**A/N: Thanks to those have reviewed. We really truly do appreciate it more than you can imagine. I know we're a couple of days ahead of schedule, but we figured you wouldn't care. Things are rolling along fairly smoothly so that's a plus. So thanks again for your support…**
Harry woke up feeling very refreshed. It took him a second to realize his surroundings. He was back in Ron's bedroom. All he could think about was the fact that he was now an official wizard. He no longer was going to school, he no longer had to live with the Dursley's, and he was of age so he could do whatever he wanted.
Harry looked over at Ron who had just snorted, mumbled something inaudible, and turned in his sleep. He was sighed in relief, glad that Ron was asleep. It meant that meant he could write to Hermione in peace without being bothered.
Harry got up and pulled out a quill and a piece of parchment. He sat down at the desk and started writing. He had written about half of a page worth but it just didn't seem right. There weren't words to describe how the prior night had gone or the things he was feeling about the upcoming Order meeting. He muttered a simple erasing spell on the parchment.
Ron started talking in his sleep again, but Harry still wasn't able to figure out what it was he was saying. "What was that mate?" Harry whispered trying not to wake Ron but still try to get an answer.
He mumbled again but the only thing Harry understood was "Luna." All Harry could do was chuckle and think about how he was going to give his best friend a hard time. Ron's attraction was so obvious but he was too much of a git to ask her out.
Turning back to his newly blank parchment, he managed to scratch out a measly five inches worth of writing to Hermione in about a half an hour. It would suffice. He just told her about everything that happened during the dinner, and what Ron had muttered in the morning. He knew she'd get a laugh out of that.
As he was seeing Hedwig off with his letter for Hermione, there was a loud crashing sound outside. Harry looked out towards the garden and saw Fred and George tinkering with one of their new products. The twins looked up at the window and waved innocently like they weren't up to anything, and Harry just smiled back. The explosion however had finally woken up Ron, and he was a bit confused as to what the noise was that woke him.
Almost instantly there were two loud cracks as Fred and George apparated onto Ron's bed.
"Look who it is George! It's Hogwarts' most recent graduates finally awake from their beauty sleep!" Fred said with a smile.
"Hey mates." Harry grinned; glad it wasn't him that they were on top of.
Ron grimaced, trying to shove the twins off of him. Ron had grown a whole lot during his last year of school. He had lost some of his lankiness for some muscle thanks to quidditch. "Get off of me!" Ron shouted. His attempts were futile against the twins however.
"Aw.. did ickle Ronnikins wake up on the wrong side of the bed this morning?" George cooed as Fred ruffled Ron's flaming hair that was matted in about every direction.
Not wanting to see Ron's face change into an even deeper shade of crimson, the twins decided that they'd had enough fun and climbed off the bed. "So what were you bloody idiots up to anyways?" Ron asked acidly. He cherished his sleep and didn't like to be woken up by anything except maybe the thought of food.
"Oh not much little brother. We were just working on the newest addition to the shop." George gave Ron a knowing look.
The Weasley twins looked at each other and then looked to Ron. "By the way, we were wondering if you would like to work at our shop. You know counter work, stocking, and the occasional test subject. And you could probably use the money."
Ron had a look of astonishment; he couldn't believe his brothers were offering him a job. "Uhhh…" was all he could muster.
"Well of course you can think about it, it's not a life or death decision!" George said with a laugh.
"At least not all the time," Fred added in the midst of his laughing.
Mrs. Weasley called to the boys from downstairs in the kitchen, "Breakfast is served! Hurry up would you? Your father is hungry!"
The boys all were excited for a good home cooked breakfast. Harry's stomach grumbled but he couldn't tell if it was the thought of food or the thought of his first Order meeting that would take place in two hours or so.
*~*~*
As soon as Mrs. Weasley had the final dish cleaned and put away it was almost time to head over to Number 12 Grimmauld Place for the Order meeting. Harry's stomach felt as if a whole hoard of butterflies had been let loose inside. He wasn't scared of going. He was past that. Right after fifth year going to the Order headquarters used to be extremely hard on Harry. After losing his godfather behind the veil, another hole had opened in his heart. He had closed up, not wanting to talk about his loss yet. He wasn't ready to grieve. He didn't pull away from everyone though like Ron and Hermione had been afraid of though. He forged on with everything that tended to create some normalcy in his life. Things like quidditch, the DA, and his letters to and from Hermione were his solace. Whenever anyone would broach the subject, he would shrug it off and change the subject.
