The Weasleys

Walking towards the Burrow, Dumbledore knocked on the back door with Harry just behind him. Harry could hear a pause on the other side before a voice he knew to be Molly Weasley's asked hesitantly and nervously, 'who's there? Declare yourselves!'

'It is I, Albus Dumbledore, bringing Harry.'

The door immediately opened to show a slightly tired looking Molly Weasley wearing a house coat and a relieved expression on her face.

'Albus, come on in quickly!' As Harry and Dumbledore stepped into the house, Mrs. Weasley noticed Harry.

'Harry! How are you dear?' she hugged him tightly before stepping back to get a good look at him. 'Look at how much you've grown! You are just as bad as Ron. We'll probably have to resize all the doors just so you boys can fit inside,' she looked up to his face with a fond expression.

'I'm fine Mrs. Weasley,' said Harry. Looking into the kitchen, he noticed Tonks sitting at the table, 'Wotcher Tonks.'

'Harry!' The metamorphmagus smiled brilliantly.

'Well, I shall be on my way. I do have important matters to discuss with Amelia after all,' said Dumbledore. He doffed his hat to Mrs. Weasley, and with a 'Goodbye Nymphadora,' to a scowling Tonks, made his way to the edge of the property where he Apparated out.

'I should get going as well Molly,' said Tonks. As she passed by Harry, she whispered a quiet 'Thank you' before walking out of the house. Harry just smiled at her, knowing what she was talking about. The last time they had met, was when he was putting her name into the Black Family Tapestry in Grimmauld Place, she had been rather woebegone. It hadn't taken long to find out what the problem was; Nymphadora Tonks, it seemed, had the biggest crush on one Remus John Lupin. Remus, on the other hand, wasn't returning her affections.

Though Harry knew otherwise; he had corresponded with his father's old friend and had managed to find out that he really did have affections for the much younger witch, but was unwilling to pursue a relationship since he felt it was too dangerous for her to be associated with a known werewolf.

So Harry decided to play matchmaker and told Tonks about it. He also made it a point of mentioning why Remus would want to push any person interested in him in that way away. It seemed that his information had worked, for Tonks no longer looked like somebody had killed her puppy (or in this case wolf cub). Harry had received a letter the very next day from Remus informing him of his new girlfriend. Of course, most of the letter did have quite a rant about how much of a meddlesome little bugger he found Harry, but that wasn't so important. Remus did seem thankful enough. Harry then had a much longer letter from Tonks giving a blow-by-blow account of her talk with Remus.

While Harry didn't fully understand how and why Remus and Tonks had gotten together, or why Tonks was attracted to him, he was still happy for them. They certainly were happy with each other, if the complete change in Tonks was any indication.

'So, Hermione's here?' he asked as he tickled Crookshanks behind the ear after he had jumped on to and settled at his knees.

'Oh yes, she arrived the day before yesterday.'

Harry didn't make much conversation after that, content in just concentrating on finishing his soup. He let Mrs. Weasley do most of the talking, occasionally inserting in a word or two when required.

Twenty minutes later, sleepy and full of soup, Harry slipped into one of the beds in Fred and George's room, falling asleep almost as soon as his head hit the pillow. Glad to be back at The Burrow and among his kind at last.

A few hours later, he awoke fully rested. Glancing at his watch of the day, he noticed that it was pretty early in the morning. Harry quickly got into a pair of running trousers and a t-shirt for his morning jog. Stepping outside into the crisp morning, he started running. The route he had planned would take him around the perimeter of the large garden to the orchard. Entering the orchard, he planned on running its perimeter before getting back to the gate, where, if he could manage it, he would jog along the second half of the back garden ending up back at the house.

As with all plans, this one fell apart almost immediately. Harry had just started running when he heard a cackle. Looking back he noticed that he had drawn the attention of a few garden gnomes who had taken it upon themselves to start chasing him. Harry increased his speed not wanting to be caught by them. Those nasty blighters had a mean bite.

Suddenly getting an idea, he drew his wand, twisted around and started sending stinging hexes at the gnomes while still running. By the time Harry had reached the paddock, he was pretty winded, feeling as if he had run a marathon. The uneven ground coupled with the strangely agile gnomes did pose quite a challenge, though his accuracy was pretty decent; he had hit around seven of the ten gnomes before they had given up on chasing him.

