JKR owns all the characters, except those few I made up. So there.
Chapter 2, Forgiven?
**********12 Grimmauld Place, London*****************
With the normal CRACKs accompanying disapparation, Harry and entourage arrived in the entryway to the old mansion. Instantly, Harry could tell the changes present in the house since Sirius' day, Harry had been here of course last summer, but he had not really noticed the changes his friends and true family had performed on the house, with the possible exception of his bedroom, Sirius' old room. Dobby the house-elf waiting for Harry was one of those new changes, with the entryway another, instead of its old dark normalcy it was now brightly lit. Tonks' perpetual enemy the troll's leg umbrella stand was long gone, in its place was a neat vase serving the same purpose.
"Master Potter" Dobby began, almost bounding up and down in his joy at being reunited with Harry, whom had freed him from the repressive Malfoy family. Instead of his old rags, he now wore an actual outfit in green and black that even matched, someone had obviously gotten to him and forced him to wear matching clothes, a truly monumental task. It was not the clothes themselves; Dobby was free and proud of it. But the actual matching part, that seemed to be the issue generally under contention. Ginny had snidely commented a while back that it must be some male thing, that they couldn't match anything. To which her brother Fred, who was in the room at the time, wearing unmatched socks, threw a pillow at her head.
"Dobby you know I would just like you to call me Harry" Harry interrupted before Dobby got truly started. "You are my friend." Dobby grinned hugely at Harry's statement and started bouncing even higher, shaking the vase containing a couple of currently dry umbrellas, dangerously.
"But Dobby is so grateful to Harry Potter for letting him and Winky work for Harry Potter and for paying us to work too. Ohh the happiness I feel, lunch must be truly great for Harry Potter and his friends" With that Dobby snapped his fingers and vanished like dust in a wind.
Harry shook his head ruefully, "Harry, I suppose you would like your usual place in Sirius old room, I'll take your stuff with me as I go to change." Tonks interjected, with a sly look that boded ill. "Hermione, would you like your stuff in your old room across the hall, or should I save you some time and put your stuff in with Harry's?"
Hermione blushed at this suggestion and looked away for a long moment. Harry however, responded through a cheek he was biting to keep from laughing. "No, Nymphadora, why don't you throw her stuff in the other bedroom." Remus, who was standing behind Harry with a hand over his mouth to cover his laughter, was giving his silent support for Tonk's idea. Most of Harry's adult friends and all of them, except one from school, thought it was about bloody time. Harry was even privately sure that money had exchanged hands soon after the fact was public; after all he himself had won twenty galleons on the Remus and Tonks poll, before the end of last school year from Fred and George.
"Sure, your call Harry, but you're both adults, well she is in a couple of months anyway and it is your house. By the way...I'll get you back for that Nymphadora." Tonks replied with a grin and a dangerous look in her eyes, and strutted off up the stairs with two sets of trunks hovering after her as she whistled a muggle rock tune.
"Harry, Hermione" Remus announced uncomfortably into the silence after Tonks had left, "there is someone who wants to talk to you in the parlor, I'll be in the kitchen if you need me."
************Parlor, 12 Grimmauld Place*********************
Harry and Hermione walked in the door to the large parlor. The room was now thankfully barren of the screaming portraits of the Black family and the house-elf heads that had once hung on the wall. The tone of the room was normally bright and airy, almost as if the new decorations symbolized the new management. However, the atmosphere in the room this day now resembled the calm before the storm that either skirted on by and missed or blew your house down. Several couches were arranged haphazardly around the room and a chair was facing away from the door as if to stare at the currently extinguished fireplace. The ceiling that Dumbledore had bewitched last summer to act like the sky above the house, was reflecting the overcast conditions outside, almost as if it were reflecting emotions instead of the weather.
"Before either of you say anything let me speak" came a terribly familiar voice from the high backed chair facing away from the door. Hermione grasped Harry's hand tightly and both of them were silent, each waiting for the other shoe to drop. "I guess I always knew" the voice went on, "I knew somewhere in my heart that it was you two that would end up together and I don't know if I was jealous, or scared of loosing my friends, or if I was just stupid, or what. I shut both of my best friends out and it took my SISTER and mumble to make me see my error." With this admission, the person in the chair stood up and turned to reveal the tall redhead that had been over to the side in Harry's picture. His hands in his the pockets of his jeans, his head to the floor, he shrugged," Forgive me?"
