"Harry! Will you stop fidgeting!" Hermione slapped his arm in mock exasperation as she tried to straighten his collar and make him look generally presentable. As she caught his eye he grinned and gave her a swift kiss.
"`Mione I'm fine, stop fussing, it's a lost cause anyway."
Rolling her eyes she muttered something about boys and their appearance before giving his shirt a final twitch and standing back to contemplate the effect.
It was the morning of the twentieth of October and Harry was waiting for Ron to come back downstairs so they could leave for the Ministry. Since it was their first day of Auror training Ron had gotten it into his head that it would be more memorable to go by way of the main entrance. For once Hermione agreed with him although she just didn't want him to arrive covered in soot.
Seeing his girlfriend spot something else to criticise about his appearance Harry quickly darted out of the kitchen and shouted for Ron to hurry up. Truth be told Hermione was making him nervous. True he was nervous about his first day anyway, but her nerves and fussing was making it worse, he was finding it difficult to keep his breakfast down.
"So are we ready?" Ron appeared at the foot of the stairs looking as ill as Harry felt.
"You'll be fine, the famous Harry Potter and Ron Weasley could practically teach classes in how to defeat dark wizards." Hermione, who had followed him out of the kitchen, snuck an arm around his waist and planted a kiss on his cheek. "That's for luck."
Pulling her closer Harry kissed her thoroughly only breaking apart when Ron started mock retching in the background, "I need all the luck I can get," he grinned at her.
On their arrival at the Ministry they were made their way along to the Auror office where they were greeted by the same stylish witch who had taken their applications and shepherded into a cubicle to wait. One other person was sitting there pensively and he almost leapt out of his seat when he realised who had walked in.
"Well I must say… such an honour… you've no idea -"
"Hi, I'm Harry," he held out his hand for the young man to shake. He seemed to be roughly their age perhaps a year or two older. Bushy brown hair stuck out at angles all over his head and timid blue eyes glanced quickly between Harry and Ron.
"John Vance, I was two years above you at school; in Hufflepuff… you probably don't remember me."
"You must have been in my brothers' year - Ron Weasley by the way."
"Pleasure to meet you… terribly sorry to hear about… well, you have my condolences."
"Yeah… thanks." Ron looked suddenly uncomfortable again.
An awkward silence descended as Harry and Ron sat down to wait, thankfully the witch returned soon with four other recruits that Harry vaguely recognised and an older grizzled wizard.
"Harald Burnes," the wizard spoke in quick, clipped tones, "I'm in charge of Auror Training this year so we're stuck with each other." As he spoke his lower lip seemed to droop slightly to one side and his narrow brown eyes flicked rapidly between the seven of them. "Now I know some of you," his eyes rested momentarily on Harry and Ron before resuming their dance, "might think that you know all there is to know about fighting the Dark Arts, but believe me there is always more to learn and you will all be going back to basics." He twitched his head towards his shoulder as an indication that they were to follow and swept out of the cubicle.
They spent most of the rest of the day demonstrating to Burnes exactly what spells they could perform and Harry developed the distinct feeling that the wizard was determined to dislike him no matter what he did. Harry had just successfully warded the teacher off with a particularly complex spell when Burnes called a halt for the day and dismissed them.
"Well isn't he just sunshine and daisies?" Ron grumbled in his ear as the two of them made their way to the Atrium. "Why can we never get normal teachers?"
Harry laughed at this, "Ron when has anything about us ever been normal?"
The next few weeks passed so quickly that Harry was sure he would have missed it had he blinked. Nearly everyday was spent training and Burnes made sure they covered everything from disarming to tracking suspects with magic. Harry was undoubtedly top of the class, if you could call such a small group a class, but John Vance turned out to be a very capable wizard too, despite his shyness. In the little free time they had Harry and Ron struck up a tentative friendship with him and invited him round to Grimmauld Place several times for dinner after training was done for the day.
Hermione had taken over the decorating of Number 12 in the boys absence and she went about her task with such ferocious energy that the boys tended to retreat to the kitchen whenever she appeared with a colour chart in hand. Suddenly it was December and the house was almost finished to celebrate this and the fact that Hermione had been accepted to be a Healer at St Mungo's they invited George Andromeda and Teddy round for supper. They would have asked Ron's parents as well, but Mrs Weasley wasn't inclined to be too friendly towards Harry and Hermione at the moment so at Ron's suggestion they decided not to.
"Well Harry that was surprisingly good, I'm impressed, not many boys your age can cook." Andromeda Tonks sat back from the table and smiled at him. "You should hang on to this one Hermione."
Harry's girlfriend blushed but grinned in spite of herself, "I intend to, don't worry."
Loud vomit noises and childish giggles came form the spot on the floor where Ron and George were entertaining Teddy.
"I hope you two aren't teaching my godson bad habits," Harry tried and failed to frown disapprovingly at them as he cleared the dishes into the sink with a flick of his wand.
"Would we?! I'm wounded by the accusation Harry." George smirked up at him before scooping Teddy up and pretending to make him fly above his head.
"George watch out he's just -" Harry looked on in amused horror as Teddy proceeded to empty the contents of his stomach into George's hair, "- eaten."