Harry smiled to himself. I hope they try that again tomorrow, he thought. I can use the practise.

Vaulting over the low fence Harry headed into the orchard where after finding a fairly secluded place far enough from the Burrow, he continued his training. A few days back, he had hit a dead end as far as practising new spells was concerned since most of them were either high level spells with a rather noticeable effect or spells that required a human target or at the least a human-like target. After all, one cannot make a tree feel dizzy, while small animals were rather difficult to experiment on since they weren't human and the effects were different.

Additionally, for some reason they seemed to have an urge to dodge any spell sent their way. You'd think they'd stay in place especially after being conjured or transfigured, but noooo. They would insist on behaving just like the real things! And the little buggers were pretty good at it too. In fact, it was only spending so much time casting hexes, jinxes and curses at rabbits that Harry had managed to get so many gnomes. The rabbits were much faster and more nimble than those ugly things.

Because of that, he was restricted to improving his accuracy and speed of the spells that he had learnt before. He was forced to stop that after one of his conjured rabbits escaped his spot and had run into a Muggle child where it had promptly disappeared in front of the startled toddler. He didn't want to take further risks, so he had stuck to stationary targets.

Now that he was in a more secluded spot, far away from any Muggle, he could give himself moving targets. Conjuring a rabbit, he started sending stunners at the thing as fast as he could as the rabbit started dodging and twisting around. He noticed that over time as he got more used at casting spells that he did not require that much in the way of wand movements to successfully cast his spells. He had also noticed that the spells were no longer jets of vibrant light. While the light emitted from them was still there, it had lost some of its body and seemed to be slightly clearer.

At first he was worried about what that could mean, but then he remembered that in their duel, Voldemort and Dumbledore had sent spells that were far clearer in colour compared to the Death Eaters and Order members. In fact, one could say that the spells that came out of their wands were more like ripples of faintly coloured light.

Harry came to the conclusion that greater control in magic resulted in lesser amount of magical energy being wasted as light, giving the spell more power. That theory was further confirmed when the conjured rabbit was blasted quite a distance when hit by the stunner before disappearing. Now that he looked back on it, the gnomes he had managed to hit also were blasted back quite a distance before landing. It looked like his meditative exercises in controlling his magic had paid off. Then again, the creatures were rather small...

Harry had also realised that switching wand hands had produced a better result. Using his left hand felt more natural and comfortable than his right hand. The mystery of that was solved by his Occlumency exercises. When he was much younger, his primary school teacher had taken to "correcting" his left-handedness by rapping his knuckles with a scale every time he used his left hand to write or eat. The Dursleys were more than happy to follow through when they heard about it from Dudley. After all, it did make Harry miserable.

So while Harry had gotten used to being right handed, he was never too comfortable with it. Harry had all but forgotten about that time. Now after going through those memories, he had decided to go back to using his left hand. He had taken some frustration of having that done to him out on Dudley by breaking his right arm now and again rather viciously in his quest of learning how to heal and break bones and intentionally taking time to find a way to heal the break. It was the least that fat lump of lard could do for having snitched on him to his parents. He silently vowed to track down and ensure that his teacher could never use her right arm ever again. It had taken a lot of time practising with his left hand for him to get to the point where his handwriting was no longer illegible. And nothing was more tiresome than having to write lines over and over again in the summer when you aren't required to write any assignments.

Finished for the day, he jogged back to the Burrow. Approaching the back door, he smelt bacon and waffles. Following his nose, he entered the kitchen to find a vision of perfection; a blonde goddess standing at the stove and cooking breakfast.

'Fleur, is that you?'

Fleur Delacour turned around to see a tall handsome and sweaty young man standing at the doorframe. His mop of messy black hair was sticking to his forehead while his vibrant green eyes were looking at her in an expression of surprised happiness.

It took Fleur a few moments to recognise him. ''Arry!' she cried, 'Eet 'as been so long!' Striding up to him she reached up to kiss him on both the cheeks.

'My, you 'ave grown!' She said appreciatively looking at him up and down.

