Hehehe... Long time, no see, huh? Before you all start to mentally yell at me for not updating in so long, I do have excuses. I have had an extremely busy three weeks because it's almost the end of the school year (seven days left, counting finals) and finals are next week, so I've been running around like a chicken with my head cut off. Then there are the award ceremonies, concerts, and friend drama just adding to the fun. Sometimes I wish life could be spread out, but where's the fun in that?

Oh, well. Here's the next chapter. I hope it's a good one.

~Robin

Disclaimer: My FIRST initial is 'R', not my last one. That should be enough evidence that I'm not JKR.

Chapter 12

December 31st 1998

"Kids!" Molly's voice called, ringing through the Burrow all the way up to Ron's room. "Hermione's arrived!"

Ron's head shot up. He had been antsy all day, not even able to sit still long enough to play a game of chess with Harry, not that Harry really wanted to play against Ron. He was just trying to keep his best mate's mind off of Hermione. He, Harry, and Ginny had been hanging out that day, as the twins were off with Katie and Angelina figuring out their final plans for that night, and Charlie and Percy were spending their days with Alicia and Penelope, respectively, even though they would all be seeing each other that night for a New Years' Eve party either way.

Basically, Ron was the only one not spending time with his girlfriend, and was moody because of it. Harry and Ginny were even together, although they weren't alone. They hadn't been left alone together for more than ten minutes since they had gotten to the Burrow, partially because of Ron, and partially because (they thought) the others were purposely entering any room that they were alone in. Ginny was getting increasingly more annoyed with them as time went on.

Ron ran down the stairs, but Ginny and Harry came to a silent consensus that they would stay there, giving Ron and Hermione a few minutes together, and allowing themselves a few minutes to be alone as well.

Ginny lost no time and crawled over to sit in Harry's lap, winding her arms around his neck and pulling his lips to hers. Harry kissed back, lips moving roughly as he opened her mouth with his tongue, eliciting a quiet moan from her and causing one of her hands to move farther up, into his hair.

Unfortunately, that was as far as they got before the door was flung open and Hermione and Ron entered, snogging of course.

"Ahem," Harry said, clearing his throat loudly to get his two best friends' attention.

They didn't change from their heated snogging, and in fact, moved over to sit on Ron's bed. "Oh, bloody hell," Ginny groaned, standing up and taking Harry's hand. "If they're going to snog in here, we're going to snog in my room."

Harry shrugged and followed her out, leaving Ron and Hermione snogging on the bed. After about ten more minutes, the two of them finally broke apart, gasping for breath and grinning at each other widely. "I missed you more than you could possibly believe," Hermione said quietly, cuddling up to her boyfriend's side.

"I think I can believe that, and more, considering that I missed you more than anyone could ever imagine," Ron said, teasing her gently. Then he looked around the room, frowning slightly.

"What's wrong?" Hermione asked him.

"Harry and Ginny were in here. I wonder where they went..."

"I think they might have left when we came in snogging and didn't stop," Hermione pointed out, chuckling at his confused face.

Ron swore. "Now I have to go stop them from snogging," he complained, starting to stand up before Hermione forcefully pulled him back down onto the bed.

"No. You won't," she said firmly. Ron looked like he was about to protest. "I'm sure you've been doing that this whole holiday, and trying not to leave them alone, along with the rest of your brothers, which, if it continues, will only lead to a build-up of more sexual tension between the two of them, which will lead to something that you most definitely don't want to happen."

Ron opened his mouth, thought about he wanted to say, and then closed it again. He repeated this twice more before finally managing to get out, "So if we leave them alone all the time they're less likely to have sex than if we keep them apart all the time," sounding completely dumbfounded.

"Well, not all the time. But yes, if you keep them apart all the time then when they're finally alone they'll just go farther than they would have if they had been allowed some time together before, and hadn't been able to release all their built-up sexual tension," Hermione explained.

Ron nodded uncertainly, but eventually decided to just listen to whatever Hermione had to say. She was usually right about, well... everything. He kissed her again before saying quietly, "I love you."

"I love you too, you prat," Hermione sighed.

"I don't think I did anything there that made me deserve to be called a prat," Ron objected.

"Sorry, force of habit," Hermione shrugged, before placing a sound kiss on his lips once more, effectively shutting him up.

The two coupled finished their afternoons that way, before the rest of the Weasleys and their respective girlfriends started showing up back at the Burrow, ready for the party that had been promised for the night. Neville and his grandmother were also coming, along with Luna and her father, Lee Jordan, Hagrid, and a few others.

