Her seventeenth birthday

The preparations had been going on for a while. This was, after all, the youngest of the red-headed clan, last of the brood, and the only girl for generations. Even if she were not the family favourite, everybody's pet - and incredibly beautiful, if anyone noticed that - her coming of age would have been a great event. As it was, every member of the Weasley family wanted this day to be absolutely unforgettable. It represented a change, for everyone involved; and it was especially significant for Molly and Arthur. The last of their children was a child no longer. It was suddenly noticed that Arthur would sometimes go into silent abstracted moods, and that Molly always seemed to have just a hint of a tear in her eye.

Not that tears had been scarce, or reason to brood absent, in this last grim twelvemonth. After the previous school year had ended with the murder of Albus Dumbledore, an awful silence had settled upon magical Britain. After the wedding of Bill Weasley and Fleur Delacour, Harry Potter, Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger - one of them their own son and brother, and the others so close they might as well be - had apparently vanished from the face of the Earth; and as if in response, the killings had stopped. Nobody could doubt the meaning of this. The Dark Lord had thrown all his resources into the pursuit of his three enemies. Somewhere in the world, somewhere, perhaps, in time, a terrible game of cat and mouse was being played, from which all their fates depended; and Harry had deliberately cut everyone else out from the struggle.

And so this party was to have still another meaning. In the face of the oppressive fear and the impenetrable darkness in which all their destines lay, the House of Weasley was going to assert itself before wizarding Britain and the whole world. To have a great party under the shadow of terror that overhung them all seemed to many foolish, escapistic, even hare-brained. Well, then! Let them think so. The Weasleys would fly their pride in their daughter, their love for each other, and - underlying it all - their faith and loyalty in Harry, Ron and Hermione, like a flag in the face of their enemies; hold it high against the sky, as proud as their own red hair. They might not be rich (though Fred and George were doing something towards correcting that), but they would remind the world that there was no older or prouder wizarding household in Europe. They had invited everyone they knew, including even former Minister Cornelius Fudge - whom they had no reason to like; owls with invitations even found their way to the households of many supporters of the enemy party.

Ginny had Flooed in from Hogwarts the previous evening, and, fully knowing that something was being prepared, had allowed herself to be shepherded to her own room by her mother, under pretence of being dead tired; and, protected by a Silencing Charm that isolated her room, the final preparations had been going on through the night.

Then the June sun had begun to creep through the window curtains (which had been cleaned and re-enchanted till they looked newly made), and the tired family had dosed themselves with Invigorating Charms and sat down to rest and chat in subdued, whispering voices.

Suddenly there was a tapping noise. A majestic eagle owl was knocking at one of the windows with its beak. Charlie Weasley opened the windows - as the other family members drew their wands just in case - and the bird flew in. Dodging the banners proclaiming HAPPY BIRTHDAY GINNY WEASLEY and THE LAST AND THE BEST, it went unerringly to the head of the household, perching itself on one of the arms of the chair and lifting its leg politely. Without a doubt, this was a well-trained and remarkably well-mannered bird.

Arthur Weasley looked at the message. It was a copy of his own invitation - addressed to a certain address in Wiltshire; returned to him, rudely enough, but with an unsigned pencilled scrawl at the bottom:

Is this is your idea of a sense of humour?

Arthur frowned and picked up his quill.

No, it is my idea of showing pride in my daughter and faith in her future. He thought of adding, Would you do the same for Draco?, but decided against it: the point, he thought, had been made. He paid the owl and gave it an Owl Treat, and the bird left.

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The sunlight through the curtains was now bright and vigorous, and the Weasleys were growing restive. "She's a sound sleeper, our Gin," said Fred (or was it George?) with a grin. "Yes," answered his twin in the same near-whisper, "except of course when you want her to sleep. D'you remember -"

"Ssshhhhh!" came an urgent hiss from their father. A split-second later, they all heard what had struck him: a wholly unnatural sound, a clanking, coming from upstairs and moving in their direction.

They all drew their wands, noiselessly and at once. The clanking came down the stairs, step by step; and in the shadows of the early morning, they could see a gleam as of metal.

Suddenly they saw, and a collective gasp rose from all their throats. It was Ginny; but from her throat to her feet, she was encased in yellow metal, and she carried a bright yellow helm under her left arm.

Bill, her eldest brother, was the first to recover his speech. "Ginny!" he burst out, "what on Earth...?"

"Harry was here overnight."

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There was a sense in which they should have expected it, of course. Harry loved Ginny. One way or another, wherever he was and whatever dark things he might be facing, he would have remembered her seventeenth birthday and her coming of age. Indeed, a few Weasleys felt rather silly at the thought that, while they were working so hard at preparing the party of the century downstairs, the one guest they would all have loved to have for the party was upstairs - in the one room everyone was leaving strictly alone.

"Dad... Mum... everyone... he left a few hours ago, and this is his gift for us. There is one for each of us," she concluded placing a number of golden metal balls on the table, each with the name of a member of the Weasley family.

"Garde dorée" said Bill's beautiful wife, Fleur, holding her golden ball as though in a dream.

"Yes," answered Ginny simply.

"Mais.." started Fleur, startled into her native language; and then she caught an unmistakeable glare from Ginny, and fell silent.