'I guess I'm not a "leetle boy" anymore,' Harry replied with amusement looking down at Fleur who was now a few inches shorter than him.

'Non, you definitely are not a "leetle boy" now.' she said slightly flirtatiously.

Harry blushed slightly at her last remark causing Fleur to smirk. Clearing his throat, he sat down at the table.

'It's a pleasant surprise to see you here Fleur. What have you been doing these days?'

'They 'aven't told you?' Fleur asked incredulously. Before Harry could reply however, Mrs. Weasley came into the kitchen.

She started as she saw Harry in the kitchen, evidently not expecting to see him so early in the morning.

'Harry dear, what are you doing up so early? I certainly did not expect you to be up already since you had a rather late night. Are you all right dear? You're all hot and sweaty ... you don't have a fever, do you?' she asked in a motherly manner feeling his forehead with the back of her hand.

'I'm fine Mrs. Weasley,' said Harry shrugging her hand off. 'It's just that I have recently started exercising every morning ever since summer started and now, I am used to waking up early in the morning.'

'Eet is vary good that you 'ave started exercising 'Arry,' Fleur interjected. 'You are looking rather 'andsome. The girls will go wild over you.'

Mrs. Weasley made a disapproving noise at Fleur's remark before turning to Harry. 'Well, it's nice to see that you take your health seriously Harry dear,' she said.

'Thanks Mrs. Weasley.'

Harry turned back to Fleur to ask his original question again. 'By the way, you still didn't tell me how you ended up here of all places.'

Fleur immediately rounded on Mrs. Weasley, 'You did not tell 'im?' Then not giving a shocked and spluttering Mrs. Weasley any chance to defend herself, she turned back on Harry, tossing her head and whipping Mrs. Weasley on the face with her hair in the process.

'William and I are getting married,' she said with a great deal of happiness. 'Of course, you are invited. Gabrielle would love to meet you.'

'Wow, that's great Fleur I am happy for you!' said Harry. He noticed that Mrs. Weasley didn't seem to be too happy about it but didn't say anything. Let them work it out between each other. He had no intention of getting in the middle of a fight between a hot headed short tempered ginger mother of seven equally hot-headed and short tempered ginger children and a girl who could actually throw fire when angry. Bill sure knew how to pick 'em, thought Harry in amusement. At least Charlie could help Bill should he ever find himself on the wrong end of Fleur's temper. I'm sure Charlie knows a lot about the different burn relieving spells, potions and salves from working with those dragons.

Besides, he had his own problems; he had managed to get to know Daphne (as he had been told to call her by her father) a bit over the past few days, and found her to be quite an interesting person. After the initial nerve wracking meeting with Cyrus Greengrass (Daphne's father) discussing the terms of the contract, Harry had been left alone with Daphne for a while so that they could get to know each other.

After the first few minutes of enduring Daphne's ranting who wasn't well pleased in being given away to Harry on a contract made before she was born, the ice had finally broken when she referred to Harry as the "The Gryffindor Golden Boy". Harry, not having been called that to his face before in his life had broken down laughing and, trying to catch his breath, had asked a not-so-amused Daphne if that was the best she could come up with. Eventually her mask cracked as with a small smirk she did admit that it was a pretty silly thing to call him. Though it wasn't too surprising, that term was coined by Draco Malfoy in second year.

After Harry telling Daphne the intriguing tale of just how it was that the contract applied to him, their brief meeting had basically ended with Daphne telling Harry that while he seemed like a nice person, she still thought he was a reckless idiot with no hint of subtlety. However, she was willing to give him a chance to change that by the end of their seventh year (after which they would be getting married) or else. When he pointed out that there was no way she could get out of marrying him, she just gave him a cold smirk and said, 'that doesn't mean I cannot make the rest of your life a living hell, Potter. So you'd better work on it!'

Harry wasn't too worried about that bit since he was planning to change his general attitude anyway, but that remark nevertheless made him shiver, so he just nodded wordlessly in assent.

Finally, just before her father had come to pick her up, Daphne turned to Harry and said, 'one other thing Potter, while the contract requires me to remain a virgin till I am married, the same does not apply for you. So you'd better see to it that you have me screaming on our first night as a married couple. Understand?'

Harry gulped, 'sure thing.'