The area around the Burrow had some heating charms placed around it, courtesy of Bill, who had modified the spell from a wide-range freezing charm he had discovered in one of the tombs he found in Egypt. Because of that, they were able to hold the party outside instead of having everybody crammed into the the Burrow, which definitely would not hold the forty-ish people that were going to be there.

As it got darker outside, the guests began to arrive. The biggest shock of the night was when Lee came, accompanied by none other than Padma Patil, Parvati's twin sister who was in Ravenclaw, who Lee had apparently fancied for a while at school and had asked out before Hogwarts had started in September that year. When Harry asked Ginny about this she replied, "Of course I knew! I just didn't think that you would care," before going off to talk with Alicia about the Holyhead Harpies, who Alicia was now playing quidditch for, and who Ginny was hoping to play for in the future.

By the time midnight was almost upon them, everyone had been drinking enough alcohol to be acting quite oddly. Hagrid was singing loudly in an extremely off-key voice, a large bottle of firewhiskey clutched in his huge hand. Fred, George, and Charlie had all disappeared into the woods around the house with their respective girlfriends. Even Molly and Arthur were laughing more than usual and looking slightly pink in the face.

At around five minutes to midnight, Fred and George had both appeared back and were happily setting up their boxes of fireworks, which were going to be set off right at the first moment of the new year. Harry went to find Ginny, as all of the other couples were already pairing themselves off, ready to bring in the new year together; a year free of Voldemort, Death Eaters, and unexpected attacks. They were ready to bring in a year that would be absent of fear for the first time in eight years.

Harry and Ginny found each other and pulled off into a secluded area under a tree, but still in full view of the party and fireworks. They joined the countdown with the rest of the group and when the fireworks went off, releasing their light and colors into the air, Ginny and Harry's lips met, just for a second, before parting again. But that second was the longest second they had ever felt. Bringing in the new year with the person they loved gave them an intense feeling of happiness and love, the meeting of their lips seemed to add to the firework display around them. "I love you, Harry," Ginny breathed after they separated.

"I love you too, Gin," Harry replied, leaning down to take her lips gently with his once more.

"Stay in my room tonight," Ginny whispered in his ear.

Harry thought about it. He really wanted to, that was true, but he couldn't. "I can't, Gin," he said regretfully.

"Nobody'll know. Fred, George, and Charlie will go home with their girlfriends, Percy never comes into my room, and Ron doesn't care. Plus we know that Mum and Dad'll have the other two wake us up. Nobody will be the wiser," she promised, looking at him pleadingly.

"I suppose I'll have to join you, then," Harry said, kissing her again, before they joined the party once more. It lasted a few more hours before people started to leave, and soon, the crowds were all gone, the yard looking slightly trampled and trashed, but easily fixable with magic, and the house was almost empty, with only six or seven people left in it.

Some of the fireworks were still scattered through the sky, occasionally letting of a small burst of light before blinking out, or another miniature explosion of sound, but not enough to keep the residents of the Burrow awake any longer.

Ron and Harry reached a silent agreement that Hermione and Harry would be switching places for the night, and the two couples went their separate ways at Ginny's room, Harry following his girlfriend in as Hermione and Ron continued up the stairs.

Ginny brought Harry over to her bed and took off her shirt, leaving herself with a tank-top on underneath, along with her jeans, which she wriggled out of before pulling on some pajama pants, too lazy to care whether Harry saw, and secretly wanting him to see. Harry did see, but tried not to concentrate on it as he took his sweater off, choosing to leave on his t-shirt and jeans.

"If you keep undressing in front of me, I might just give in to the temptation," Harry whispered seductively into her ear, running his hands up and down her sides.

"I'll just have to keep doing that then, won't I?" Ginny asked him with a cocked eyebrow climbing into her bed. Harry followed her without any hesitation and slipped his arms around her waist, pulling her close to him.

Harry chuckled and kissed her hair once before fading off into sleep. Ginny soon followed him, a contented smile on her face as she nestled herself deeper into Harry's arms.

January 3rd 1999

"Are you all ready yet?" Harry asked impatiently.

Ginny rolled her eyes at him. "Yes. Now let's go before your head explodes," she said, leading him out the door, Ron and Hermione following them. The four of them were going to a meeting at Gringott's that day about Harry's vault. He needed to know how much money he had inherited from both his parents, and from Sirius.

After they were out of the Burrow's front gate, they each apparted to the bottom of the steps outside of Gringotts, the huge white marble building looming high over their heads.

Harry took Ginny's hand and, Ron and Hermione following them, they headed into the grand building. Harry went up to one of goblins at a desk that was ready to assist the witches and wizards wishing to make transactions.

