"If you kill me now, my child will grow up fatherless!" He moaned melodramatically.

"Shut up, Ron, we're not going to kill you. Just hex you a little- WAIT! Are you saying what I think you're saying, little brother?" Said Fred, instantly lowering his wand and grinning at George.

"Why, yes, Fred, I do believe I am," Ron confirmed, visibly relaxing at the thought that he wouldn't be blown to pieces.

The twins were very pleased at the news, though Hermione was a little miffed ("We haven't even told your parents yet"). After about fifteen minutes of pleasant baby-related chatting, the twins departed, saying that they had another party to attend. Ginny then rounded up some more pumpkin juice and the four sat in the calm firelight, sipping juice without speaking. Ron quickly dropped off to sleep, and Hermione, cuddling next to him, soon did the same.

After a few more minutes Harry heard Ron's snores and glanced at Ginny, smiling. She got up and crept over to where he was, boldly sitting down on his lap. It was enough to make him blush and spill pumpkin juice all over himself. She giggled at this and dropped a kiss on his nose. He kissed her back on the lips, putting his hands on her waist. Just as Ginny deepened the kiss, running her tongue along Harry's lower lip, Ron let out a very loud fart from across the room. Ginny burst out laughing and rolled off Harry. He, too, couldn't help but give a great guffaw, which woke Hermione and Ron.

"What are you laughing at?" Ron asked petulantly.

"Nothing," Harry and Ginny said together.

"We were just leaving," Harry added to cover up the odd hush in the room. "Can I walk you home, Ginny?"

"That would be lovely," she responded.

"Prophet Road?" He said. She nodded, and with a POP she was gone. Harry said goodnight to Ron and Hermione and in a moment had also Disapparated.

They had agreed to meet at the beginning of the road where Ginny lived. Prophet Road was incidentally not where the Daily Prophet was printed, but rather a young neighborhood in Wizard London (the people were young, not the buildings). A flat there was fairly sought after, and Ginny had again relied on her family's connections to get her a nice placement. Her rent was moderately affordable, so she didn't have to take a flat mate. She lived in building #87, and the two had Apparated right in front of number three.

One of Harry's favorite activities was walking, and he especially liked the conversation that accompanied his walks with Ginny. On the night of the Weird Sisters concert, for instance, they had discussed foreign Muggle politics and unicorn protection laws. The last time he had seen her, they had a lively debate over whether or not Fizzing Whizbees contained ground billywig stings.

Harry bashfully took Ginny's hand and she flashed him an enormous grin. They continued to meander down the street, talking now about Quidditch fouls, now about the Tri-Wizard Tournament. Ginny was beginning to think that, just maybe, this crazy scheme might work out. She and Harry got along marvelously; he was reasonably attractive (if rather pale and peaky), with good hygiene; and was capable of magnificent conversation. Of course, Ginny had always known these facts, but had been very worried that Harry would not act like himself if they became amorously involved. Her apprehension turned out to be baseless. Things were going so well, in fact, that when at length they arrived on Ginny's doorstep, she invited him upstairs, and he obliged eagerly.