Last chapter with the epilogue which I'm just editing.
Chapter 16 – Celebrations
The war was over and Lord Voldemort was long gone. Harry Potter, the boy who lived had finally defeated the darkest wizard of all time. The Wizarding World were finally coming to terms with the fact that Lord Voldemort had finally gone. Most of his followers had been thrown in Azkaban or had gone into hiding. Some had even handed themselves into the Ministry.
It had now been two weeks since the horrible battle at Hogwarts. Molly Weasley was hosting a celebration party at the burrow for all her family, members of the Order and friends of her children. She woke up her family early that morning and gave each of them jobs to do so that everything would be ready in time for the party.
Hermione, Ginny and Fleur were helping her in the kitchen and putting up decorations around the house. Ron and Harry were degnoming the garden while Fred, George and Charlie set up the tables and canopy outside in the garden. Percy, Bill and Arthur were all at work. It was a beautiful spring day outside with the sun splitting the slates. The occupants of the burrow were extremely busy all morning and afternoon, making sure everything was perfect for the party.
"Have you all sent owls to your friends to invite them?" Molly asked everyone?
"Yes Mum." Ginny answered.
"Oh good. Lets hope that people come." Molly said.
"They'll come Mum, most of them said they were." Ginny answered.
"Can you girls go and check up on what the boys are doing?" Molly asked.
Hermione and Ginny left the house and headed outside in the beautiful sunshine to find Fred and George fixing the tables and chairs that were other a large white tent like canopy.
"I hope we're going to have some music." Ginny stated.
"Yes we are. Your father got me to charm an old record player to play various different records, including some of my muggle ones." Hermione said.
"Brilliant." Ginny chirped.
From somewhere over the hedge, the girls heard, loud but hearty laughter coming from Ron and Harry.
"What are they up two?" She questioned.
The two girls marched over to the hedgerow to find Harry knee deep in what looked like a very large puddle. Ron was bent over in two laughing hysterical at his friend.
"What on earth happened?" Hermione questioned, hands on hips.
"Harry had a bit of an accident." Ron laughed.
"I can see that." Ginny retorted.
"One of the gnomes fault." Ron said. "Tried to give Harry a run for his money."
"Well, well, well the boy who lived can defeat old voldymort but can't beat some pathetic little garden gnomes." Fred chortled, coming over to see what the commotion was.
"They're nasty little blighters." Harry stated.
"Yeah they're not exactly the most pleasant." Fred said. "Watch they don't bite."
"Isn't gnome saliva meant to be beneficial to your skin?" Ron queried.
"No it's not. I don't know where you heard that from." Hermione answered.
"Luna Lovegood's Father." Ron answered.
"Says it all, really." Fred said.
"Fred!" Ginny warned. "Luna's not actually that bad once you get to know her."
"Her father seems to be a bit of a looper." Fred said.
"Yeah I don't think he's the full shilling." Ron said.
"Is he coming tonight?" Fred wondered.
"Yes. I invited him and Luna." Ginny answered.
Hermione stood in Ginny's room, looking at her reflection in the full length mirror. She was dressed in a knee length plum dress. It had thick straps and a heart shaped neck line then was pulled in at the waist with a black belt. The skirt sat out at the bottom. She teamed her pretty dress with flat gold shoes. Ginny had attended to her bushy hair, using her wand to curl her hair into loose curls and applied minimal make up to Hermione's face.
"You look lovely, Hermione." Ginny commented.
Ginny, herself looked beautiful in a black and white dress which had a white short sleeve top with black collar and buttons and a black skirt which came to just above her knee. She teamed her dress with white and silver wedge sandals. She had half of her flaming red hair pinned up with a red rose clip.
"You look lovely too, Gin." Hermione said.
Once the two girls were happy with their appearance, they made their way down the rickety stairs to the kitchen were Molly was bustling around the kitchen, still preparing the food.
"Do you need anything else done, Mum?" Ginny asked.
"Could you take those plates of sandwiches out to the garden?" Molly asked. "Preferably by hand as I don't want them to land on the floor."