"Excuse me?" he asked, getting the goblin's attention.

The goblin turned to face him and looked down his long crooked nose in the direction of the four young witches and wizards. "Yes?" he asked.

"I'm Harry Potter and I set up a meeting to day about the contents of my vault," Harry said quickly, wanting to escape the goblin's piercing stare.

"Ah, yes," the the goblin said, looking at a list he had written on his desk. He hopped down from his chair. "Please follow me to one of our meeting rooms." He looked at Ginny, Ron, and Hermione. "Do you wish for the rest to accompany you?"

"Of course," Harry said, gesturing for them to come with him. They trailed behind the goblin, who lead them to a large glass door and bowed them in.

The foursome entered to see another goblin already inside who immediately stood up to greet them. "Hello, Mr. Potter, I presume," he said, turning to Harry and bowing.

"That would be me," Harry said.

"Of course. I am Hingorn. I have been in charge of the Potter vaults since your grandparents' youth," Hingorn said, introducing himself.

"Vaults?" Harry asked, surprised. He had only known about the one vault before. The one he thought of as his vault.

"Yes, the Potter family has an everyday vault for normal storage and much of their gold, the vault that contains your direct inheritance, along with a deeper family vault with relics that were taken from the Potter manor after your parents' deaths," Hingorn explained, taking a seat, and gesturing for the four of them to do the same.

"Wow," Harry said, shocked.

"The Potter family has been collecting treasures and riches for many generations, Mr. Potter," Hingorn said. "I understand that you need to know the contents of each of these vaults?"

"Yes, that would be great," Harry said.

"Well, the vault that you have been going to since you rejoined our world, contains only the gold your parents allowed to get you through your school years, along with your inheritance from Mr. Black, and the belongings of your parents' that were in their house at their death and were moved from the general storage vault when you came of age." Harry nodded, having already seen this. "The general storage vault has more gold from both the Potters and Blacks, along with the rest of your parents' belongings that were not in their house, and everything that was in Potter Manor when your grandparents' died."

"So what's left in the older vault?" Harry asked Hingorn curiously.

"Ah, yes. That would be the tapestries, paintings, and other decorations, that were in Potter Manor. There are also many of the remaining family jewels, plates, cups, and other heirlooms that once were used in or decorated the manor," Hingorn explained.

"And what about property?" Harry questioned.

"The Potter family owns the cottage in Godric's Hollow and Potter Manor, which is a few miles outside of the village, in Britain. You also own a townhouse in Paris, France, a home in the French countryside, a beach house in Los Angelas, California, and a Villa in southern Italy. Mr. Black also left you the Black family home and a flat over Diagon Alley," Hingorn said, reading from a piece of parchment that he had taken from a file on the table.

Harry could feel the stares of the other three on him, but tried let his mouth fall open at the sheer amount of stuff that he owned. It was so foreign to him because of how he had lived with the Dursley's for the first ten years of his life, back when he hadn't known that he owned anything and had been living only on what they would allow him.

"Would you like to see the vaults, Mr. Potter?" Hingorn asked, breaking the temporary silence in the room.

"Just the everyday vault and my own, please," Harry said, snapping out of his thoughts. "I'll save the family vault until after I'm out of Hogwarts and have time to deal with everything in it."

"Excellent," Hingorn said, picking up his papers. "If you would follow me, we'll go down to the everyday vault first and then pay a visit to your own."

The four followed him in silence to the track where the carts were and climbed in. Harry sat up front with Hingorn while Ginny, Ron, and Hermione filed into the back.

As soon as they were all settled down, the cart shot off through the twisting passageways. Harry, as usual, enjoyed the ride, but everybody else, when they got to their final destination, were looking a little bit green.

The four teenagers followed as Hingorn led them to a large door. Unlike Harry's personal vault, this one had no key-hole. Instead, Hingorn ran one of his claw-like fingernails down a short length of the door. The click of gears turning echoed quietly through the tunnel as the door's magical mechanisms unlocked and the door slid slowly open, revealing a large room filled with furniture; chests, trunks, filled bookshelves, wardrobes, chairs, and boxes were taking up the majority of space in the room. Besides those, there was also a large area that was just filled with more gold. It was about the same amount that Harry had in his vault.

"Wow, Harry. This stuff is amazing," Hermione breathed. "Do you see the craftsmanship on this chest. The carving are so intricate and beautiful."

Harry walked over to where she was standing in front of a large mahogany chest. The details were so small that he couldn't understand how anybody could possible have carved them into the wood. Then he realized that they had probably used magic, and so unlike Muggles, it would have been relatively easy, if time consuming, to carve the patterns.