"Harry said," said Ginny, addressing her whole family as the festival hangings and cakes lay unnoticed and forgotten, "that Hermione found this spell in a deserted ancient library in the Alps. It is supposed to be the strongest possible protection against all magic. It looks like ordinary armour, but it can deflect any hostile spell - even the Avada Kedavra, apparently. Though he says they did not exactly hurry to test that little item of information."

"The Avada Kedavra?" said Fred, interested. He did not deal in Dark Magic, but anything that showed a new variation on an existing spell was grist to his and George's mill. "But nothing is supposed to be able to stop it - no counterspells, no anything."

"I'm not quite clear about this," said Ginny thoughtfully, "but the way Harry put is that when you are wearing this, as long as you're covered from top to toe, the Unforgivables don't strike you; they strike the armour. In some way, it registers with spells of any kind as a target... but it is not alive, so it cannot be killed."

"Good grief..." Fred whispered, looking at George, who looked equally stunned. He picked up his golden ball and started tapping it with his forefinger, as if checking its consistency. It was amazingly heavy.

She went on. "Harry decided that everyone he cared for should have one. He, Ron and Hermione have one each, wherever they are... he would not tell me. He has let Lupin have one. And these..."

There was a deep shadow in her eyes. "Last night, Harry and I exchanged vows. Vows which... in our eyes... only death can break. Harry did not want to die before he had married me." Ginny lowered her face, so that nobody could look at her in the eyes. And it was then that many Weasleys noticed the thin band of gold on her finger.

"He doesn't mean..?" said Bill, whose face bore the traces of Harry's enemies' murderous hatred.

"No. He intends to live through it, see it through, and come back." And Ginny seemed to stand a little straighter. "But he told me that if he died, he wanted to die as my husband," her eyes rested on each of her brothers, "as your brother," and she looked at her father and mother, "and as your son."

After a second, she added: "I should also have told you that Ron and Hermione have taken the same vows."

Nobody quite knew what to say. It was a powerful and painful message to receive - and yet there was love in it as well, and pride. It meant something to each of them, that Harry should have so wanted to join their family of his own free will; that Hermione should have done the same; and that both of them, in the middle of their grim and final struggle, should have been so concerned with their safety. And yet nobody quite knew what to say.

Finally, it was Arthur who broke the silence. "I think we shall keep this quiet for now, shan't we?"

"Yes," answered Ginny, "perhaps we'd better." And everyone nodded.

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The guests had been invited for lunch; the Weasleys had intended all along to have a private breakfast party for themselves. Of course, Harry's gifts had dominated it. Ginny had shown everyone how to create armour from the golden balls ("Simply touch them with your naked fingers and whisper: Armor! And when you want them to turn into the golden ball again, say out loud: Disarmor! That will do the trick") and explained their working: "Each of them is meant to take the form and peculiarities of the person who uses it. It cannot really be taken from you, not without a lot of work on the forming and binding spells, and it will protect your body automatically. You can also treat it like real armour, taking off the gloves or the helm or any bit that is in your way if you want to..."). And this had had an unexpected effect, because everyone - even Molly Weasley, who looked rather curious in armour - had had a great time testing the various features of the enchanted armours, putting it on and off suddenly, trying to see whether they would respond to others' commands (they would not).

So it was not until the guests had begun to arrive, and the armours had been turned back into balls and concealed, that Fleur had the opportunity to corner Ginny.

"Ginevra... a word wit' you, if I may."

"Oh, sure, come along" answered Ginny, leading her to her own deserted bedroom.

"Ginevra... Ginny... when I was at Beauxbatons, I read about ze Garde dorée once." Ginny just nodded.

"And it said... I don't know whether this is a legend or ze trut'... it said zat it was regarded as a rather impractical spell for most magicians, because in order to work, the armour would 'ave to be 'eavily inlaid wit' pure gold. Is zat true?"

Ginny nodded.

"So.. if one armour is so expensive... 'Arry, Ron and 'Ermione, zat's t'ree. Lupin, four. You, your mother, your father, Bill, Charles, Fred, George, and me, that's twelve. 'Ow could 'Arry...?"

"You forget Percy. Harry let him have one, with the instructions, at the Ministry. Thirteen. Even though Percy insists..."

"Well, zat's even more..."

"Yes. Fleur, Harry's parents were rich, and they left him piles of gold in Gringott's. He has used every last Knut of it in this armour. He said he was worried for a while that he could not reach thirteen."

"Until he met us, Harry did not have a family at all - except for a few tokens of his murdered parents, and that gold. The gold was the only thing he had of his own family. Do you see now why he would use it for us?"

"Yes. We are 'is family now, aren't we? I was lucky to marry Bill... quite apart from all the 'appiness zat 'e gives me."

"Yes," answered Ginny, touched in spite of herself. "And when I tried to protest, he told me that we... we Weasleys... had done very well without much gold for so long. That we were people he was proud to know and would set anyone for an example. And that he felt more comfortable now that he could be one of us without that enormous pile of gold to make a difference. That he was glad to change it for a living family, because the only value it had for him his eyes was that it came from his parents... now that he has a family again, he does not need gold."