After that one meeting, they had decided to pick up at school. Harry had suggested that they write to each other over the summer, but Daphne shot that down as she found it impersonal and slightly cliché.

Bringing himself back to the present, Harry went upstairs for a bath.

Returning back to his room, he was just about to put on his pants when Ron Weasley took that moment to burst through the door.

'Harry! I didn't know you wer-' he was cut short as a startled Harry Potter wandlessly banished him out of the room closing the door firmly in his face, only getting a fleeting glance at his friend's nude body.

'Damn it Weasley, haven't you heard of knocking?' Harry shouted out through the door as the situation and its full implications had finally sunk in; his best friend had gotten into the room without much of a warning and had literally caught Harry with his pants down. Worse yet was the fleeting glimpse he had caught of Hermione before the door had fully shut. While he had gotten used to Ron seeing him like this (he did share a dorm with four other boys after all) what worried him was that Hermione had possibly seen him. He hoped to whatever power that was out there that she hadn't seen anything or he really had no idea what he was going to do. Staying locked up in this room till the end of time sounded like a great idea right now.

Ron coughed nervously at this. He still had no idea how he had been propelled out of the door and nearly on his arse and was quite confused about it. He also did not understand why Harry was so shy all of a sudden. After all, they had shared a dorm with each other for the past five years, and were quite used to seeing each other in various states of undress. Besides, it wasn't as if he had seen anything.

Before he could say anything however, Hermione took that moment to make her presence known, finally answering Ron's question of why Harry was being shy.

'Ronald Weasley, that was completely rude! How would you like it if I had barged into your room while you were getting dressed?'

'Well, he should have locked the door then!' said Ron defensively turning red at the prospect of Hermione seeing him without any clothes. 'I had no idea that he would be starkers in there! Besides, I thought he was still asleep, there wouldn't have been much point of knocking on the door if that was the case?'

'And that is why the door was closed you twit!' said Harry indignantly through the door as he scrambled into a pair of jeans. Buttoning them up, he registered the second half of what Ron had said. Now completely irritated, he opened the door.

'Let me get this straight; according to you, barging in on a sleeping person is more preferable than knocking on the door? I will keep that in mind the next time you are asleep. Oh hello Hermione,' he added in the last bit acknowledging the witch in question. Upon registering the blush creeping up on her face, he realised that he had forgotten to put a shirt on.

Hermione watched as Harry strode back into the room and put a shirt on. She had to admit that her friend was looking much better than before. He seemed to have grown over the summer and had developed rather nicely. Even his face had changed somewhat. While he still looked the same, there were a few differences here and there that made him almost unrecognisable at first glance.

'What happened to your glasses Harry?' she asked him.

'Oh that, well I had this thing called a Laser in Situ Keratokinesis done that fixed my vision!'

'You mean "Laser-Assisted in Situ Keratomileusis"?' She corrected gently.

'Yeah, that.' Harry replied absently. With genuine glee he continued, 'No more glasses for me! Now I can do this.' He turned his head to the side and looked at his friends from the corner of his eyes.

'Er, what?' asked a confused Ron.

'I can look out the corner of my eyes of course! I couldn't do that before without things being blurry!' said Harry with a bit of exasperation.

'Good for you mate!' said Ron, genuinely happy for his friend even though he had no idea what the big deal was. 'What exactly is this Laser in-thingy?'

'Laser-Assisted in Situ Keratomileusis or LASIK is a type of refractive surgery for correcting myopia, hyperopia, and astigmatism. It-'

'Hold it Hermione,' said Ron laughing, cutting her off in midsentence. 'I have no idea what you are talking about.'

Hermione just huffed in response clearly miffed at being interrupted. People could be so rude at times.

Harry could see the beginnings of a major argument building up, so he decided to interject before they could get started. He did not want to start the morning off with an argument between those two.

'Basically it is a procedure to correct people's eyesight.' He said to Ron before either of them could get a word in.

'I figured that,' said Ron sarcastically. 'What I want to know is how.' Ron had become curious about Muggle things lately and wanted to know what that Lay Sick was all about.