Hermione was already standing up to look at something else before Harry said, "Um, Hermione. We don't really have time to look through everything in detail right now. I was just going to look around and then sort through everything properly during the summer."

"Of course," Hermione retorted with a small roll of her eyes. "I was just looking at this one because it caught my eye. Look," she said, pointing to the the small gap where the top and bottom of the small chest met. There were pieces of parchment that looked like they were overflowing it. Hermione handed it to him and Harry tried to open it, but it had a lock on it. He tried to think of whether he had a key anywhere before he remembered the key to his vault. He took the tiny golden key out of his pocket and inserted it into the gold lock on the front of the chest. He heard a small click and the top popped up, several papers flying out. Ginny and Ron, who had been attempting to make their way around the rest of the room, came over to the other two, who were grabbing the spilled papers from the ground and putting them back on top of the other ones in the box.

"What are all those?" Ron asked curiously.

"Dunno," Harry answered, starting to flip through them curiously, taking a cursory glance at each as he picked it up before moving onto the next. His eyes widened. "They look like letters, some of them. All addressed to me from my parents." He skimmed through one. "It's about managing the Potter estates," he said. "There are deeds to the properties in here too," he added, seeing the more official-looking documents located on the bottom of the chest, all folded neatly.

"That's terrific Harry!" Hermione exclaimed. "These should explain everything you need to know. We can help you go through it all during the summer before we start working."

"You just gave our summers away without asking us," Ginny pointed out to Hermione.

"Like you wouldn't help either way," Hermione retorted.

"Of course I would," Ginny said with a grin. Ron rolled his eyes and looked around the whole room in slight awe, still taking in how much his best mate owned.

Harry closed all the papers and letter back into the chest before taking out his wand and shrinking it. He put it into his pocket and turned to Hingorn, who had been waiting patiently by the door as the foursome perused the vault. "We'll go up to my main vault now," Harry said to the goblin, who nodded and gestured that he would follow them out. They four teens climbed back into the cart while Hingorn closed the vault before waddling back to the cart.

The cart flew off, heading up to the higher levels of the bank where Harry's regular vault was. After a couple of minutes, it screeched to a halt and the passengers all scrambled out. Harry gave Hingorn his key and the goblin inserted it into the hidden keyhole before handing it back to Harry as the vault door swung open.

"Now," Hingorn explained, "this vault contains the trust fund your parents left you, the additional two million galleons that was transferred when you came of age, and the Black fortune and vault contents. The Black vault contents have been moved to the back and I can give you a detailed list of all of that along with anything else that you would like to have a copy of."

"Thank you Hingorn. I'll just take out some gold right now, but can I get a copy of that whole folder to look through?" Harry requested.

"Of course," Hingorn said. He snapped his fingers and gave the now copied folder to Harry, keeping the other for himself. Harry took the offered folder and shrunk it to put in his pocket along with the chest of letters and documents. He then took out his money bag and filled it with gold before exiting the vault, the door swinging closed behind him and locking with a loud series of clicks.

The foursome boarded the cart again and it took them on one last stomach-turning journey to the main tunnel where all the carts left from. Hingorn escorted them to the door and told Harry that they could arrange a meeting any time before the two couples left Gringott's. They went to the Leaky Cauldron for lunch before going back to the Burrow.

January 5th 1999

The whistle went off one last time before the Hogwarts Express pulled out of the station, full of students returning for the winter term, families waving them off from the platform. Harry, Ginny, Neville, and Luna were sitting in a compartment, waiting for Ron and Hermione to be done with their Prefect meeting.

The last two days at the Burrow had mainly been filled with finishing up homework and looking through Harry's folder, but that job still had a lot left of it to do.

After about a half an hour of mindless chatting on the train, Hermione and Ron came in and sat down next to each other. Harry and Ginny had the two seat across from them while Neville and Luna were sitting across from each other closest to the compartment door.

"How was the meeting?" Harry asked them.

"Pretty good," Hermione answered at the same time that Ron said, "Boring."

Hermione glared at him, as she had been the one running the meeting. Ernie MacMillan, who was Head Boy that year, had stayed at Hogwarts over the Holiday, so she had been the only Head on the train.

"We just went over the patrol schedule for the ride and a couple things that McGonagall wanted me to mention," Hermione told Harry.

Harry nodded and turned back to Ginny, who was reading through a recent copy of Witch Weekly. He took a glance at her page and was shocked to see a picture of himself taking up most of the left page. Ginny looked up to see Harry reading over her shoulder, a confused look on his face. "It's a personality quiz. 'How Close is the Chosen One to Choosing You?'" she read from the top of the page.

