When Harry had returned outside, having put his luggage in Fred and George's room after his

encounter with Ginny, Harry found Ron and Hermione still in the yard.

"What took you so long?" Ron demanded as Harry reentered.

Harry hesitated before replying. Should he, or should he not tell them what happened?

"Erm…nothing," Harry lied. "J-Just thinking about the Horcruxes, y'know…."

Ron and Hermione's expressions turned anxious.

"Did you find out where one of them could be?" Hermione asked.

"Eh…no…." Harry replied, this time truthfully. He really didn't know where they could be.

"Well, Mum says we're going back to the Order soon," Ron said. "Y'know, after the wedding and Apparation. Maybe we'll find out stuff there."

At that moment, Mrs. Weasley stuck her head out of the kitchen window and said, "Come on, you three, it's time for dinner!"

As the trio sat down at the Weasley's shabby-looking table, they saw that they were the last ones to sit, except for Mrs. Weasley, who was putting a mountain of potatoes, rice, broccoli, and chicken onto everyone's plates.

Harry avoided looking at Ginny, who was sitting across from him. Immediately after everyone was served, Fleur started a speech about how she was going to do her hair for the wedding:

" - zi was theenking zat a bun wiz curly 'air falling from ze bottom of eet vould look nice, along wiz ze crown zou offered, Molly. Zor I was theenking of just curly 'air tied vack into a small ponytail zat did not use all of vy 'air - "

As Mr. Weasley and Mrs. Weasley were forced to listen to Fleur all through dinner, the trio ate in silence. Ginny was also forced to listen to Fleur when she said, "Oh, an' Ginny must do something wiz 'er 'air! Zy mean, eet is so long an' eet isn't wavy, curly, or even een a ponytail! Vy must certainly do something later on with eet to expeeriment - "

Harry ate in a painful silence. He was sure Ginny had been watching him (and not paying attention to Fleur's criticizing), but he couldn't understand why he wasn't talking to her. Was it because of the break-up, or embarrassment?

When dinner finally ended, Fleur finally stopped her speech and went up to Bill's room, (where he was still supposed to rest a lot even though he had been discharged from Madam Pomfrey's care a couple months ago) and Harry, Ron, and Hermione went up to Ron's room.

As usual, Ron's room was covered with Canon's posters.

Hermione plopped herself down on the foot of Ron's bed. She opened her mouth to speak when they were interrupted by Mrs. Weasley once again.

"Harry, dear," she said. "I didn't mean to interrupt, but could you go help Ginny scrub the dishes? I have to go give Bill his medicine and Arthur just had an urgent call from the Ministry."

"Er…sure, Mrs. Weasley…." Harry answered, though nervously.

When Harry arrived in the kitchen, Ginny had already begun cleaning the dishes.

"Er…hi…." Harry said uncertainly.

Ginny did not look mad at all, or how she had looked earlier.

"Hey…" she distractedly, looking around at the pile of dirty dishes. "Here's another towel…."

She tossed him one. He was about to start cleaning when….

"I have a better idea," Harry said confidently. This would be way too easy. Harry whipped his wand out of his pocket, pointed them at his pile of dishes, said, "Scourgify!" and the dishes were clean.

"Oi, you copied that from me in my fourth year!" Ginny said playfully.

"When did you copyright that spell?" Harry said jokingly. "I thought the Bat-Bogey hex was yours!"

"Both!"

"Fine, then the Patronus is mine…and Expelliarmus."

They both grinned at each other for a few moments until they realized what they were doing. Ginny twirled her wand, pointed it at her stack of dirty dishes, and muttered, "Scourgify!"

"You're not supposed to do magic outside of school," Harry said, though he honestly didn't care.

"Well, the Ministry won't catch me for two reasons," Ginny said merrily. "One: I'm in a Wizard house, and two, the Ministry is too busy with all the trouble going on to notice."

"Yeah," Harry conceded. "Though they still find the time to bombard me with mail."

"Really?" said Ginny curiously. "They didn't like you much last year, if I remember correctly. Well, obliviously I do remember because you yelled so loud that the whole conversation of how they 'slipped you in the Prophet' is still stuck in my head."

"Er…oh, right…."

"But don't worry about it," Ginny said briskly. "Being a hotheaded git is just a phase…."

But then she realized what she just said, and her whole face turned pink up to the roots of her red hair.

"I-I mean, that's j-just what you were acting like!" she stuttered, close to slurring her words. "'Cause, you know I don't feel that way about you! I really - "

But, once again, she spoke to soon, and now her face seemed to resemble the color of a tomato with her freckles blending in with her complexion. (To Harry, she looked cute even when she was embarrassed.)

"I'm just gonna go upstairs now," she said softly.

And with that, she sprinted out of the kitchen and up the stairs without another word.

Harry had just successfully made Ginny almost say how she liked him, when only he had said, "Er…oh, right….".

He smiled at the thought, then went back upstairs to find Hermione and Ron playing Wizard chess; Hermione losing horribly.

"Harry!" Hermione said happily as he returned to the room. Ron looked on the verge of criticizing her playing, and she looked keen to give him a distraction.

"How'd it go?" Ron asked, turning to Harry.

"Scourgify cleared the dishes up in a - "

"Not that!" Hermione snapped.

"Huh?" said Harry, clearly missing something in this conversation.

"Well, Mum didn't actually want you to clean!" Ron said irritably. "She set you up with Ginny!"

Harry was reminded of a television program he had heard when he was fifteen, eavesdropping under the outside window of the Dursley's living room: A woman's friend had set her up on a blind date.

"What makes you say that?" he asked.

"Because Mrs. Weasley could've Scourgify-ied all the dishes herself," Hermione said, looking at him rather pityingly.

"She obliviously wanted you to flirt or something," Ron said.

"Um…well, I guess it didn't go too well, then," said Harry sadly. He told them about Ginny had started embarrassing herself.

After Harry finished, Ron gave a low whistle.

"It's just like being eleven again for her, eh?" he said, grinning.

"Oh, Ron, don't be so immature!" Hermione snapped.

"What?"

"She was only a little nervous!"

"Well, I'm sorry I don't know all her emotions! I'm not Ginny's best friend!"

"I'm sure glad of that!"

"Excuse me, Hermione Jane?"

"It's just the same when you were fifteen, isn't it?"

"What d'ya mean?"

"You are still the most insensitive wart I've ever have the misfortune to meet!"

Ron, stung by this, retaliated by saying, "And yet, you still went out with McLaggen!"

Harry almost smiled. Ron and Hermione still bickered like and old couple, but he still felt that there was something he didn't know.