They Flooed to the Leaky Cauldron in two groups.
The private room was up the narrow stair at the back, past the door that always sounded as though it required oil and never received it. Ron had been in the room once before, for a Ministry function his father had brought him to when he was nine and which he remembered mainly for the specific smell of the ceiling charms and the large candle arrangement that had listed to one side throughout the evening.
Tonight it had been set properly. A long table for fourteen, prepared rather than merely arranged — candles at the right height, a fire that had been lit early enough to take the residual damp out of the air, the kind of attention to detail that came from Tom the innkeeper having been told this was a birthday dinner and taking the instruction seriously.
Neville arrived first, with Augusta Longbottom.
Ron had not known what to expect from Augusta Longbottom at a birthday dinner. He had met her twice — once at King's Cross at the start of third year, in the specific context of a platform and a moving crowd and no real opportunity to form any impression beyond 'tall' and 'hat.' Once in a corridor at Hogwarts when she had come for a meeting with the Headmaster, and he had held a door and she had nodded with the quality of someone who gave acknowledgement rather than thanks and considered it sufficient.
She came through the door with the bearing of someone who did not adjust their presence to rooms. She was in the same formal style she always wore — the hat was different, a deep green this evening, with something at its brim that moved slightly in a way that was not the draught — and she looked at the room with the assessing quality of a woman who had attended a great many formal occasions and was deciding in under four seconds whether this one had been organised correctly.
Neville was beside her, visibly younger than usual in his grandmother's vicinity — upright, careful, a degree quieter than his ordinary self.
Ron stepped forward. 'Mrs Longbottom. I'm glad you could come.'
She looked at him. Not the dismissive look — the assessing one, applied fully. 'Ronald Weasley,' she said. 'I have heard about you.'
'I hope some of it was good,' he said.
Something in her expression shifted, very slightly. 'Some of it was remarkable,' she said, which was not what he had expected, and she moved past him toward the table with the ease of someone who had delivered a verdict and considered the subject closed.
Neville looked at Ron sideways with the expression of someone who had just witnessed something that he intended to think about later.
'Happy birthday,' Ron said. 'Tomorrow is also your birthday, technically, but the dinner is tonight.'
'The thirtieth and the thirty-first,' Neville said. 'You and Sirius between you.'
'I mentioned the coincidence,' Ron said. 'Your grandmother organised the room.'
Neville looked toward Augusta, who was examining the seating arrangement with the focused attention she apparently brought to furniture. 'She did,' he said, with a quality Ron hadn't quite heard from him before — not surprise, but the specific warmth of someone receiving evidence of something they had hoped was true.