FicWad

DISCLAIMER: See Ch. 1.

NOTE: It took me a while with this chapter, because I thought of so many good birthday and Christmas gift ideas from HoG!

MORE IMPORTANT NOTE: In my haste to update, I forgot to add something to this chapter, so I uploaded it again! See if you can find the new thing that wasn't there before!

This chapter is dedicated to Jeconais, who let me borrow something from his story, "Chances." See if you can find it. (Wink wink!)



CHAPTER 10: HARRY'S SEVENTEENTH BIRTHDAY

For the rest of July, Harry kept hopping back and forth between Potter Manor and the Burrow. Actually, he only visited Potter Manor once or twice, just to make sure everything was in order. After all, since Snape had adopted him, he wanted to have the feeling of being in the same house as his surrogate parent; that would happen during the last couple of weeks of vacation. The week he spent at the Burrow after the end of term was merely "for old time's sake," as Mrs. Weasley put it.

On his last trip to Potter Manor, Ardeavis had sealed himself within a golden egg again. As he told Harry before all this, he only hatched when one of Gryffindor's descendants was in need of aid, and when he was no longer needed, he would regress back into being an egg, to wait for the next time he was needed.

After Harry and Ardeavis exchanged farewells, and Ardeavis regressed and encased himself in a new egg, Harry went to the Founders' Temple, opened the vault with the sword, found a nice warm corner to deposit the egg in, and left.

'Until next time,' Harry thought as he sealed it.


As Harry's seventeenth birthday got closer, the Weasleys and his other friends and surrogate family asked him what he wanted to do. Each time they asked, he could only reply that he honestly had no idea what he wanted to do.

It still felt just so strange to Harry to have this freedom in his life not to worry about Voldemort anymore. He was used to being needed from time to time to defend his friends, but just to "be himself" was a concept he was still having trouble grasping.

Oh, what the heck, he'd figure it out later.


The day of Harry's seventeenth birthday dawned, showing it to be a beautiful, sunny day with only a few clouds in the sky.

This all felt like a sort of blessing to Harry, who considered himself unbelievably lucky to have even reached this day at all.

Wanting to look good (especially for Ginny), Harry freshened himself up for this special day. Ever since the previous year, he felt like he actually liked his birthday, where it was a celebration and not just a special date on a calendar.

It seemed as though Harry was beginning to get his wish for a normal life after all. It was just taking longer than he had initially wanted.



Ginny woke up an hour or so later than Harry did, brushing her fiery hair out of her eyes. Yawning, she snuggled up again, not really wanting to get up.

Then she remembered what day it was, and her lithe body shot straight up in bed.

Harry's birthday.

'Oh crap,' she thought to herself, horrified.

She had to think of something, /fast/. How could she possibly forget about this!?

'Well, you could give him your... /innocence/,' said one wicked little voice in the back of her mind.

Blushing and suppressing that idea, she turned to go find her mother and help figure out a solution-

And then Ginny suddenly had an idea.



As Harry entered the kitchen, he was immediately hailed upon by the Weasleys, who all wished him a happy seventeenth birthday. A healthy-sized crowd of friends would be coming by later.

While not one for attention, Harry was almost anticipating the expected turnout that would be coming.



Ginny went for a walk outside after making her gift for Harry in something of a hurry.

She decided to take a stroll in the backyard, near the gardens and the forest's edge.

And suddenly, there was Harry.

He wasn't facing Ginny; he had his back turned to her. Harry was just taking a casual walk, looking relaxed as opposed to how high-strung he was a lot of the time.

Ginny couldn't help tear her eyes away from Harry. He looked so strong and handsome, especially with that unruly black hair of his, and clad in a T-shirt and shorts, she could see his muscular arms and legs-

Cutting that thought off, she went up to wish him a happy birthday. As Ginny called his name, he slowly turned around, giving her a rather shocking and unwelcome surprise.

"Harry" slowly turned around, revealing a pale, pointed face, cold gray eyes, and a devious smirk.

Ginny went from cheerful to steamed in a split-second, and unleashed a barrage of swearwords to express her feelings at being tricked by one Draco Malfoy and his Metamorphmagus powers.

Over the course of her rant, Draco's expression slowly changed from "I just fooled you" to "I had no idea you could curse like that."

"...and if you ever pull anything like that ever again, I'll shove you face-first into a boiling cauldron to ruin your looks /permanently/!" she yelled, exasperated and starting to flush from all the effort of cursing.

"And you kiss your boyfriend with that mouth?" Draco asked, morphing back into his usual blond self.

