“Harry!”
Katie’s voice was the first thing Harry heard as he Apparated onto the street of Grimmauld Place, followed by the shouts of relief and cheer from everyone else gathered outside, waiting for him to return from the castle.
“Someone sent word I was on my way, I gather?” Harry managed to say to Lupin before Katie collided with him and flung her arms around him. Lupin grinned at Harry, but Harry barely took notice. There was sudden calming warmth flooding through every part of him. Everything had been so surreal since he woke up and set eyes on Voldemort’s vanquished being. Every second seemed to be part of a dream, ticking away, threatening to vanish in an instant“ until this moment. This moment, in which he held Katie, who was murmuring and sobbing quietly and thanking gods he’d never even heard of.
After a minute, when she gained enough control of her voice, she pulled back enough so that she could face him, wearing a pretend pout that was threatened with a huge grin. “I should be very mad, you know,” she sniffled. “Running off without a word “ I might have never seen you again.”
“And if I’d woken you up, I’d probably still be trying to get out of the house, to take care of that little thing I needed to do.”
“Destroying an evil wizard and earning yourself a place in wizarding history is not ‘a little thing’…”
“Well, I did it once before,” Harry grinned.
“And now you’ve done it twice,” Katie frowned. “So, you’re officially cut off. No more dangerous missions.”
“Yeah,” Harry agreed with a sigh. “I’ve had enough of that to last me a lifetime.”
“Now, I think Hermione is teetering on the edge of insanity while she tries to be polite and give us our end-of-all-things reunion,” Katie said quietly. “And poor Ron is probably torn between restraining her and shouting at us to hurry the hell up.”
“Are you suggesting we prolong their suffering or relieve the of it?”
“As much as I’d like to be selfish right now, I think we should call them over.”
Harry and Katie merely had to glance in the direction of his two best friends, and Hermione tore through the distance and nearly toppled Harry over with her embrace. Very much like Katie, she babbled and sobbed and was consequently unintelligible. Ron managed not to break out into a run, but he did jog briskly to the lot of them and manage to give Harry a hug-like pat on the back while Hermione was still suffocating him.
“So, it’s over, then,” Ron said with disbelief. He was ghost white, and Harry couldn’t help but think he looked like he’d been sick several times that day.
“Yeah,” said Harry. “It’s over.”
Afterwards, things were reasonably peaceful. Or, as peaceful as things can be with Mrs Weasley cooking full-on dinners in celebration while Fred and George let off fireworks by the dozen inside the house. Harry tried to stay inside as often as possible, because going out in public often caused him to be swallowed into a crowd of people asking him to sign parchment, Daily Prophet articles and photographs, robes, hats, brooms, wands, limbs, noses and in the case of one house-elf “ a tea towel. In another instance, a witch wanted him to sign her newborn daughter, Potter McKenna. It took hours at a time to get rid of them all, and Ron liked to stand by with the Invisibility Cloak at the ready just in case.
With the threat of danger diminished, Hogwarts was reopened and NEWT and OWL exams were administered to students, much to the delight of Hermione.
“Defence Against The Dark Arts,” Seamus had joked as they lined up for their practical exam for the subject. “Think you can manage a decent mark on this one, Harry?”
“I don’t know, Finnegan,” said another Irish voice, “he never seemed much good at it.”
Harry turned to see Siobhan standing behind him, arms crossed as she lazily leaned against the wall.
“Siobhan “ showed up, have you?” Harry said with a grin. “Thought you didn’t care about your NEWT’s?”
“Well, I decided it can’t hurt,” she responded with a shrug. “Just in case life gets dull and I need a job, I might as well have some qualifications.”
“What’s it like to have such a difficult life?” Harry smirked.
“I doubt you’ll ever know, Potter.”
In late May, shortly after the seventh-years had taken their NEWT’s and had settled into a lazy summer before the embarked on the adult world, Bill and Fleur’s baby was born. Harry went down to St. Mungo’s to meet the newest addition to the Weasley family, and there he was named godfather to Ginevra Axelle Delacour-Weasley. She had strawberry blonde hair, and delicate white skin. She was beautiful. Nobody agreed with this statement more than Fleur.
Finally, before Harry’s eighteenth birthday, he felt there was one thing left to do. And so one morning in early July, he and Katie set off for the place that had been Harry’s home, more or less for, most of his life.
“So, this is your Aunt and Uncle’s house?” Katie said, unimpressed with the house on Privet Drive.
“Yeah…” Harry said, just happy to be free of it. “Come on.”
They strode up to the door and knocked gently. It was Uncle Vernon who answered, and Petunia was standing behind him peering out.
“Hello Uncle Vernon, Aunt Petunia” Harry said.
“What are you doing here?” Vernon said unpleasantly. “I thought you’d left us for good…”
“I have, I just stopped by to say hello.”
Vernon narrowed his eyes suspiciously and Petunia was looking up and down the street as if trying to make sure nobody was looking
“This is Katie Bell, Uncle Vernon, Aunt Petunia,” Harry said, ignoring Vernon’s predictable rudeness. “She’s my fiancée.”
“You’re “ what?”
“My fiancée. We’re getting married. And, though I don’t actually expect you to show up of course, I thought I’d invite you to the wedding.”
“And that’s why you’re here?”
“Out of politeness, of course, Uncle Vernon,” Harry said with a grin. “Unless you’d rather I had sent an owl?”
“No!” Vernon snapped in fright. “No. No owls. Personal invitation will be fine.”
“Well then, here you go,” Harry said, handing him a small parchment envelope. “The wedding’s on October 31st. Hope to see you there.”
Harry turned to leave, and Katie stifled a giggle at his last comment, which was certainly not true.
“… October 31st? That’s Halloween,” Vernon shouted
“Yes. We are fully aware of that,” Harry said, turning back to him.
“What sort of people get married on Halloween?” Vernon spouted with annoyance.
“Wizards, Uncle Vernon.”
Harry Potter grinned once more, and then, from the fun of knowing the heart attack it would likely give Vernon Dursely, he and Katie Disapparated from the perfectly mowed lawn of Number Four, Privet Drive.