"Do they have a lot of those?" Harry asked her.

"Eh, there's something related to you about every other issue. For a few months you were in every issue, but the hype is starting to die down a little bit now. Plus they know you have a girlfriend. For a couple of weeks after the world found that out they tried to speculate when we would break up, but then they gave up on that prospect around October and are exclaiming about what a great couple we are," Ginny explained.

Harry was open-mouthed. "It's quite true, Harry," Luna said. "Many girls across the country are very much in love with you."

Harry's mouth opened and closed several times, but no words came out of it. Eventually he just gave up trying to come up with a proper response and instead turned to glare at Ginny, who had been laughing hysterically at him. When she saw his glare her laughs subsided to hiccups. "Oh, please," she snorted. "If it was me you'd be laughing as much as I was."

"I don't really think I would. I'd probably be trying to hunt down all the guys who want you for themselves," Harry replied teasingly; however, he was actually very serious. Ginny was his, and nobody else's.

"You have nothing to worry about," Ginny said, rolling her eyes and giving him a quick peck on the lips. Harry smiled at her and pulled her into his lap.

"Is everybody in this compartment going to be snogging soon?" Neville asked, bringing Harry and Ginny out of their own little world that they had temporarily fallen into.

"What do you mean?" Harry asked, then saw Ron and Hermione snogging in their seat. "Oh, them. They've been snogging almost constantly since Hermione came back from her parents'. Ron claims that they're 'making up for lost time.'" Harry explained.

"It's actually quite disgusting to watch," Luna said dreamily.

"Yeah, we usually try to leave the room whenever they start at it," Ginny said, throwing the entwined couple a disgusted look. "Now, can we get back to our snogging?" she asked, turning to face Harry again and looking at him expectantly.

"We never really started but I'd be perfectly fine with that," Harry said with a grin, placing a kiss on Ginny's lips. She quickly wrapped her arms around his neck, one hand winding into his hair and pulling his lips closer to hers.

"If everybody is going to kiss then we should probably close the shades," Luna pointed out to Neville. He blushed scarlet and leaned over to pull the shade down. He leaned back against his seat again and tried in vain for several minutes to ignore the two snogging couples in the compartment, instead focusing on his girlfriend.

Luna was staring dreamily out the window, her blond hair hanging in a sheet over her shoulder, and her grey eyes with their specks of silver and blue wide and bright.

Suddenly, Luna looked back and met Neville's eyes. "You know, Neville, the scars on your face make you look quite handsome, in a rugged way," she said thoughtfully.

"Er, do they?" Neville said awkwardly, scratching around his collar, which had seemed to become quite itchy and warm in a very short amount of time.

"Yes," Luna said mildly. "I'd very much like to snog you right now," she finished before crossing the small space between them and planting her lips on his. Neville relaxed, wrapping his arms around her. It just felt natural to kiss Luna, even if it was odd that there were two other snogging couples around them and that they were in a compartment of a moving train.

There was the sound of the sliding door to the compartment opening. "Damn it!" somebody swore, causing the attention of the three snogging couples to turn to the newcomer.

"Hello, Dean," Luna said politely. "Would you like to come in?"

"Well, I was trying to get away from Parvati and Lavender gossiping, but apparently that's not going to work," Dean tried to explain.

"Next time don't walk into a compartment when the shade's drawn," Ron suggested.

"Yes, and you should be teaching him common sense," Ginny snorted. Ron scowled at her.

"Why were you trying to escape anyway?" Harry asked quickly. "Just try to change the subject or something."

"Well, I would have, but I really just wanted to be alone with Parvati since we haven't seen each other for three weeks, but apparently I'm not in her agenda right now," Dean complained.

"You mean you wanted to snog and she didn't?" Luna clarified. Dean nodded. "You should know that most girls don't want to just snog all the time."

There was a moment of silence. Then normal conversation started back up, the shade was put back to its usual position, and Dean left to go find Parvati again. The train ride from there on went as normal, and the returning feast was a good welcome back. The seventh years knew that they were about to get a huge increase in workload, along with having to start thinking about job applications, but decided to put it off from their minds for the moment, preferring to keep their work-less evening stress-free. It was certain that for the next five months until their N.E.W.T.'s there wouldn't be many evenings like it.

Yay! Another chapter done, and another should be on its way soon. Please, please review. I know I've been neglecting you lately, but you don't have too neglect me to get even. Please tell me what you thought of the chapter!