It wasn't until the end of sixth year when he had almost lost Ron in a battle against Voldemort again that he had opened up to Ron while he was on a bed in the hospital wing. Both he and Ron got a little too emotional and they had made a vow never to tell anyone about what had happened with them. After all they did have reputations to uphold. Harry had also written out some of his feelings to Hermione. He found that even on parchment Hermione was still the better listener.
No, the butterflies were from the nervousness of going to an actual Order meeting. He really didn't know what the meeting was going to be like, and he really hoped that they weren't going to keep anymore information from him. He knew that it was going to come down to him to be the savior of the world whether or not he had a "saving people thing," so he thought he should know what he was up against.
"Are you ready mate?" Ron clapped him on the shoulder. "We should be apparating over there in a couple minutes."
Harry just nodded in agreement. The words were there, but he just couldn't seem to get them out. The butterflies were just too much. The whole Weasley family, minus Mrs. Weasley would be going over to Grimmauld Place. Mrs. Weasley was staying behind to wait for Ginny who would be arriving at the train station later that morning. They'd head over to the meeting later.
"Alright boys, lets go," Mr. Weasley said as he poked his head into the kitchen. Harry could hear the sound of two distinct cracks coming from the living room so he knew that the twins had already left.
Before he could say anything, Ron had disappeared from his sight with another sickening crack. With a deep breath Harry closed his eyes, concentrating on the entry way into the house. In an instant he felt himself collide with someone. "Whoa Harry! Watch where you're apparating mate. You're going to kill someone."
He opened his eyes, revealing someone that he didn't expect to see at the Order meeting.
"Neville?" Harry asked quizzically, a very perplexed look on his face.
"Come off it Harry, you didn't think I'd just let you and Ron be the only ones to join the Order did you?" Neville grinned. He had really changed from the bumbling student he used to be. After the whole incident at the Ministry during fifth year he really gained a lot of self confidence and it showed in every aspect of his life.
Before Harry could answer, Ron's head peeked around the corner of the room where the meeting was going to be. "Come on Harry, get in here!" After a couple of seconds Ron realized who else was with Harry. "Oh Neville! Hey mate, come on. Drag Harry with you."
Neville did have to practically drag Harry around the corner. Once there he felt several eyes turn to him immediately. He recognized almost everyone since he had been in the house before for Order meetings. Dumbledore was already there but he was in intense conversation with both Severus Snape and Mad-Eye Moody.
Neville, Ron, and Harry managed to make their way to three empty seats near Lupin. He was one of the few friendly faces in the crowd.
"There are quite a few people missing aren't there?" Ron asked Lupin. Lupin seemed to almost cough in response.
"Elphias Doge is off on guard duty. Sturgis Podmore had to check on some things with Kingsley Shacklebolt over at the ministry. I think Tonks is the only other one missing. She's on assignment," Lupin looked back at the three of the boys realizing that his answer wasn't going to suffice. "All I know is that she's been gone for a while now. She's doing some sort of muggle protection I think."
Ron looked like he was about to say something but Dumbledore had cleared his throat as he stood in the front of the room. Everyone, catching the hint, took any available seat. "Good morning everyone. It's good to see all of you. I'm sure all of you have noticed, but we've got three new members to the Order with us. Ron Weasley, Neville Longbottom, and Harry Potter. So let's get started…"
The meeting took off on some relatively unimportant information. No one really knew much of anything. Voldemort had been lying low for the past year. The only thing that had been a problem lately was the Death Eaters, and now that Azkaban was no longer being patrolled by Dementors, they would escape rather quickly if they're caught.
The meeting ended rather quickly due to the lack of new information. At the end of the meeting Moody could be heard barking out "CONSTANT VIGILANCE," to anyone he could see. Harry, Ron, and Neville groaned, got up, and went and took a seat on the staircase in the hall to watch everyone depart and escape Moody's wrath.
Ginny came out of the kitchen and down the hall to meet up with them so the group could head off to Hogsmeade to look for Harry and Ron's flat.
They had looked for a good hour or so before Ron finally let his hunger get the best of him. "I am really craving some of Honeydukes chocolate. Can we stop in there for a break?"
"You are unbelievable," Harry said with a big grin, "of course you would choose food over a home."
Ron just gave Harry an "I am going to hurt you" look which got everyone in the group to laugh. As the laughing subsided there was a "Hey guys," from behind them. Everyone turned to look and saw that the hello came from Luna.
"Hey Luna, whatcha doing here?" Ginny asked giving her friend a hug. She knew full well that she had told Luna that they were going to be in Hogsmeade.
"Just doing a bit of shopping. Hello Ronald." Luna looked over to him with an even bigger smile which made Ron blush.