The tears that Hermione had been holding in broke free; she ran to and grabbed Ron in a fierce hug. "I'm sorry Herm, I would take back what I said if I could, if nothing else you might as well be my other sister, God knows Ginny is outnumbered" He went on with a grin that while a touch forced, was genuine as he returned the hug with just a touch of awkwardness.
"I guess you are", she replied, a catch in her throat, rubbing tears from her eyes, "Just don't do it again."
"Harry, what about you?" Ron looked over at his best friend for almost seven years with a look of desperation on his face as he stepped back from Hermione. Behind him, Dobby appeared for a moment, left drinks on a table, and left, all without a sound.
"Ron, you know if you were Malfoy, I'd beat the shit out of your for what you said," grinning, "But since you aren't..." Harry too, pulled Ron into a brotherly hug.
"It's good to see the family back together," a light alto said from the doorway.
"Ginny" exclaimed Hermione at the sight of the tiny redhead.
"Glad to see you too sis." Ginny replied with a huge smile as Hermione gathered the tiny girl into a hug.
"So Ginny, since we are all family now, what's with this other person that helped Ron get over his stupidity?" Harry asked sardonically as Hermione let her go. Ginny poorly faked a look of shock at the reminder that Hermione would have shared this information with Harry. Eleven chimes rung out from a now repaired grandfather clock out in the hall, announcing the time.
"Well Harry, all I'll say is what I'm sure Hermione already told you, is that after about a week of moping around the Burrow, mum kicked him outside because she was tired of hearing him moaning and whining, and told him to go take a walk or something. So he mopes out of the house and supposedly wanders on down to the village. And any more than that and Ron should tell you himself." Ginny said while looking at Ron with a raised eyebrow.
"Ronald?" From Hermione, a thoughtful look on her face, almost as if she were doing a geography problem in her head, which she very well could have been, of a sort anyway.
"Okay I guess you will know anyway soon enough as she is supposed to be here this evening anyway for the meeting." Ron replied thoughtfully as he fidgeted with an owl figurine on the table next to him, the new symbol of the house since Harry had taken ownership from Sirius.
"Meeting?" From Harry who was momentarily thrown off the track of Ron's new relationship, which, with Ron's penchant for strategy, may have been the whole point.
"Yeah, we'll get to that, Dumbledore didn't tell you I guess? Anyway, I sort of was walking though the village and thought I'd get a pint and I ran into Luna." Ron replied, his ears suddenly turning the color of his hair.
"Luna?" from two throats, though both could imagine it, Luna had had a thing for Ron since she had seen him on the train two years ago, and Ron had actually taken her to the Halloween Ball last year, since Harry and Hermione had gone as "friends."
"Yeah, can you believe it?" He went on with a chuckle, "She asked me if I was talking to you guys yet, and I couldn't believe that she was just going on like it was a little spat, but she got me to talking to her. I talked to her anyway, then she wandered off on a tangent about the Cannons using transfigured werewolves on the team or something, then back to us and the Order and stuff, then we talked some more, and somehow we started meeting up in the village, since they live just the other side of town from the Burrow. I mean she may be insane, but are any of us all the way here after the last seven years? And one day I just sorta kissed her and she goes, and I quote, it's about time Weasley, and we have officially going out ever since." Ron said all this very quickly then paused, catching Harry's eye, "What?"
Fighting to keep from laughing, "Nothing mate, you know I'm happy for you" Harry was incredibly pleased for his friend, but it was still funny.
Almost as if he were remembering something, "Yeah I believe you, she sure freaked out mum though, the first time she came over for dinner." Ron shook his head humorously at the memory.
"What did she do?" asked Hermione, remembering almost two years of the odd behavior of the daughter of the publisher of the Quibbler, which Hermione had more than once referred to as a rag. She had changed her mind after the paper came out in support of Harry in their 5th year however.
"The usual" responded Ginny, her eyes laughing. "In the middle of a normal conversion about the meal, she launches into this spiel about how the garden gnomes have a secret plan to take over all our gardens and hold our food hostage. I guess mum had never heard her on one of her rants."
"Guys" Lupin had just poked his head into the room. He looked visibly relieved at the atmosphere he found there, he had seen the aftermath of the their squabble last June, "Dobby says lunch is served and then you guys might want to grab a nap afterward."
"Why?" Harry asked, not tired at all since he was home and with his loved ones again, and free, he swore to himself, from Privet Drive, forever.
"Because you are to be inducted into the Order of the Phoenix this evening and you just may need your rest." Lupin replied with a slight smile, wandering away, whistling the same tune as Tonks had earlier.