Hermione Granger was letting Harry go into the cottage first, alone. She hadn't told him to do it. She'd just followed with Jimmy asleep in her arms, letting him build a long lead. She'd loitered in the front garden, giving Harry time to take in the ground floor before she entered the cottage. When she finally opened the door, a task that was not made easier by Jimmy suddenly waking up, she entered.
The young mother found the open parlor that entry opened up to be quite cozy. She approached the fire place, between the two love seats, one of which had obviously been favored based on the indentations on the cushions. The fire suddenly came to life. There was a blanket between the two love seats with a bunch of toys on it, including a white snitch, which rose as Hermione approached it, saying over the blanket but moving slowly over it. It never went higher than eighteen inches.
Hermione gently lowered Jimmy to the blanket. The baby cooed, as the blanket supported him as if it was a mattress instead. The snitch passed in front of the barely two-month-old's face and Hermione watched as her son's eyes followed Baby's First Snitch.
As it looked like Jimmy was amused and didn't need anything, Hermione took the time to look through the bookcases flanking the fireplace. There were the usual copies of Hogwart's books. She was sure that Harry would have chosen these copies if they'd all been all on the list. That wasn't all that were there, of course. It seemed that one of them had been into Ancient Runes, a class that Hermione was looking forward to. There were a lot of those books including the five volume set of Tota et signa Runie by Ingenii Inventis. It was not a cheap set.
What really caught Hermione's attention was Donec Sacrorumque Ritibus Miscuerent, a book that looked like it has a lot of use, judging from the large number of bookmarks in it. She pulled it out and opened it to the first of those bookmarks. It was in Latin, of course, but Hermione knew Latin, and even if this was a bit archaic in form, she could still puzzle it out. She found a seat on the other love seat, kicked off her shoes, and began to read about ways to protect her baby.
It was a quite interesting book, and she was still reading it when Harry returned from upstairs. Hermione didn't realize that he'd returned to the ground floor until she felt him sliding up against her. "Something interesting, Hermione?" he asked.
"Yes, if Jimmy was in as much danger as you were, I'd probably be casting a few of these spells," Hermione said. "I still might do a couple. You think I can take this book with me?"
"It's my house, and I say you can," Harry said. "Pick up Jimmy and come with me. There is something that's puzzling me about the ground floor bedroom."
Hermione picked up her son, who seemed to be a bit upset to be taken off the blanket. "I think we need to take that blanket and snitch, too. Jimmy seems to like it." She noticed a brief grin from Harry, before it returned to the expression that she'd categorized as his thinking expression. They walked through the dinning area, allowing Hermione to get a brief glance of the kitchen before turning into the ground floor guest suite.
There was a short passage that opened up into a bedroom with a trio of windows that opened out on the garden. The walls seemed to be covered with what Hermione identified as undergarment advertisements. There was one for a Maidenform Bra, plus several that seemed to have come out from a Kay's catalog, judging from the label and page number in the lower corners. One in particular advertised that the bra and brief set was also available in white, telling the world that it costs so little to look lovable.
"Well that's interesting decoration," Hermione said, eying a particular black and white picture where the woman's panties were visible under her mini-skirt that was also an ad for the change to decimal money.
"Bet it was considered risque by my father and his friends," Harry said. Hermione met his gaze. "Anyway, that's not what I brought you here for. I'm pretty sure that this room was regularly occupied, in fact I'd say it was slept in almost nightly."
Hermione looked around the room, ignoring the pictures. The bed was not made. There was a set of Daily Prophets, obviously read, that she could see the dates on the top three as from October thirtieth, twenty-ninth, and twenty-eighth. It was a high enough stack that it had to contain a couple month's worth. A leather jacket was slung over one chair, and there were some books opened on the desk below the window. "Yes, I can agree with that," Hermione said.
"Well, I've identified who, and if what you said about the charm that my parents were hiding under was true, then something went very wrong," Harry said, picking up a hit-wizard badge and handing it to Hermione.