'See, the Muggles first put these pain numbing drops on your eyes, and then make you lie down on a bed. They then put these suction cups on your eyes so that they do not move. Once they do that, they use a blade attached to a machine to make a small slice on the surface of your eyes, over here,' he pointed to the cornea of his own eye, 'to make a really thin flap with a hinge.'

'Then they fold back the flap, and use this thing called a laser which is basically a beam of really hot light, to burn along the inside of your eye. This smoothens out the imperfections. After that they just put the flap back on and send you back out.'

Harry sat back against the bed. He was pretty amused at the look of nausea on Ron's face that his description had created. He had looked up the procedure last year when he was getting rather sick of wearing those glasses. However, he couldn't get it done then as he needed permission and he did not need to get it done now. But the information was rather useful in giving credence to his story.

Hermione looked rather green as well. Harry had the feeling that she hadn't really looked that much into the surgery. This was understandable as she really had no need of doing so since she had perfect vision. He wondered why she had tried explaining it nonetheless. Sometimes he just could not understand that girl.

'Muggles do that?' Ron exclaimed incredulously. He was slightly unnerved by Harry's description and did not know if Harry was taking the Mickey or not. His eyes were actually hurting in sympathy at this description.

'Yeah, they do,' said Harry. He himself was glad that he did not have to undergo that surgery. It did sound rather painful. Not to mention the number of things that could go wrong there.

'But don't they have potions for that sort of thing?' asked Ron slightly sickened,

'Of course they don't, Ron! Then Professors Dumbledore and McGonagall wouldn't need glasses now, would they?' said Hermione

'Actually they do have a vision correction potion. It was invented rather recently, but it requires the drinker to be of a certain age group,' said Harry, causing Ron to give Hermione a smug look.

Hermione rolled her eyes at Ron and said, 'why didn't you just use the potion then?'

'Well, it is rather restricted and requires a potions master to brew it. I am not going to be asking Snape for any favours, thank you very much.'

'But Harry, if he could help you why didn't you just ask him?' Hermione tried to reason with him. 'You could try and put your differences aside for a minute you know.' She implored.

'Oh please Hermione, for all we know, Snape could botch the potion up on purpose to make Harry blind.' Ron said. 'I bet his master would be happy with that,' he said darkly.

'Honestly Ron he is on our side!' said Hermione with the air of somebody who had that argument before.

'That's what he says.'

'Well Dumbledore trusts him, so that should be enough for you.' said Hermione with finality.

'Well that does not matter because I already had my eyes fixed. I would have loved to have it done the magical way, but I got it done the Muggle way. Whatever, the end result is that I can see without my glasses. Now can we please drop it?' Harry interjected before Ron had a chance to say anything in rebuttal.

Ron and Hermione glared at each other for a moment before agreeing sullenly.

'Thank you,' said Harry. 'Now what's for breakfast? I'm starved!'

'Oh, mum's making eggs among other things. She's really going all out now that you're here. She reckons that you look half-starved,' said Ron rolling his eyes. Just then Harry noticed Hermione giving him a peculiar look as if he was sickening for something.

'So what's been going on?' asked Ron

'Nothing much,' Harry replied. 'I've been stuck at the Dursleys all this time, haven't I?'

'Oh come off it, you've been with Dumbledore!'

'It wasn't that exciting; He only wanted my help to convince this old teacher to come back for the year. His name is Horace Slughorn.'

'Oh,' said Ron disappointedly. 'We thought that-' Hermione shot Ron a warning look at that moment causing him to change track at top speed, 'we thought that it would be something like that.'

'Really,' drawled Harry visibly amused.

'Yeah, well we no longer have a Defence teacher anymore, and now with the way things are going we definitely need a new teacher for Defence. So, um, what is he like?'

'He looks a bit like a walrus and was head of Slytherin,' said Harry. 'Something wrong Hermione?'

Hermione who had a look on her face as if she was waiting for Harry to suddenly show symptoms of a major illness hastily rearranged her face into an unconvincing smile. 'It's nothing Harry. So, um, did Slughorn seem like a good teacher?'

'Dunno, though he can't be any worse than Umbridge.' said Harry not fooled one bit by Hermione's apparent change of subject. He had an idea why she was looking at him like that, if the letters he had gotten from her were any indication. All throughout the summer she had tried to get him to talk about Sirius dying. Something he wasn't too pleased about. After speaking to Remus and revisiting the few memories he had of Sirius, he had finally come to terms with Sirius' death. He wondered why Hermione was looking at him like that considering that he had told her about speaking to Remus.

