He had written to his parents on the Monday.
The letter was a weekly occurrence — he had established this in September, the weekly letter home that covered the things that could be covered in a letter and left out the things that couldn't, and his mother received them as she received everything from him that summer: reading both the content and what was underneath it, and finding both satisfactory. His father wrote back on Wednesdays, usually, with news from the Ministry and the garden and the general state of the Burrow, and these letters had the specific warmth of a man who had found his footing and was writing from it.
This particular letter, the Monday before Hogsmeade weekend, included a request.
The first Hogsmeade weekend is Saturday. Harry and Hermione and I are going. I'd like to bring Ginny and Luna as well — Ginny doesn't have third-year permission yet, and Luna is Luna Lovegood, Mr. Lovegood's daughter from next door. Could you write to McGonagall for Ginny's permission? And to Mr. Lovegood for Luna's — he'd need to write to McGonagall directly, but if you explained the situation I think he'd agree. Luna's good for Ginny. You'll understand when you meet her.
Speaking of which — if you're free on Saturday, the Three Broomsticks does a proper dinner service in the evenings. We'd be back by curfew. If you wanted to come down.
He had sent it with Mira on Monday morning and had received, by return owl on Wednesday — which was faster than usual and implied his mother had written immediately — a letter that said yes to all of it in the specific efficient way his mother said yes to things she had already decided were the right answer.
His father's letter arrived alongside it, separately, in the specific slightly formal handwriting of a man who had spent twenty years writing Ministry documents and couldn't entirely turn it off in personal correspondence. It said that Mr. Lovegood had been contacted and had agreed with enthusiasm, had added three paragraphs about the importance of encouraging young people to broaden their horizons, and had included a cutting from The Quibbler about a Snorkack sighting in Sweden which Arthur had found genuinely interesting and had enclosed for Ron's benefit.
McGonagall had confirmed Ginny's permission on Thursday with the specific brevity of someone who had been approached reasonably and was responding in kind: Miss Weasley may accompany her brother's party. Miss Lovegood's father has written. Both are confirmed.
They walked down on a Saturday morning in the pale October light — Ron, Harry, Hermione, Ginny, and Luna, who was wearing a necklace of Butterbeer corks and had her wand tucked behind her ear and was looking at the path down to Hogsmeade with the air of someone for whom the path was not the point but the things on either side of it were.
"There's a Blibbering Humdinger in that tree," Luna said, indicating a large beech on the left side of the path.
"What does a Blibbering Humdinger do?" Harry asked.
"It confuses your sense of direction," Luna said. "It's why some people can't find Hogsmeade the first time. They think they're going straight but they've been turned about fifteen degrees without noticing."
Harry looked at the tree with genuine consideration. "We haven't been turned, have we?"
"No," Luna said. "I've been watching. We're fine."
Harry appeared to find this reassuring. Hermione, beside Ron, had the expression of someone who had been maintaining a policy of rigorous skepticism and finding it increasingly difficult to hold against the simple fact of Luna's complete sincerity.
"She believes everything she says," Hermione said, very quietly, to Ron.
"Yes," he said.
"That's either very concerning or very—"
"Restful," he said.
Hermione considered this. "That's not the word I was going to use."
"What were you going to use?"
She was quiet for a moment. "I'm not sure," she said, which was the closest Hermione got to saying you might be right.
Honeydukes first, because that was simply correct.
The shop received them with the specific abundance of a place that had been taking the subject seriously since 1641 and had developed opinions. Ginny made immediately for the sugar quills, which she had been deprived of since last Christmas by the specific budgetary logic of a large family and was now addressing comprehensively. Luna examined the display of Pepper Imps for some time before buying a bag, then offered them around with the uncomplicated generosity of someone for whom sharing was simply the natural continuation of having.
Ron spent time at the serious chocolate section — the Honeydukes varieties that were genuinely different from Muggle chocolate in ways he had thought about and not fully resolved, something in the specific magical quality of the cacao or the process, and he bought a selection with the intention of comparative study later. He also bought a bag of Drooble's Best Blowing Gum for the twins, because he had been in the same building as them for six weeks and had not yet done anything overtly kind for them, and doing something overtly kind for the twins occasionally reset the dynamic in useful ways.
Harry stood in front of the Bertie Bott's display with the expression of someone approaching a familiar enemy with respect. He bought a large bag. He would, Ron knew, eat approximately thirty percent of the bag and give the remainder to various people throughout the week, not because he didn't like them but because sharing things was Harry's natural mode and always had been.
Hermione bought a bar of dark chocolate and three sugar mice, which she put in her bag with the slight self-consciousness of someone who had purchased something frivolous and was adjusting to the weight of it.
He noticed. He said nothing. He bought a second bag of sugar mice and put them in his pocket for later.
They went to Scrivenshaft's after, because Hermione had a list and because he had been meaning to replace two of his quills since the start of October and hadn't had time. The shop had the specific atmosphere of a stationery supplier that understood its clientele — the particular combination of practical and aesthetic that magical students required, the ink selection organized by purpose as much as by color, the quills graded in a way that rewarded knowing what you were looking for.
He spent longer than expected at the ink section. There was a specific deep blue-black that he had been using for correspondence since September and which Scrivenshaft's carried in a slightly different formulation than the Diagon Alley supplier — denser, with a quality in the dried line that he preferred for the notebook work. He bought four bottles.
Hermione, beside him, bought two colors he hadn't seen her use before — a deep green and a warm amber — and looked at them in the bag with the expression of someone who had allowed themselves a small indulgence and was reconciling it with her general policy on unnecessary expenditure.
"For annotations," she said, to no one in particular.
"Obviously," he said.
She looked at him. The corner of her mouth moved.
Luna was at the far end of the shop examining the selection of unusual inks with the focused attention of someone conducting research. She eventually bought a small bottle of silver ink and one of a very dark violet and held them up to the light in the doorway on the way out to check the color in the October sun, which produced a brief luminous quality in both that was worth seeing.
He took a photograph of that — Luna in the doorway with the two ink bottles, the light through them, Ginny beside her saying something that had produced a genuine laugh. The colors in the photograph when it developed were not quite the colors they had been in the light, but they were close enough, and the expressions were exactly right.