"What are you doing here, Draco?" Ginny asked, arms crossed over her chest and ignoring that last question.

"Wishing Harry a happy birthday," the Slytherin said with complete innocence. "And maybe you too; I may be busy next month."

Ginny smoothly raised an eyebrow in a distinctly Slytherin-ish way. "Why? What's going on?"

"Places to go, people to see," Draco said simply. "Sorry I can't say anymore, except... well, I can't."

"I understand," Ginny said with a cheerful, innocent smile that impressed even Draco.

"/But/," Draco added, that doesn't mean I don't have something for you. He took out a small bound navy blue book and gave it to her.

"What's this?" she asked, opening it up.

"Not to bring up any painful memories, but you can interact with this diary, like with Riddle's -"

There was a yelp, and Ginny dropped the book as though it were on fire.

Calmly picking it up, Draco finished, "/But/, this can't possess people are such. This is purely for the sake of storing entries and allowing interaction."

Lokking curiously at one moment, Ginny finally accepted and thanked Draco for the gift.

"Don't mention it," Draco said. "Besides, like I said last year, if I had known that evil diary had existed, I probably would have destroyed it by having my owl drop it into a volcano or something."

Of course Ginny's mind wandered back to that night where the Lestrange brothers had broken into the castle, and when Draco confessed his innocence and non-involvement under Veritaserum. Draco's comments back then about destroying the diary ranked there importantly in Ginny's memory, along with other things such as Draco's revelation that if Hermione hadn't tricked Umbridge, thereby preventing her from using the Cruciatus Curse on Harry, Draco would have stepped in with some trick. His reasoning made perfect sense, actually: Draco and the other people in her Inquisitorial Squad would have been accomplices to the crime, and Draco was in no mood and had no desire to get into trouble like that because of Umbridge.

Suddenly, Ginny hugged him, and Draco returned the hug one-handed. The other hand made to run through her hair, but she caught it in time.

"You even pretend to scratch me behind the ears and I'll rip that arm yours arm off."

"Whatever you say, Tigress."

"Hey, what's going on?"

Harry was walking up to the two of them, looking confused.

"Nothing, just wishing Gin a happy birthday, since I may not be around in a month," Draco said offhandedly.

"Going somewhere?"

"Yeah, but unfortunately, I'm not at liberty to say."

"Well, have fun."

"I'll try," Draco said jokingly. Reaching into his pocket, he gave Harry an envelope with something in it. "Happy Birthday," he added.

"Thanks," Harry said, putting it in his pocket. "I'll open it later."

Suddenly looking around Harry and Ginny, Draco then asked, "Hey Harry... ever see a female version of yourself?"

Both Gryffindors stared at him. "Where in all the hells did that question come from?" Harry asked, rather perplexed at such an unusual question.

"Oh, I dunno..." Draco drawled, a small smile starting to creep across his face. "Because I'd say Tonks is in there right now, doing just that."

"WHAT!?" Harry yelled, turning into a lion and racing back to the house.

Ginny gave out a horrified shriek of laughter before transforming into a tiger and running right behind her boyfriend.

Draco merely smirked before taking out Slytherin's amulet and teleporting himself there.



Back inside the house, Tonks was strolling around in her new form, which consisted of long, unruly black hair, high cheek bones, and dazzling green eyes.

The females were grinning uncontrollably, while the males were laughing hysterically. They laughed even harder when Tonks batted her eyelashes at Neville, who then turned a peculiar shade of red. Off to the side, Luna was laughing strangely.

All activity stopped when an irritated lion burst in through the front door, and then had its eyes widen almost comically at the sight of the female Harry-look-alike in front of it.

Instantly transforming back into a riled human teenager, Harry stormed up to Tonks and yelled, "What do you think you're doing!?"

Stopping in mid-stride, Tonks turned to face him with a devilish grin on her face; for Harry it was like seeing his face in a distorted mirror. Placing her hands on her hips, she asked as she changed back, "Enjoying your day, birthday boy?"

Still quite rattled from what he had just witnessed, Harry asked "Why did you go and do that, Tonks?"

She shrugged and rolled her eyes. "I dunno, I guess I got bored. Heh, look on the bright side, kiddo; according to Remus, your parents wouldn't have minded you as a daughter."

Harry's narrowed eyes darted over to Lupin, who was trying to stifle his grin as best he could. "Et tu, Remus?" Harry asked rhetorically.

Lupin shrugged hopelessly and finally cracked.

