Chapter 6: DA reinstated

The party was still in full flow when the DA, and a few other of their friends, congregated in Harry's room. One of the gigglers poked her nose around the door at one point and proclaimed them to be party poopers and disappeared off downstairs once more. Harry thought he could hear her chanting Harry Potter, Party Pooper as she went. The friends smiled at each other and carried on talking.

Harry wasn't sure when the party downstairs finished but it was sunrise when someone mentioned how quiet it was. Several of the DA had fallen asleep for short periods and woken and talked some more. Ginny was asleep at his feet, well worth a tease when she woke as she looked like a red-setter sleeping at the feet of its master. He'd taken a throw from the back of the sofa he was leaning against and placed it over her sleeping body when she'd first drifted off.

Hermione and Victor Krum were having a heated discussion which seemed to be about the reintroduction of sporting events in the new wizard society. And Hermione seemed to be arguing that Quidditch was an essential component of normalisation. Wonders would never cease! Ron was watching them, smiling. Another wonder. Harry didn't know at what point Ron had become secure enough to let his girlfriend talk to another man, especially Krum, without looking daggers. It was good to see.

And Neville - talk about confident - was sitting with Hannah's legs draped across his knees, laughing and touching her arm nonchalantly as they talked. Hannah had blossomed during the year at Hogwarts when she'd rejoined the DA and it was obvious she now admired Neville greatly. Neville didn't look like he was settling for second best either. Perhaps getting Ginny's friendship back had released him to look elsewhere. Harry certainly hoped so, they looked good together and he'd be pleased to think he'd had a hand in it.

Harry gently moved Ginny's arms from around his ankles and got up to squeeze past his friends. He carefully made his way down the stairs, past a number of slumbering guests. He smiled, coming across Stan Shunpike and several of the giggling girls, now fast asleep, draped over the sofas in his living room, Stan lightly snoring. He hoped that Stan wouldn't be in trouble with his work later on. It was late when he'd joined them and possibly the end of his shift.

Kreacher was asleep under one of the cupboards in the kitchen, wrapped in a sparkly, mauve, girls' cardigan, smiling in his sleep. Harry fixed himself a sandwich with some of the leftovers and sat at the kitchen table with a mug of tea and munched contentedly. Life was good. Life was very good. He had a woman who loved him, good friends, weekly day-release Auror training was going well, a career that he adored waiting for him when he had got through his final exams, somewhere to live, enough to live on and to be able to treat his friends occasionally. It was good to get back together with the DA too. Hermione had been right about a reunion being therapeutic. It was good to see how well they were all doing after all the trials they'd gone through the past year or so.

The Weasleys were also doing well under the new regime. Arthur had been promoted and was supervising two departments; his beloved Misuse of Muggle Artifacts and also a new department that looked into Muggle Liaison. Arthur was personally responsible for speaking directly to the Prime Minster as well as training heads of departments in the States and many of the European Ministries. Harry suspected that much of what he taught was taken directly from consultations with Hermione's parents, who he spent long weekends with whenever possible since they had returned from Australia.

Arthur had stepped down from the Office for the Detection and Confiscation of Counterfeit Defensive Spells and Protective Objects. Harry knew that Percy Weasley was high up in the department since his father left but couldn't remember the name of the witch who'd taken over as department head. She wasn't someone that he knew and the fact that Percy spoke so highly of her didn't mean much to him.

George had turned out to be a great businessman and Weasley's Wizard Wheezes was a roaring success with the latest franchises opening up in Switzerland, New Zealand and the Congo that month. The franchise idea had come from Angelina who'd now become George's partner in more ways than one and moved in with him just after the first successful franchise opened in Paris. They'd kept Fred's memory alive by introducing a new range of products in their budget line for younger shoppers with discounts to students at Hogwarts, Beauxbatons and Durmstrang. Harry suspected that the Hogwarts professors wouldn't all be so enthusiastic as their pupils about this.

It all meant that the Weasleys were now rather well to do. They didn't spend their new wealth on anything very life changing, however. Molly and Arthur still lived in the Burrow, but there were a few labour saving devises and they didn't have to worry about making ends meet. It took the pressure off Harry too, who always had wanted to pay his way when they took him in and he had spent long periods living at the Burrow. Molly and Arthur would never take a single Knut from him and it had hurt to think they wouldn't let him help them out when he had the money there.

Other than being able to take Molly with him on work trips abroad, for which she'd need an entire new wardrobe of clothes, the one small luxury was that Arthur had bought a Muggle caravan. He had already taken Molly to the Lake District to visit some distant cousins near Hawkshead. Ginny and Ron had been amused by the changes that Arthur had made; little wizarding changes, space saving devices. He'd fitted an entire bathroom with a bidet and a Jacuzzis in a shower cubicle and a wardrobe large enough for two of Molly's new ballroom dresses, dress robes for the whole family as well as day to day clothing, all in a broom cupboard. And when they were on their trip the cousins had installed a Welsh-dresser and all its contents into a tiny cupboard as a present for Molly.

The best thing for Harry was to see the family dressed in new clothes and Ron riding a new broom. Harry felt happier being able to enjoy buying things for himself and for Ginny when the rest of the family was doing so well. It had taken the gloss off buying things for himself, knowing the rest of the household never had anything new.

The kitchen door opened and Neville poked his head around the door. They smiled at each other and Harry saw the confident young man that he noticed a few times since the formation of the DA. He was proud to know someone like Neville.

"Want some company, or you hiding out?" Neville asked considerately.

Harry beckoned him in and went to put more water in the kettle. "I'm about ready for a bacon sandwich - want one?" asked Harry.

Neville grinned, "Sure you want to go there? That's one of those things that escalates and suddenly you're feeding the five thousand. I see you've a few house guests you weren't counting on, Harry."

