Hello everyone!

Chapter eight here. I'm sorry it's taken me so long to update. Please don't lynch me. I've been absolutely swamped with summer classes, and I just finished a round of midterms ( I should be writing a round of papers now, but whatever). Anyways, I hope you enjoy, and please review!

Thanks again to my amazing reviewers, SiriusObession, PottedLilies, DukeBrymin, and live4dance.

xxxxx

She did not look happy.

I gulped.

Maybe a little too loudly.

Ginny dropped my hand, and I didn't even have to look to know that she had flushed to the color of her hair.

"Ginevra, Harry," McGonagall finally said, "Where have you been?"

"Well, erm, you see—"

"We were only doing what Mum said—"

"The Burrow was a mess—"

"Enough!"

Ginny and I both fell silent.

"Now, one of you will give me a comprehensive account of where you have been for the past week."

"It was only four days—"

"Ginevra Weasley," McGonagall interrupted. Ginny immediately fell silent again. "Your mother has been absolutely distraught. Kingsley Shacklebolt was considering another search for the two of you. We have jut barely managed to keep the news of your disappearance from The Prophet. And as for convincing me that you were at The Burrow, Potter, you can try again. Molly looked for you there and couldn't find you. So I will repeat—where have you been?"

I took a deep breath. "We spent a day and a half at the Burrow. The rest of the time we were at Potter Manor."

I actually saw surprise on her face.

"Potter Manor? How did you find it?"

"Well, erm…" I still wasn't sure how to broach the subject of stealing a bunch of house-elves from the kitchens.

"It was my fault, Professor," Ginny cut in.

"No, wait, Gin, it wasn't all your fault—"

"Mum wanted me to go fix up the Burrow, so I thought maybe I could borrow a few house-elves to help me do it." Oh no, she's going to admit to the whole story, isn't she. "So we brought some with us, and we didn't realize that they only agreed to leave Hogwarts because they recognized Harry as a Potter, and they belonged to Potter Manor. So after a whole episode from Winnie the elves took us to Potter Manor and we spent the rest of our time there." She stopped and took a deep breath. I looked back at McGonagall, then breathed a sigh of relief as well.

She was slightly amused, slightly saddened, but no longer angry enough to take on a mountain troll.

"So the elves belonged to the Potter Manor and they took you to it?"

"Yes, Professor."

I just nodded with my eyes cast to the floor. Suddenly I couldn't stand to see the look on her face anymore. She looked like she was reminiscing, and I wasn't in the mood for it.

"Very well, then," McGonagall conceded. "Go and see your family. They will be glad to see you both in one piece."

We nodded and rushed out of the office.

xxxxx

"Hermione? Ron?"

"Move over, Harry, I want to talk to them too."

"Gin, they're not even there—"

"Oi! I'm here, I'm here!" Ron's voice called from somewhere in the room. I could barely make him out because of the smoke. Wherever they are, the chimney needs to be cleaned.

"Well get over here, you troll," Ginny snorted, having thrown in a pinch of powder and put her head into the flames. "We're kind of immobile here. You, on the other hand…"

"Alright, alright, I'm almost there," he called. But his footsteps stopped and he was still too hard to see.

"Erm, Ron?"

"Yeah, mate?"

"Where are you?"

"Right here. I just have to grab—OW!"

"Oh, honestly, Ron, what are you doing?" Ginny asked, obviously exasperated.

He settled in front of us a moment later, clutching a large tin of chocolate and something that was very poorly wrapped.

"Erm, so Gin, where wouldn't a girl look for a surprise?"

"What?"

"Your underpants drawer," I answered immediately, then promptly flushed.

Ron didn't seem to notice. He just shook his head. "No good, Hermione goes in there regularly to put my things away."

Ginny harrumphed. "Ronald Weasley, you are perfectly capable of putting away your own underpants."

"Yeah, but she always just does it. I dunno why."

"More like you don't care why, as long as you don't have to do anything," Ginny argued. "Honestly Ron, Mum taught you better than that—"

"Gin?" I cut in, "Can we talk about this some other time? That's not why we flooed."

She harrumphed again and crossed her arms in annoyance. An entirely pointless gesture, since Ron couldn't see anything other than her head.

I turned back to Ron. "Where is Hermione, anyway?"

"Right now, she's out shopping."

I paused for a moment.

"She's out shopping?"

"Yep."

Ron seemed to think that answer was self-explanatory, because he settled back into the couch and closed his eyes.

"Why is she out shopping?"

"She wants a new dress."

"She wants a new dress?"

"Yep."

"Oh, honestly, Ron," Ginny finally burst out a few moments later, "Why does she need a new dress? You're supposed to be looking for her parents!"

"Found'em. We're meeting them tomorrow. So she wants a new dress."

"Merlin's bloody torn pants," Ginny muttered, and I could practically feel her rolling her eyes from the sarcasm infused in her voice. "You couldn't have formed that sentence three minutes ago? You had to talk like a blithering idiot and leave us completely confused."

Ron merely shrugged. "She went shopping for a new dress to meet her parents. Tomorrow."

The chuckle that I had been holding in finally made its way out. "So Hermione found them? Has she talked to them yet?"

"Not yet. She wants to look nice."

"Hence the dress," Ginny commented dryly.