"Hi Luna," He said hastily, looking to Harry who rolled his eyes. "We were going to head over to Honeydukes for some chocolate, you want to come?" Luna nodded with a dreamy look as everyone started to make their way towards Honeydukes. "Hey you guys?" Harry asked, getting everyone to stop and look at him, "I'm going to go stop by Dervish and Banges really quick to see if I can find a camera. I am sure Hermione would like to see everyone, and what would be a better way for her to see us?" He quickly walked off before anyone could answer.
As Harry reached the store, he got this sudden feeling like he was being watched. He turned to look behind him and only saw Ron almost get hit by the door to the candy store as two little kids ran out. "Man, he is a charming fellow." Harry murmured to himself and turned to walk to his destination.
Harry was in a really good mood as he left the store with his new camera in tow. It was the latest model and the last one they had in stock.
He started walking back towards Honeydukes knowing that his friends would still be in there. As he entered, he realized that Ginny wasn't in the store. "Where's Gin? Didn't she come in here with you guys?" Harry asked as he approached Ron.
"I dunno, maybe she went and mailed something off to Hermione," Ron shrugged as he looked over to Luna for an answer.
"Don't look at me. This is one thing I do not know."
The gang left Honeydukes and didn't have to look too long. Ginny was bounding down the road with a deliriously happy look on her face. "What are you so happy about?" Ron eyed his sister suspiciously.
"Oh, um, I was just window shopping. You guys were taking too long in there and I got bored. Besides Madam Malkin just got a new line of dress robes in, so I wanted to go take a look." She said quickly while looking down at the ground. "Well how about we continue looking for your flat?"
After about another three hours and about six flats later, they finally settled on the flat that they had first looked at. It was close to The Three Broomsticks. Both Ginny and Luna made the remark of the boys needing a place to eat every now and then once Ron ate everything. Everyone but Ron laughed because he was too busy defending himself.
The flat was surprisingly big. It had three bedrooms and two bathrooms, which the boys thought was great. They didn't have to share anymore like they were used to doing at Hogwarts. Also, Ron just happened to point out just how big the fridge was. Harry liked the idea of having a spare bedroom for anyone who happened to stop by, not to mention the possibility of Hermione ever coming back.
"So are you sure this is the one you want Ron?" Harry eyed him suspiciously.
Ron nodded enthusiastically. "Lets sign some papers and go home to get our stuff. We could be moved in by tonight. We are wizards after all." Ron twirled his wand in his hand for added effect.
Before the boys met with the landlord, they said goodbye to Neville. He had to go meet back at his Gran's place. He didn't want her worrying about where he was. The boys met with the landlord in the Three Broomsticks to sign the papers. Harry was footing the entire bill right now because Ron hadn't started working for his brothers yet. Harry didn't mind though. He had enough inheritance from his parents and Sirius to last a long time. He hadn't even worried about getting his own job yet.
When they made their way back to the Burrow the boys went straight upstairs to start packing. Ginny took the role of damage control and tried to distract their distraught mother. Mrs. Weasley wasn't too excited about her boys leaving to go on their own.
Ron and Harry had managed to shrink all of their possessions down and fit them in their pockets. "…but mum I'll still be here, you won't be all alone!" Ginny protested as the boys made their way down the stairs.
"Alright mum, we're going to head over to the flat to unpack. We'll be by in the next couple of days to check in." Ron said, making sure to mention that she'd be in their near future.
Mrs. Weasley choked back sobs as she reached for a basket that she had on the counter. "This basket is full of some goodies I made for you boys. I don't want you two starving over there all by yourselves. If you need anything, and I mean anything, you boys come home as soon as you can. I don't want you to forget about us over here."
"We won't mum, I promise." Ron groaned.
"Yeah thanks Mrs. Weasley. I think we can handle it." Harry added. He wasn't used to all this attention since he never had a chance to know his real mother.
After another ten minutes of hugs and tears, they were able to tear themselves away to apparate back to Hogsmeade.
Harry and Ron sat smugly on the couch that they had bought and placed in their living room. They watched Ginny and Luna morph into decorators and start moving things all around the room. The boys didn't have to do anything really.
After another hour, Ron and Harry insisting if they didn't stop they'd put them in full body binds. They finished moving into their flat and everything was in its correct place. "Alright, time for the picture!" Harry said very enthusiastically as he grabbed for his camera.
Both Ron and Harry stood in front of the fireplace in their living room, posing for the picture. They took a few goofy ones and then got in a pretty good one that was perfect to send to Hermione. They also took a few more with Ginny and Luna as well.
Since the boys didn't have a kitchen table yet, they formed a mini table out of some of the boxes and dished out all of the food in the basket. They all dug in trying to get their share before Ron ate the rest of it.