But he didn’t mind, after all that time on the road during Hallows year, Harry was willing to indulge pretty much anything from Hermione if it made her happy.
They wandered back to the house, where Harry was prevailed upon to eat some more treacle tart. Not that he needed much prevailing in point of fact, it was much better than the store bought version he had purchased the day before at Sainsbury’s and polished off 30 minutes later, he was at least comforted by the fact that his appetite was coming back. Molly, again sensing an opening, volunteered to get Harry and Neville a regular Sunday supply of it. To her shock Harry smilingly agreed, and even volunteered to do a de-gnoming once a month in compensation. Molly finally relaxed around him, and Arthur was full of good cheer as well.

Everything ended on a friendly note and more visits were promised. Harry and Neville flooed back to Grimmald Place and got Neville set up in record time. They were in the kitchen eating spaghetti when Neville brought up the party.

“So today wasn’t too painful, was it?” Neville thought he was making a joke, but Harry’s response had a slight edge to it.

“Everyone needs to stop building things up so much, not everything in life needs to be so momentous.”

Neville kept smiling, to try and defuse the sudden tension.

“That’s the way we’ve been trained you know.”

“Well we need to un-do that training for the time being.” Harry’s tone of voice was equal parts exasperated and amused, but Neville’s continual smile was making him…….well he wasn’t frowning.

“Until the next Voldemort comes along.”

“That’ll be someone else’s problem then, I’m done with it.”

“If only it will be that easy. You’re the next Dumbledore, you realize this don’t you?”

The Daily Prophet had been full of speculation about this very theory, so it wasn’t news to Harry.

“I don’t see why you can’t be the next Dumbledore, Mr. Auror-to-be.”
Neville was the only member of the DOM crew to accept the invitation to join the Auror Academy, though all of them were asked. Even Luna, who no one even in her circle thought of as Auror material, was recruited, but she was going to right to work for her father at The Quibbler.

“This is just something to keep me occupied until Professor Sprout retires, it’s not like I have ambitions to be Head Auror or anything.”