Harry Potter belongs to JK Rowling. This is a work of fiction for entertainment only. No copyright infringement is intended.

This is a story I wrote for my children. It follows the canon up to but excluding the epilogue of Deathly Hallows.

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Chapter 1

Harry Potter leaned back in his brown leather chair and stretched. It had been another long day in the auror office even though he was "just" in training. Ron and Hermione, his two best friends, had already left for the day, both being rather faster at the paperwork than he was. Hermione was always faster at paperwork, and Ron just couldn't be fussed with detail, Harry thought with a small smile.

They were all looking forward to a wonderful meal and evening spent relaxing at the Burrow, Ron's family home. Molly and Arthur, Ron's parents, had invited him and Hermione over for the evening as they often did on Fridays.

Harry closed his eyes for a moment and thought back over the last eighteen months of his life. It was amazing how much had happened. After the wizarding war was over, it had been decided by the Hogwarts Board of Governors that the last year of school was to be repeated for everyone. So, under the capable leadership of new headmistress Minerva McGonagall and with the help of hundreds of volunteers, the ancient castle had been quickly rebuilt and Harry, Ron and Hermione returned for a last year. Ginny, Ron's younger sister, returned also to redo her sixth year. She had spent most of the last year either in detention under the evil professors Carrow or in hiding at her Aunt Muriel's after it was revealed that Ron was on the run with Harry.

During the year a lot had changed, not just in how the school was run, but in the students' relationships as well. Ron and Hermione, though they had felt great affection for each other for many years, finally tired of their own endless bickering. They both realized that sometimes differences in outlook on life just ran too deep and both opted to remain just friends, although Harry had listened to much agony from both of them before this decision was finally reached. Thankfully, their deep friendship had transcended the brief romance and they now did their bickering mostly in fun.

Harry and Ginny's relationship had been a bit more complicated. After being torn apart for the last year, they had quickly come back together, happy to have the freedom to do so at last. However, as the year went on, cracks began to appear in the layers of their relationship.

Harry, so scarred still by the incredible losses of his turbulent life, began to brood at times. It was hard for him to let anyone in during these episodes, including Ginny. On the other hand, Ginny wanted to forget the past as soon as possible and get on with her life. Of course, she dealt with her shadows too, particularly the death of her brother Fred, the twin she had perhaps been closest to. But she decided early on to take on Fred's family role, in a sense, and try to "bring back the fun." Harry enjoyed this for a while and it helped him out of his "blues' as he called them, using the muggle term. But in the end he and Ginny decided to be just friends, as it seeemed that Harry's brooding intensity and Ginny's drive for moving on so quickly and joking around so much just seemed to bring out the other's worst qualities.

Yes, in some ways it had been a quick eighteen months, but in some ways very long, and now Harry, Ron and, surprisingly, Hermione were finished with school and in training with the Ministry of Magic's Auror Office.

Ron had met a young lady on one of the threesome's outings into muggle London. Things were at an early stage so, of course, Ron's true identity was still a secret to her. Ginny too was seeing someone. He was a new seventh year named Peter. He was British, but he had been in France for several years as his father was a muggle and had been working there. So, after six years at L'Ecole D'Harcourt, the French school for wizards, he was finishing his education at Hogwarts.

So, all in all, things were going fairly well for Harry allthough he still brooded often, usually relying on Hermione to listen when he felt like talking. It seeemed that their muggle backgrounds just made the conversations go more easily.

The wizarding world was still suffering somewhat. Death Eater cells were still active. On his bad days, Harry thought that they would always be around. He often thought about Voldemort and his horcruxes, about Regulus Black who had figured them out, and hoped with all of his might that no one else in Voldemort's inner circle had worked out his horrible secret.

Somehow Kingsley Shacklebolt, the new Minister of Magic, had been able to tell the final stories of Harry, Voldemort , and the war without leaking these most terrifying details. It was decided that there was no point in sharing the evil horcrux plot with others who might decide to ty it too.

So far, there was no evidence that anyone else had begun trying to become immortal in this evil way but the aurors, who had all been briefed, were on constant lookout. One strange near-capture had grabbed the whole department's attention a month before. A particularly nasty cell had been infiltrated over a series of months after the murders of several highly placed muggle government officials. When the capture had finally been carried out, one member of the cell had escaped at the last minute, disapparating despite a holding spell and leaving a strange vapor behind. The man was a cousin of Death Eater Lucius Malfoy, who was still at-large following the war.

"Best not to start puzzling that one out right now," Harry said aloud to himself. He grabbed his cloak, took the lift down and used floo powder to get to the Burrow.