Harry Potter The Surprise

They were waiting until the platform was empty before portkeying to Italy, though watching Molly fawn loudly over Ginny - telling her how pretty she was becoming, and how she would make a wonderful wife for someone one day - had Harry had Hermione wanting to leave right away. Noticing the adverse affect Molly's hastily staged production and loud broadcast were having on Millie, Hermione slid up alongside the clearly worried girl for a quiet word.

"Don't worry about Mrs Weasley's rant. That touching performance is purely for Harry's benefit - trying to make him see the mistake he's making in dating me instead of Ginny - and nothing to do with you and Ron. We think she and her daughter have had Ginny's wedding to Harry planned for years. Ginny is rather obsessed with Harry and, as we all just saw, her mother is hardly discouraging that obsession."

Embarrassed at being so easily read, Millie still really appreciated Hermione's kind words. She'd initially thought Ron's mum was having a go at her, for not being pretty enough to date her son. Hearing that Hermione - who Millie thought was very pretty - faced problems because she was dating Harry was a revelation for the girl with absolutely no self-confidence. There was also something Millie desperately needed to find out from this girl.

"Hermione, why are you being so nice to me? We've never been friendly, I was horrid to you back in second year…"

"That's in the past, let's leave it there. I'll be totally honest with you, Millie, if you'll do the same for me. The whole school knew I had two best friends, both boys, and one of them I'm now betrothed to. You don't need to be a genius to see the potential for things to go very bad between the three of us after I got together with Harry."

"Ron is a very good friend, Harry though is the only one for me. You now being with Ron took all that possible conflict and anxiety away. Hanging about as two couples balances us back up again. So we hope to use this holiday to get to know you better, because Ron is still our best friend. Now it's your turn, why Ron?"

Millie's eyes focused on the boy his mother was now fussing over. "I'll be honest too, but it's just so hard to put into words. I look at Ron and my insides are full of butterflies, he smiles at me and I melt. I'm not explaining this very well…"

Hermione was the one who was now smiling. "You did just fine. He is still one of my best friends though, so don't hurt him. He hurts you, come to me and we'll kick his arse together."

This actually had Millie giggling as she nodded in agreement with Hermione. Their little chat felt like being accepted into the group, something Millie was desperately hoping would happen.

Remus and Sirius had a length of rope that was their portkey to Italy. They were threading it through all the luggage, so people would only have to concentrate on holding on and not worry about their bags. They intended to take an end each, with everyone travelling spaced between the luggage and them."

"After the twins had finally managed to escape their mother's smothering, Fred and George grabbing onto the rope completed their group. Sirius activated the portkey and only the parents were left on the platform, taking their children's school trunks home with them.

.....

The train may have barely arrived at the platform in King's Cross but, back in Hogwarts, things were already settling into holiday mode. Albus sat back in his chair and surveyed his office in peace and quiet, that quiet was rather unsettling though.

The special charmed items that had monitored the wards at Privet Drive for over a decade were silent now, and Albus had grown quite used to the soothing whirring over the years. Harry must have let his family know he wouldn't be returning, causing the wards to crash. Albus still wasn't sure how he felt about that, but had no more time to ponder the problem as an owl arrived with even more bad news.

After reading the letter, an angry Albus crumpled it into a ball and tossed the parchment out of the window - just missing the now rapidly retreating raptor that had delivered said letter mere moments ago.

Poppy Pomfrey had just resigned from Hogwarts too. Her stating that she didn't require a reference for her new job prevented Albus from even discovering where she had gone. Knowing that replacing Poppy would almost be impossible, but was required by law, just made his already busy summer that much more frenetic.

Had he known that Pomona and Filius were currently in Hogsmeade, preparing to activate their portkeys to Italy, Albus would have had a fit.

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