Hermione and Ginny lifted a tray of sandwiches each and carried them carefully out into the garden.
"You two are looking nice." Fred commented.
"Thank you bro." Ginny answered.
Fred then helped the girls to bring the rest of the food outside.
At 6pm the first of the guests began arriving which were Fred and George's old school friends, Lee Jordan, Alicia Spinnet, Angelina Johnson, Katie Bell and Oliver Wood. George led his friends over to a table and offered to get them drinks. The next guests to arrive were Neville Longbottom, Dean Thomas and Seamus Finngean followed by Padma and Parvati Patil.
"Have you heard how Lavender is doing?" Ginny asked.
"She's doing well but she's got a long way to go unfortunately." Parvati replied.
Lavender had been badly bitten by the nasty werewolf Greyback at the battle and was still in St Mungos, undergoing treatment for her injuries.
"She's not showing many wolf life signs thankfully." Padma added.
"Oh that's good. Do you think she'll make a full recovery?" Ginny asked.
"She should do but she'll have some permanent scarring." Padma answered.
"Bill has permanent scarring too but he seems to be doing brilliantly now." Ginny said.
"Yeah. He's offered to come and speak to Lavender once she's completely came around." Parvati answered.
"I think Lupin paid her a visit the other day and was speaking with her parents. He's offered to keep in contact with them, should they need any help or advice." Padma said.
"Aww that's really nice of him." Ginny smiled.
More and more guests began to arrive, such as Luna and her Father, some of Ginny's friends and members of the order and Dumbledore's Army. Tonks, Lupin, Andromeda and Teddy also arrived, as did McGonagall, Flitwick, Slughorn, Hagrid, Madame Pomfrey and Professor Sprout.
The party could now get under way. Guests began filling up their plates with the yummy food, sitting alongside their friends and old school mates. It was a nice sight to see, considering a week earlier every single person was fighting for their lives.
The old record player that Hermione had charmed was playing music from both the muggle world and wizarding world but didn't drown out the conversations going on around the tent. The guests tucked into sandwiches with every filling imaginable, sausage rolls, various different pies and other yummy party food. For dessert there were pumpkin pasties, treacle fudge, cauldron cakes, apple pie and various different flavours of ice cream. There was definitely no shortage of food and no one went hungry.
After the food had been devoured, the dancing began under the twinkling lights of the tent that Fred and George had charmed to change colour. Everyone let their hair down and for the first time in a long time, they had fun, without having to worry about being attacked by death eaters or their friends or family being murdered.
"Care to dance?" George asked Hermione who was swirling some melted ice cream about her bowl.
"Yes sure." She answered nervously, as she accepted George's hand.
"Don't worry, I won't stand on your toes." George laughed.
"I trust you George." Hermione answered with a small smile.
George led Hermione onto the dance floor and placed his hands on her small waist. She stood up on her tip toes and wrapped her arms around his neck. They both swayed in time to the muggle song that was playing, a song called Back For Good by Take That, one of Hermione's favourite bands.
Ginny was dancing along with Harry while Luna had been brought up to dance by Neville. Molly and Arthur too had joined in the fun and Arthur was spinning an excited Molly around the dance floor.
The party continued into the small hours of the following morning with no one wanting to leave due to having such a good time.
At midnight everyone stepped outside the party tent and raised their lit wands in memory of every single person that had died during the war, or due to Voldemort. Several people had tears glistening in their ears as they held their wands high, remembering loved ones or friends or colleagues who had died in silence with only the wind blowing in the trees or owls hooting.
Hermione and Ginny had suggested that everyone take a white balloon, write the name of someone they had lost and a little message and pop it inside the balloon. After the two minutes silence, everyone took their balloons and let them off into the sky. Harry had found it hardest, writing the name and message as he had lost so many people in his short 17 years. In the end he took two; one for his parents and Sirius and one for the others. Hundreds of white balloons filled the night sky, drifting off into different directions.
*****
For those of you who don't know who Take That are, give them a look on Youtube, you may have already heard of Robbie Williams or Gary Barlow before. They were the first ever band that I remember liking and they're still going strong (though with only 3 members).