'I know somebody who can be worse than Umbridge,' said Ginny irritably as she slouched into the room.

'Hey Harry,' she said before giving him a second look. 'Wow looking good there Harry!' she said slightly breathlessly. The Harry Potter standing in front of her was drastically different from the one she had seen leaving King's Cross. He was taller, and his face now had an aristocratic look to it.

'What happened to your glasses?' she asked curiously.

Before Harry could open his mouth, Ron interrupted with a shudder, 'You do not want to know. And I wish you would lay off Fleur.'

Ginny snorted in response, 'That's right, defend her,' she snapped. 'We all know that you can't get enough of her.'

Judging by the look on Ginny's and Hermione's face, Harry guessed that Ron was still affected by Fleur's Veela aura.

'Don't you get used to her now that she's around so much?' he asked his friend.

'You do, but sometimes when she pops up unexpected and catches you off guard...' he trailed off with a wistful look on his face.

'It's pathetic,' said Hermione completely disgusted as she moved to examine one of the boxes left behind by Fred and George.

'You can't honestly want her around forever?' asked Ginny incredulously.

Ron just shrugged in response. 'It's not as if we can do anything about it now.'

'Not if Mum has anything to say about it, I bet she'll put a stop to it.' Ginny responded.

'What makes you say that?' asked Harry.

'She keeps trying to get Tonks around for dinner. I reckon she is hoping that Bill falls for Tonks instead. I hope he does, I'd rather have her in the family.'

'Yeah that'll work,' said Ron sarcastically. 'Listen, no bloke in his right mind would fall for Tonks when Fleur's around. I mean she's OK-looking when she isn't doing stupid things to her hair and nose, but-'

'She's a damn sight nicer than Phlegm,' said Ginny.

'And she's more intelligent, she's an Auror!' put in Hermione from the corner, clutching a telescope she had found in one of the boxes.

'Fleur's not stupid, she was good enough to enter the Triwizard Tournament,' said Harry defensively.

'Not you as well,' said Hermione bitterly.

'I suppose that you like the way she says "'Arry ", do you?' said Ginny scornfully.

'While I do admit that the way Fleur says my name has a certain charm to it-'

'I'd much rather have Tonks in the family anyway,' said Ginny cutting Harry off. 'At least she's a laugh.'

'About that,' said Harry. 'I can say with certainty that Tonks isn't going to be falling for Bill even if Bill falls for her.'

'What would you know about that?' asked Ginny suspiciously.

'Well I know for a fact that Tonks is already spoken for and is currently very much smitten with the person she is going out with.'

'Who is it?' asked Hermione curiously as Ginny groaned on hearing the news.

'Shouldn't you be asking Tonks that?' Harry said. 'I am not telling you. It's her business anyway. All I can say is that she is currently going out with someone and is rather happy with him.' Harry honestly did not know if Tonks wanted her relationship with Remus kept a secret or not and so decided to err on the side of caution. All the girls had to do anyway was ask her directly, and, if she felt like it, Tonks would reveal who she was seeing. This way, Harry was in the clear.

Just then Ginny was called down by Mrs. Weasley leaving Harry, Ron and Hermione alone once again. The topic of conversation then changed to what Dumbledore had done with Harry the night before with Harry mentioning private lessons with him and then finally deciding to reveal the prophecy. Ron and Hermione acted as good friends should by giving sympathising with Harry and still staying on his side. The moment of sentimentality was broken when Hermione was punched in the eye with the telescope she was examining.

Further conversation was halted with Hermione rushing out in a blind panic when Harry, remembering a part of the conversation he had heard from Professor Dumbledore, mentioned that the O.W.L. results would be arriving that day itself.