Tutting gently Hermione quickly got up from her seat and rescued George from the now happily burbling, green haired, infant by transferring him to her hip and carrying him over to the sink to clean him up, cooing softly all the while. George, looking utterly disgusted and appalled, took out his wand and vanished the mess whilst muttering soft threats under his breath much to Ron's amusement.
Andromeda attempted to redirect the conversation. "So how are you two getting on at training, replaced the teacher yet? I hear Burnes is an old dragon."
"It's going well actually; it's amazing how much we have to learn. Burnes isn't that bad once you get used to him," responded Harry who had developed a healthy respect for the Auror despite his bad temper.
Ron did not share this opinion. "He hates everyone, especially us because we don't need half the stupid classes." He caught Harry's expression before reluctantly adding, "although it was quite cool when he showed us that spell to detect lies."
"Isn't that what Veritaserum's for?" George had recovered from his run in with Teddy.
"It's for when you're in the field and don't have any handy, it can't make you tell the truth like Veritaserum does, but it does make your face swell up and turn purple if you don't."
Harry smirked at Ron's obvious pleasure as he related how Burnes had demonstrated this particular charm on Leo Wilkes, a trainee he had taken a particular dislike to. Harry, who didn't mind Wilkes that much even though he was a bit full of himself, was convinced that the only reason Ron didn't like him was that he bore a startling resemblance to a certain Slytherin yearmate of theirs'.
That night, once everyone had gone to their respective homes, Harry and Hermione were sitting next to a roaring fire in the sitting room watching Ron snore loudly in the opposite armchair. They had lapsed into a comfortable silence which Hermione, raising her head from his shoulder, broke saying "oh, I almost forgot, Mum and Dad asked if we wanted to come round for Christmas dinner at theirs'. I thought it was a good idea, it'll give you a chance to get to know them more."
"Sure," he kissed the top of her head, "it's probably safer to stay out of Ginny's way at the moment too."
Hermione snorted darkly in response.
Sitting there in the half dark, Harry looked down at his girlfriend admiring the way the firelight softened her features and brought out copper tones in her hair that he hadn't even known were there. Staring into the flames her wide brown eyes seemed to dance joyfully whilst at the same time managing to look infinite and soulful. At that moment Harry, who already knew that he wanted to spend the rest of his life with this wonderful, feisty, intelligent witch, made up his mind to propose. He'd have to do it properly of course, get a ring and find the perfect moment. Hopefully she'd say yes, and he was fairly certain she would if she felt the way he thought she did. They were quite young to marry by most people's standards but they weren't much older than his parents had been and after all they had been through together people would understand. Not that he cared what other people thought -
"Harry are you alright?" Hermione interrupted his internal monologue, waving her hand in front of his face. "You were miles away, is everything alright?"
"Everything is fantastic." With a smile that almost split his face in half he wrapped his arms around her and kissed her thoroughly. Slightly surprised by his effusive response, unusual for the usually serious Harry, Hermione willingly complied.
In the following weeks the three friends set about the further transformation of Number 12 by putting up every Christmas decoration they could get their hands on. George, how they never knew, managed to acquire for them two enormous trees which went up in the sitting room and the kitchen. Red and gold streamers, similar to the ones at his birthday party half a lifetime ago, were provided courtesy of Hermione and draped over every piece of furniture and light fitting. Kreacher, who had probably never before seen Christmas celebrated on such a scale, slightly misunderstood one Harry's suggestions the upshot of which was that for a while the hall was transformed into a forest of potted holly bushes until they could be redistributed around the house.
December also meant a dramatic increase in the fan mail arriving for Harry. By Christmas Eve almost every inch of available wall space in the hall had been covered in wizard Christmas cards. It looked like an explosion in a charm factory. Not only did they flash different colours but Father Christmases were chased from card to card by irate reindeer whilst carol singing witches sang counterpoint to the angels in the nativity scenes. It had left Harry slightly bewildered and amused at first, but by that evening it was grating on his nerves and he was actively avoiding the hallway.
It had been decided that Andromeda would bring Teddy round to the house in the morning, then in the afternoon Harry and Hermione would go to the Granger's leaving the others to go to the Burrow. Harry hadn't divulged his plans for the evening to anyone yet as he had decided it would be the perfect time to propose to Hermione. The ring, a simple white gold band with a single diamond, was wrapped and hidden in the bottom of his wardrobe. He had had to take Polyjuice potion and assume the appearance of one of their neighbours to maintain secrecy in buying the ring. The last thing he needed was the Prophet or Rita Skeeter getting hold of the news. He didn't want anything to spoil this moment.
That night, in his newly decorated bedroom, Harry found sleep to be elusive, he was excited about the day to come but also increasingly apprehensive. Thoughts of everything and anything that could possibly go wrong chased each other through his mind. He had put so much planning into this one evening, the thought that it might not be enough tortured him. He got up twice to make sure that the ring was still where he had left it and hadn't somehow mysteriously vanished in the twenty minutes since he had last checked. The irrational fear that she might just turn him down was too terrifying to contemplate; what he would do after such an eventuality even more so. Eventually, he was no longer sure if it was late or early, Harry drifted into an uneasy slumber plagued with dreams of running towards things he could never quite reach and, rather bizarrely, being crushed under a giant Christmas pudding.
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