She hadn't know that Harry had listened to the full spiel that she'd gone after he'd asked if she could determine which of the four stories about what happened that night were correct. The answer had been that none of them could be completely correct due to internal inconsistencies. One thing it had covered, though, was that whoever held the secret could not live under it.
Ron carefully put his brand new robes in his trunk. It was the first time he had ever had robes of his own. He also had a brand new wand, one that had chosen him. His trunk was still the same old one that had once belonged to his Uncle Billius, but it was sturdy, and with a fresh coat of varnish applied just a couple weeks ago looked like it was freshly refurbished, not to mention sturdier than any available in Diagon Alley, being made by hand by a master craftsman decades before.
The trunk was unique in the fact that it had a special wand compartment in the front, that Ron carefully placed his fourteen and a thirteenth inch willow wand with a unicorn hair core in. He'd be able to remove it when he got on the express, but putting the wand that was bonded to him in overnight meant that only that wand and him would be able to unlock it. Bill had set it up, before he'd returned to Egypt. With the twins, this was a big benefit. He wasn't exactly worried about his dorm mates
Ron stood up, and looked out his window. What was known now as Percy's cottage, on the other side of the garden was visible from his window, and for the first time since it had been placed, the shed turned cottage was empty. Percy, Penny, and their twins had left for Penny's parents, who happened to live four stops away on the Piccadilly Line from King's Cross. Ron had no idea what the Piccadilly Line was save that he'd seen it on some sort of a map that Mister Clearwater had. He decided that he'd keep both the window and his door open overnight. It would create a rather nice breeze up the stairs and out his window, as long as the kitchen windows were also left open.
His trunk packed, and remembering the issues getting it down the previous year, Ron picked it up and began to carry it down the stars, the back end gently bouncing on the stairs. One floor from the ground, he was blocked from going down further, as it seemed that he wasn't the only one to have the idea.
"Don't run into my trunk," Ginny ordered, from a few steps below it. "I don't want anyone to mess with it."
"I heard last night," Ron said. "Tell me, did you get Bill or Percy to put the charms on yours?" Last night Fred and George had run with bats coming out of their noses from Ginny's room while Ginny had been in the kitchen cooking with their mother.
"Both," Ginny smiled. "Bill did it when I got it, and I had Percy add his twist just before he left."
"Percy, twisted?" Ron said, as Ginny reached the last step.
"Yes, they'll forget what they were trying to get from my trunk and have an urge to study their worst subject," Ginny said. "I almost wish they were able to try to get to the girl's dorms to mess with my new clothes at Hogwarts."
Then as Ron stepped onto the ground floor as well, Ginny turned to face Ron. "Ron, I've been thinking a lot about what you've done, and I want to thank you. I know you said that it was my hard work on the letters to Harry that made the book, that if I wasn't true to myself, and wrote that way, it wouldn't have gone anywhere. But Ron ..."
There was a catch in his sister's voice, emotion that he'd never quite heard from his sassy smaller sibling. "I wouldn't have even gotten the first letter back if you hadn't asked Harry first. I would have started this year as a Harry Potter fan girl, probably a bit angry at Hermione for having Harry's baby. I'd probably be wearing your old robes, and being teased for wearing a boy's shirt instead of a girl's blouse, not even knowing the difference until it was pointed out. I'd be the shy little girl who was probably putting her elbow in the butter dish, instead of being me."
"You know, I never really thought about getting new clothes, a new wand, because of Harry," Ron said. "It kind of just came about. Harry just wanted his story to be told, and for him to have something he did that would allow him to help take care of Hermione and Jimmy one day. I didn't think about your part at all. I certainly didn't think I'd get any part of it. Not that I'm against having new robes and a new wand this year."
"Yes," Ginny said, before hugging her youngest older brother. "Don't say you don't deserve it, Ron."
Ron placed his arms around his sister. "Only because you said so."