As Harry followed Ron downstairs in a more sedate pace he could not help but think that something was a bit off about the whole situation. While their concern seemed genuine, Ron and Hermione did not seem too surprised by the full contents of the prophecy. Also the letters he had received from them over the summer seemed a bit off too. Harry was slightly irritated with his friends because they had hardly written to him while he was there with those Muggles. It was just like last summer; the difference being that this time they seemed to have grown some sense and had stopped alluding to bigger more secret things that they were privy to in their letters. Though that had only added to his worries; the last time they really had nothing to hide when they were sending him all those hints, but this time, they weren't saying anything at all. Then again, it could be Harry's paranoia talking.

As he entered the kitchen to find Mrs. Weasley trending to Hermione's black eye that had been a result of her getting punched by the trick telescope designed by the twins that she had found while talking in Fred and George's room, he pushed that irritation away. It had to be his paranoia talking. Perhaps they really had nothing to talk about and were too busy to write to him that often. Perhaps they had also decided to leave him alone for a while to give him time and space to come to terms with Sirius' death and grieve? After all he himself had barely written to them. Yes, it had to be it. There was nothing dodgy going on. After all, it wasn't as if they were getting paid to be his friends or something!

He could easily get to the bottom of the whole thing by using Legilimency. But he did not want to do so. They were his friends after all, and he did trust them. It was here that Harry finally realised the temptations and responsibilities a Legilimens had. It would be more than easy to just give into temptation and find out what a person was thinking by rifling through their thoughts, but Harry had learnt to appreciate privacy growing up and did not feel comfortable about violating somebody else's privacy. In the end Harry made a vow to himself that he would never go through the minds of his friends. They hadn't done anything to shake his trust in them, so he would in turn trust them enough to not scan their minds fully. No he would not start abusing his gift by mind raping other people. He was not like Voldemort at all. Or Snape for that matter

As Harry dug into the large breakfast that Mrs. Weasley and Fleur had cooked up, Harry's train of thought wandered off to other topics. The instances where he had perused the thoughts of all those Muggles without any thought for their privacy did not even cross his mind at all.

'Where did your glasses go Harry dear?' asked Mrs. Weasley curiously. She couldn't remember if he had worn them last night or earlier this morning as she was distracted with other things.

At her question, Ron shuddered and said, 'You don't want to know mum!'

'Oh please Ron, it can't be that bad!' said Ginny. She herself was curious about that and pretty peeved at Ron for interrupting her when she had asked that question. Ignoring Ron's frantic gestures, she repeated the question to Harry.

Five minutes later, both the Weasley women and Fleur understood why Ron and Hermione had looks of nausea on their faces and why Ron had not wanted that story repeated as mother and daughter turned an unflattering but identical shade of green while Fleur still managed to look fetching even while nauseous.

After spending five minutes of reassuring Mrs. Weasley that he did not need to have his eyes looked at by Madame Pomfrey or the healers at St. Mungo's, Harry got back to his breakfast reflecting that it was quite an entertaining story to tell.

They were interrupted again by Hermione who had barely touched her food and kept looking out of the window had just spotted three owls winging their way to the Burrow.

'Oh, our O.W.L. results!' she squeaked as she hurriedly stood up and hurried toward the window, knocking her chair over in the process.

Harry suddenly not feeling very hungry got up and stood next to Hermione as he observed the approaching owls. He was shortly joined by Ron who stood on Hermione's other side.

Hermione gripped their arms tightly as she fretted over the results soon approaching, certain that she had failed everything. Her nervousness had affected Harry somewhat as well. He knew that he hadn't done as well as he could on some of the subjects, and only hoped that he hadn't failed everything as well.

A few minutes later, Harry found much to his relief that his worst fears were unfounded. He had done quite well in all his subjects with the only exception being History of Magic and Divination, two subjects he was glad to be rid of. He had even scored an O+ in Defence with extra credit given for his Patronus! He was pleasantly surprised to note that not only had he also managed to scrape an O in Transfiguration and Charms as well but had somehow gotten an E+ in his Potions O.W.L. of course that meant that he wouldn't be able to get into Snape's N.E.W.T. class, but he wasn't unhappy over that. He no longer wished to be an Auror. After all, now that he looked back on it, chasing Dark Lords for the rest of his life did not sound that appealing anymore. Besides, managing his estate would take up most of his time and he really wasn't hurting for money. Perhaps he would try and play Quidditch professionally.

