At the wedding of Bill Weasley and Fleur Delacour, in the summer of 1997, Harry Potter was dancing with the groom's sister.

(This in itself would have been something for the gossip pages, if the press had been there, but fortunately Mad Eye Moody had taken it upon himself to make the perimeter impenetrable to the press. He and his fellow Aurors were wedding guests, of course, but most of them were the sort of people who got very, very nervous if they went too long without some kind of action.)

(This was, of course, with the exception of Auror Tonks, who had found a different sort of action for herself in the toolshed, assisted by one R. J. Lupin.)

Harry and Ginny had danced four dances now, and the music was winding down but neither of them felt like separating. Ginny—who was going by Ginevra, now, since she had almost reached her sixteenth birthday and was a grown woman by Pureblood standards—was wearing a yellow gown that made her red hair burn like Brigid's fire. Harry had not been able to take his eyes off her once during the ceremony, even though Fleur Delacour was said now to be the loveliest bride to have walked on English soul since the part-Veela Vodanska Putin had married into the Malfoy family a hundred years before. Ginny's eyes, he now noticed, seemed larger and darker, and her freckles—well, they were still there. Of course. They were a great part of Ginevra's beauty, her freckles. They were, he thought, quite the most attractive freckles he'd ever seen, on anyone (Ron had more, but Harry wasn't interested in men, not that he knew of yet anyway).

Ginevra was likewise captivated by Harry, because in the three weeks since he'd gone to the Dursleys for the last time he seemed to have hit another growth spurt. He was as tall as her now (before, he'd been a little shorter, because of having been malnourished at the Dursleys' throughout most of his childhood), and because he was so thin he seemed even taller. His skin was golden-brown, because he'd been working in the garden for most of the time he'd been at the Dursleys' (not even because they'd asked him to—they didn't ask him to do much of anything, anymore—but because it was better than spending all his time inside the house with only his relatives for company). Harry was wearing black dress robes, with a red-and-green design around the cuffs and down the front edges of the robe that, if you looked at them closely, turned out to be holly (leaves and berries). He looked very elegant, and not at all Christmassy, even with the holly. He had chosen it because his wand was holly, and in the books he had been reading when not in the Dursleys' garden, he had read that a wizard should try to develop as much of a connection as possible with his wand, because a wand will save your life even more certainly than a good sword will. (These were very old books, some of them from the time when wizards had only just started using wands at all. They had been in Sirius's house, and he had made Kreacher bring all the books from Grimmauld Place to Privet Drive the first weekend he had been there. It had been very useful, so far, and he thought he knew the first place to start looking for the next Horcrux.)

He had been letting his hair grow, since midway through the spring, and it had gotten long enough that now he had to tie it back. He wasn't sure why it had started growing all of a sudden, but instead of remaining a little too long (as it had for pretty much all his life at that point), it had suddenly started to grow very quickly, and had started getting straighter, too. If you hadn't known him before, you probably woudn't have looked at him and thought he was Harry Potter. He had also gotten contacts, and his green eyes glowed with suppressed emotion as he swung Ginny across the grass of the outdoor dance floor.

The next song began, and Harry and Ginevra kept dancing. People were starting to whisper, but neither of them seemed to care. Harry was telling himself that he wanted to talk to Ginny about important Order matters—he had been writing to Ron and Hermione for the last few weeks, but he hadn't managed to find the nerve to write to Ginny. This was partly because he was so sad over Dumbledore's death, and partly because he felt terrible for breaking up with her, and also partly because he secretly wanted to get back together with her but didn't know how to say so. When he had come to the Weasleys' house three days before, he and Ron and Hermione and Ginny had all been inducted into the Order of the Phoenix, and had sat in on their first Order meeting in the living room of the Burrow. Bill had been there, and Fleur, and Mr. and Mrs. Weasley. The twins were on a mission Dumbledore had given them before he'd died, and they had only arrived back at the Burrow in time for the wedding this morning. The meeting wasn't even very important, but Harry used it as an excuse to keep holding Ginny in his arms.