Harry wasn't daunted. Nothing seemed impossible with all his friends around him. "We'll deal with that when it happens," he said confidently. "Take me minutes to get to the Burrow and back with a bag of goodies; Molly will think all her Christmases have come together if we ask for her help. She likes to know what we've eaten anyway and I'm sure she's not confident that Kreacher can feed all us boys properly, and that all the girls are risking anorexia, when she's not providing the meals."

Neville nodded. "Ok, anything I can do, just ask."

Harry liked spending time with his newly confident friend not least, he admitted to himself, because he'd seen Neville with another woman, someone who wasn't his Ginny and looking more than just averagely attentive. "So, you and Hannah, eh?" he probed.

Neville blushed slightly and his face lit up. "She says she was interested all through that year we were holed up in Hogwarts. But I didn't notice. She'd rather hoped I was just being gallant while things were so dire. I just thought she was grasping onto someone who was prepared to lead and didn't know she actually found me, well, you know, attractive." He blushed more deeply.

"It was after you came round, when you brought Ginny over, I decided I had to get out more and I met Hannah at the Leaky Cauldron. She was working behind the bar and it was a quiet day so we got talking. I was supposed to be meeting Dean. He apparently came in and saw me with Hannah and quietly left again. He'd thought we were made for each other when we were in the DA but not been happy in love himself at the time so hadn't said anything. He was going to when we arranged to meet, which is why he chose to go there, and then thought the best thing he could do would be to leave us to it. Funny what being in love can do to you," Neville continued wistfully.

"In love?" Harry asked.

"Oh, didn't he tell you? Dean met someone in the Czech Republic when he was over doing that art show as part of the recent diplomacy initiative." Harry grinned. Diplomacy and making international links with other wizarding and Muggle communities seemed to be flavour of the month since Kingsley had become Minster of Magic. It was a good feeling to know the organisation was in such good hands.

"When I say someone, I don't mean a woman either. Turns out that Dean was too embarrassed, sharing a dorm with a bunch of guys, to say he's gay. Like it would have mattered!" Neville sounded rather definite that everyone else would have been as cool with their dorm-mates sexuality as Neville obviously was. Harry wondered whether his reaction would have been as accepting, though he would of course have been pleased that Dean would have been out of the running for Ginny's affections. He was pretty certain that Seamus wouldn't have been so thrilled.

"So that's nearly all of us sorted," Neville said in pleased tones, "Except for Luna, of course. We need to find someone weird, but nice, for her. There must be someone out there." Harry rather doubted it himself, but he certainly hoped so, Luna was a very special person and deserved all the happiness she could get.

"I can't think of anyone we know. Victor Krum's free, I believe, but not smart enough for Luna. She needs someone who can stretch her but not dismiss all her less conventional notions," Harry said reasonably.

Neville nodded, "She's not as bad, or at least as weird, as she used to be, not that she was never a bad person. A lot of it came from her father. And Xenophilius is more subdued than he used to be and has less influence over Luna too. She tells him what to write about more often than not and what to publish in the Quibbler. It's changed a lot since those articles they published from interviews with you. And even more since the war and Luna's become more involved. Luna lost her rag with him after he tried to turn you in and he's been a different man since. He even researches his pieces and gives a few facts along with the speculation and made-up stuff. And Harry?"

"Yeah!"

"That bacon's burning!" Neville warned with a smirk.

Neville was right. The smell of cooking, or rather burning, bacon brought a lot of guests out of the woodwork. Harry gave away his own slightly burnt rashers to Stan, who looked slightly hung-over and confused by all the attention form the girls, and he was preparing to visit the Burrow to ask Molly for more supplies. By that time Kreacher had woken and Harry set him cooking the next batch for people who'd just followed the smell into the kitchen. Kreacher looked like the cat who got the cream and busily set about his business.

There is nothing like the smell of cooking bacon to bringing people out, and even the vegetarians were considering converting for the morning until Harry pointed them towards the supply of Quorn he kept for when his cousin, Dudley and his new girlfriend visited. He felt slightly guilty about not inviting Dudley, but then he'd not realised it would be more than a few DA members. Next time, he'd ask him next time.

He'd been right to think that Molly would be pleased to be asked for fresh supplies. She would have been happy to come herself and cook until Harry said it might put Kreacher's nose out of joint. She gave him several enormous bags of goodies, including five kinds of pure fruit juice, sausages, eggs, bacon, three different types of rolls and some cream cheese and smoked salmon when she heard that there were a couple of Jewish friends of DA members who'd come along. "It's quite a delicacy, we had it when Arthur and I visited in New York last year, when Arthur went to meet the liaison to the American President," she told him proudly. Harry had heard the story so many times, but didn't begrudge Molly finding any excuse to tell it. She'd had precious few similar stories to tell of Arthur's career over the years. It was about time she had something she could boast of. He also doubted that smoked salmon and cream cheese rolls were much of a delicacy, but he didn't want to hurt her feelings about that either.

It might not have been the meeting that Hermione had originally planned, but she couldn't deny that it had been a huge success. "You should do one every year. Open house, Harry. Just a celebration of being alive, being free to meet and have fun with no harassment no restrictions." And Harry agreed.

Notes: As always, these are JK's characters and in no way my own.
I've spent years defending the position that there was never and could never be anything between Harry and Hermione, whether or not Ron was in the picture. JK, however, once commented that there might have been something between them if not for Ron. The films have hinted more at that than the books ever did and I didn't think it was a going concern until I heard the author's own thought on the matter. Bowing to her greater knowledge and understanding of the characters which she created, I chose to add this to my own story. Like it or loath it, it's down to JK and not me - blame her! =;-)