Harry was brought back to the present when Hermione somewhat impatiently asked what he had gotten. He swapped his results with his friends; Ron's scores were more or less similar to Harry's except that he had only gotten Es in Transfiguration, Charms and Defence. Hermione had quite predictably gotten Os in all of her subjects except in Defence where, to Harry's immense surprise, she had obtained an E. Harry looked back at Hermione and intently studied her face when he saw her scores. She didn't seem too disappointed.

Suddenly feeling ravenous, Harry finished his breakfast at top speed while an excited Hermione started filling out her application form for the N.E.W.T. classes she would be taking. Finishing his breakfast, Harry took out the envelope for the required form and filled in what N.E.W.T. classes he wanted to take.

'Seven O.W.L.s, that's more than what Fred and George got together!' Commented Mrs. Weasley with a hint of pride when she saw Ron's result.

Harry nearly choked on the glass of pumpkin juice he was drinking when he heard this news. They really didn't care! He thought in incredulity. He was pretty amazed at the level of dedication they had shown towards their dream. Now that he thought about it, he could fully appreciate what the one thousand Galleons he had given to them two years back meant to them. If it wasn't for that money, they wouldn't have been able to get a decent enough job. No wonder they listed me as a partner, he thought as all the objections he had about his made being a partner died down. I was the person who made their dream a reality!

Just then Bill walked into the house with the intention of meeting Fleur and possibly having some of his mum's cooking. As he turned to greet Harry after greeting everybody, the sparkle of the diamond solitaire in the younger wizard's earring easily caught his well trained eyes.

'Nice earring you got there Harry,' he said conversationally.

'What? Harry has an earring?' said Mrs. Weasley as she and Hermione both looked a bit closer at Harry. And sure enough glinting innocently back at them on Harry's left earlobe was a single stud. Bill grinned on hearing this. He was surprised that his mum hadn't caught that yet.

All the occupants of the room waited with bated breath as they watched Mrs. Weasley slowly register the presence of the earring on Harry's ear. It was no secret to them that Mrs. Weasley was a bit conservative, if her reactions to Bill's earring and hair were any indication. Harry was especially nervous since it was him she would be directing her ire at. Not that he would be listening to her. She wasn't his mother after all.

Mrs. Weasley indeed looked like she was going to say something. However, before saying anything, her expression changed as she seemed to reconsider her words. Finally she opened her mouth and said rather calmly, 'it looks good on you dear.' She then turned around and flicked her wand as she started washing the dishes much to the astonishment of everybody else.

Bill especially was stunned. He was really looking forward to having somebody else in the house being lectured by his mum about having an earring or long hair for a change. 'But, mum, he has an earring' he said in a near whine. 'Why does that not bother you?'

'Well, Harry's earring is far more tasteful and elegant compared to that horrible great fang that you have dangling from your ear Bill!' snapped Molly Weasley as she rounded on her eldest son. 'And I would like to think that my grown son, who is about to get married would have at least stopped whinging like a five year old by now!' She said severely.

Bill just rolled his eyes as he sat down for breakfast, partly amused and partly frustrated. He had no idea why his mother was acting like this ever since he had come home with Fleur.

Hermione on the other hand looked rather disapprovingly at Harry. 'Harry James Potter! How could you get an ear pierced? It is completely unacceptable! What will they say in school?'

'Well, I went to this place where they do tattoos and ear piercings and I thought to myself, "hey, why not get my ear pierced?" so I walk in and ask the guy behind the counter and he says, "Just step this way sir." He makes me sit down on a chair, takes out this gun thing, swabs my ear with some disinfectant and local anaesthesia and shoots a hole into my ear!' said Harry with false brightness, thoroughly annoying Hermione.

'And before you ask, Professor Dumbledore, the Headmaster of the school saw my earring and did not say a thing! So there!' Harry finished, glaring at her.

'I think it looks rather nice,' said Ginny into the uncomfortable silence. Hermione just huffed at this refusing to speak to anybody. She was shocked that Mrs. Weasley hadn't said anything against Harry's earring.

'Thanks Ginny,' said Harry. He smiled at her, breaking the tension that had built up.

The immediate silence was broken by renewed groans from everybody in the kitchen when Bill innocently asked, 'so, why aren't you wearing your glasses anymore, Harry?'.