Suddenly she leaned forward, and Harry stiffened, a little, thinking she was about to kiss him. Instead, she leaned close enough to whisper in his ear, and said, "I'm a Parselmouth, you know."

"You can't be," he said blankly, still a little disappointed that he hadn't been kissed. Then he realized what Ginevra had just said. "Wait—you're a what?"

"I'll show you after the dancing," said Ginevra. "It happened in my first year, when I was…" She hesitated, and Harry held her closer, remembering. In their first year as classmates—Harry's second year, Ginny's first—they had been brought together by fate and the machinations of Tom Riddle, who had possessed Ginny through an evil diary given to her by Mr. Malfoy. It had been a very traumatic experience, and both of them had almost died. "I've been wanting to tell you," Ginevra continued now, "but… it's hard to talk about, you know?"

"I know," said Harry, remembering some times he had wanted to tell her about, too, but hadn't been able to because the memories had been so painful. "How did it happen?"

"It was because I had to call the snake," she whispered. Harry looked around to make sure that no one else was close enough to hear what they were saying—because even if Ron and Hermione knew that he was a Parselmouth, and had accepted it, most people thought it was kind of freaky and he didn't want to ruin the wedding. Ginny must have felt the same way, because she leaned in even closer to him. Harry found himself blushing, even though she really wasn't doing anything bad. "I had to use my voice to say the things that—he… wanted me to say…" Harry hugged her, and Ginny gave a little sob. "It was awful, Harry, and I've wanted to tell you about it for so long. It felt like… It felt really bad."

"I know," Harry said, even though he really didn't. "Are you saying that you—somehow remembered, what he told you to say?"

"I remembered all of it," said Ginny, "and I even remembered words he never even used. When it was over—the summer after my first year—I went out for a walk one day and sat down on a stone, out where we play Quidditch in the summer? And there was a serpent there, and I heard it, Harry."

"What did it say?" Harry whispered.

"It said, Stupid human, get off my rock," Ginny said. Harry started to laugh, and then he looked around.

"Ginny, I think you spoke in Parseltongue," he whispered. Guests all over the dance floor had turned to look at them, all shocked and horrified, and all staring at Harry. He thought for a second, then said, "I'm sorry, all you lot. I was repeating a joke, and forgot what language I was speaking." Then he smiled, and Ginevra thought that Harry's smile must have gotten more charming over the summer. It wasn't her own opinion, either—everyone else seemed instantly pacified, and the party went back to normal.

"I'm sorry, Harry," said Ginny. Harry looked back at her, and saw that her eyes were brimming with unshed tears. "I think I'd like to go and sit down now, would you mind terribly?" Harry took Ginny by the arm and led her off the dance floor, then went and got some punch. They found a couple of folding chairs and carried them off far enough that no one else would hear them talking..

"Harry, I miss you," Ginny said when he sat down next to her. "I know you don't want to be distracted, and you don't want me to be in danger, but… I'm already in danger, Harry."

"I've been thinking about you all summer, Ginevra," said Harry. "I couldn't forget how beautiful you were, or how brave, or how—I know I don't deserve to ask it, Ginny, but can we get back together?" He waited, knowing she would reject him.

Ginevra grabbed Harry and kissed him, hard. "I love you, Harry Potter," she said. "I've been hoping you would say those words all summer, and I want you to know the answer is yes." She kissed him again.

The next time some of the wedding guests thought to wonder where Harry and Ginny had gotten to, Ron and Hermione went to find them. "Harry? Ginny?" Hermione called. Then Ron stopped, and stared. "What is it, Ron? Oh!" Hermione stopped, too.

"Well," said Ron, looking at the two abandoned folding chairs in the middle of the grass, and the kissing couple on the ground a little ways beyond them. "Hermione, do you remember that grass-stain-removing spell we learned last year?"

"Of course I do, Ronald," said Hermione. "Honestly, after all the times we've used it this week!" And she pulled her wand from the sash of her dress robes.