"Right, well, let us know how that goes, mate," I told him, settling back onto my feet. I suppose we can just chat a bit now, since they don't need my help to find the Grangers.

xxxxx

"Oh, it's so good to hear that they'll be home soon," Mum said with a relieved sigh as she straightened up pillows around the common room. I don't know why she was so worried. It's not like Voldemort was banished to Australia.

"It is, dear," Dad agreed, patting her back reassuringly.

"It will be so nice to have the kids back here, we haven't seen Ron properly in nearly a year." She re-straightened a pillow that she had already fixed three times. She was about to reach for it again before she realized what she was doing.

I saw Harry look down guiltily. Stupid boy, no one blames you. They're proud of Ron, not angry with you.

Mum sighed and moved to another couch just as George came down the boys' stairs, took a look around at us, then turned around and walked right back up the staircase.

Mum looked like she was about to go up after him, but Dad took her hand to keep her back. There was nothing she could do—nothing anyone could do—until George was ready to talk. He had taken to the life of a hermit since…well, since that night. We don't even see him at mealtimes anymore. Though I'm not sure if that's coming from his desire to avoid everyone or his current apathy toward food.

Either way, I could do nothing for him at the moment, so I settled back into the couch and saw Mum do the same. Harry was still staring at the floor.

Dad cleared his throat uncomfortably. "Well, why don't we all go down to the Great Hall for some dinner?"

"Dinner," Mum said, nodding somewhat distantly and moving to get up, "Dinner. Yes, dinner is a good idea…"

Dad followed her out of the portrait hole but Harry and I stayed put.

We were silent.

I didn't like it.

"How's the rebuilding coming along?"

Stupid. I shouldn't have said that. Small talk is ridiculous.

"It's coming along nicely," Harry responded, still not taking his eyes off the floor. "We should be ready to reopen the school in time for the new semester."

I nodded, not knowing how to draw it out any longer. I mean, what was I supposed to ask, what color bricks they were ordering?

"The Astronomy Tower has almost finished being rebuilt," he supplied, trying to prolong the small talk as well. "I'll have to talk to Luna about her mural—"

"It's not your fault, Harry," I blurted.

He fell silent.

"You know it is, Gin."

"It's not. And no one blames you."

"They should. I brought this on you all."

I couldn't help it. I laughed. Harry seemed to hate the sound.

"You didn't, Harry. You stopped lots more people from dying. That's all you ever did. And just because a few people died protecting you doesn't mean that you killed them all."

"Yes it doe—"

"Voldemort killed them, Harry. Voldemort. And they stood between you willingly because they knew that you could end it all, you just needed the time to do it. I bet if you were able to ask them they would all tell you that they didn't regret dying for you."

He was silent for a moment, thoughtful, as if he was considering something. Then his expression turned sour and angry again. "You can't know that."

I snorted in derision. "Right, I couldn't possibly know that Dumbledore knew how important you are, I've only watched him give you special treatment for years. I couldn't possibly know how much Sirius loved you, I only lived with the two of you for months. And I couldn't possibly know that any mother would die in her child's place."

I didn't bother giving the why's for that last one. I'm sure he can figure it out.

He took a deep breath, and as he turned his face away a saw a single tear trailing down his cheek.

"Harry," I murmured, wrapping my arms around him and burying my face in his chest. He wrapped his arms around me automatically, but I could tell that he was uncomfortable. "Harry you didn't hurt anyone. You tried to keep people from getting hurt. And you succeeded."

"And what about all the people who died? I didn't succeed, Ginny."

"Yes," I nodded against his chest, "You did. They knew what they were doing, and they knew that they might die for it. And they succeeded too, because we won."

Harry let out a breath that sounded suspiciously like a sob.

"How can you say that we won when we lost so much?"

"I look at what we gained, Harry. How else?"

xxxxx

After a rather odd songfest in which I comforted Harry—I had always imagined that if there were tears during a snog I would be the one getting comforted, but I suppose maybe I should take a step into the modern world—we went down to the Great Hall. We were both rather ravenous and ready for dinner.

We had just settled in next to a large steak and kidney pie when Luna plopped down across from us.

"Hello Harry, hello Ginny," she said airily, sipping something she carried with her. I've no guesses as to what it was, exactly, but it was large and colorful, with a convoluted straw twisting over the top.

We murmured our hello's.

"I've brought you some sketches, Harry," Luna said, producing an armful of parchment rolls. "I didn't put any crumple-horned snorkacks in, but you should know that they're crawling with wrackspurts."

I inspected the rolls over Harry's shoulder, and, while I admit I don't know what wrackspurts look like, I didn't see anything unusual on them.

"Wow, Luna, these are, erm, great," Harry said, looking through the rolls. "Why did you make so many?"

"You seemed worried about what I would draw," Luna explained. She seemed far too unaffected to be saying that she knew her sanity was being questioned. "I thought it was best to draw a few so that you could pick your favorite."

Harry flushed at her honesty and quickly busied himself with studying the drawings. "Well, they all look fantastic, thanks, Luna."

"Mmm," she murmured happily, already helping herself to treacle pudding. "I'm like the one with the exploding bonbon in it, but you can decide."

I held in a laugh as I saw Harry's eyes open a little wider. It seemed he found the exploding bonbon picture.

"Erm, I don't think that's quite the message we want to portray, Luna, but maybe the one with the centaur and the squid would be nice…"

That's when I started to tune them out.

I know I should have concentrated, to help Harry out of the awkwardly honest Luna moments.

I know I should have.

But that treacle pudding really was good.

xxxxx

I hope you liked it! Please review!