"Tonks," Harry said in a quiet voice, focusing back on the Metamorphmagic woman, "Let us never have a repeat of this, let alone ever speak of this ever again."

Tonks actually looked a little hurt. In a pouting tone, she replied, "Fine, Harry, I won't show you the swimsuit issue I posed for..."

"TONKS!"



It took about half an hour for Harry to stop muttering and griping about Tonks' little act, but eventually, he was able to get over it and finally relax and enjoy his day.

Taking out the sealed envelope which Draco had handed to him earlier and opened it to find that it was a "gift certificate" to a certain wizarding antiques shop. Harry was a little puzzled by this choice of a gift, but decided to store it away, since he never knew when it might come in handy.

In fact, for the most part, Harry got gift certificates to various things for his birthday, because, as Hermione pointed out, no one knew quite what to get him. Harry had to admit she had a point.

However, he later thought to himself that he could always use the money to but the gifts for them in return...

The non-money gifts he received were the newest WWW pranks from the twins; from Dumbledore, a feather from Fawkes which was turned into a quill that would never run out; from Hagrid, a leather belt with pouches on it for holding small objects; and from Lupin, a scrapbook of his parents and their friends while they were still students in school.

Towards the end, Luna approached Harry with a rather unique gift.

Harry opened up a small package and found its contents to be... a small plush doll of himself?

"Squeeze it," Luna suggested in her airy voice.

With a raised eyebrow, Harry did just that. The plushie went SQUEE and transformed into a plushie what looked like Harry as a lion.

There were some snickers and laughs all around, and Ginny commented "Aw, it's so cute."

Harry gave her a questioning look and squeezed it again, thinking it would change back. This time, it turned into a small plushie replica of what Harry looked like as a phoenix.

The next time Harry squeezed it, it really did change back into its human form.

"It's what I call an 'Animagus Doll,'" Luna said. "It's just some idea I came up with a while ago..."

"Very unique gift, Luna, thanks," Harry said, putting it back in its box. He actually thought the idea was okay; his only real fear was it somehow turning into something marketable (because, of course, he hated the publicity).

Finally, last came Ginny, who sauntered up to him with something soft and wrapped up. Was it clothing?

"Happy birthday," she said, kissing him on the cheek.

"Thank you," he whispered back. He opened it up to find... a shirt?

Unfolding it, he read the text in emerald green lettering: I got Ginny Weasley as a girlfriend and I got much more than just this lousy shirt.

Harry chuckled. "Very creative, Gin. I like it a lot. Thanks." Ginny muttered a response while turning a little red.

If the two of them weren't so rapped up in the moment, they would have noticed everyone else looking a bit confused (with the exceptions of Percy, who turned a little pink as his memory clicked, and Mrs. Weasley, who was trying to keep her face as blank as possible.)

"Well, now that we've got all that out of the way," Mrs. Weasley declared before anything else could happen, "onto the /meal/."

All the diners present at the table felt like kings and queens as they feasted on the quasi-banquet Mrs. Weasley had prepared with her magic. As everyone was finishing up desert, Aurigo (Snape's eagle owl) flew in with a small package.

Opening it up, Harry saw a small onyx pendant in the shape of a raven.

There was also a note enclosed with it.

Harry,

I have designed this pendant so you will always be able to contact me in times of peril. The fewer repeat experiences we have of your abductions last year, the better.

Happy seventeenth birthday.

Severus

While Harry was touched by the concern, he still mentally noted how the Potions professor could make such an event as one's coming of age somewhat gloomy.

Pocketing the pendant and the note, Harry went back to enjoying his birthday with his friends and surrogate family.



Later that night, Harry was lying on his bed, still in his day clothes. His head off to one side, he was gazing at the stars. There was Leo, the lion.

In retrospect, Harry found it rather amusing how the time he was born could reflect the clues that he was the Heir of Gryffindor. Being born on the last day of July, that made him a Leo and his birthstone the ruby. Leo was the lion, mascot of Gryffindor House, and rubies were Gryffindor red (not to mention that several big ones were embedded in the hilt of Gryffindor's sword).

All in all, even he had to appreciate all the symbolism.

"Harry?"

Harry turned his head around to find Ginny at the door, still in her day clothes (a T-shirt and shorts). Harry to admit, she was just /gorgeous/...

"Yeah, Gin?" he asked.

Ginny walked over to the bed and sat herself down next to him. Smiling, she whispered, "Have a good day, birthday boy?"

Cracking a small smile, he whispered back, "Oh, I did. But just having you as a girlfriend... that in itself is more than enough. Not that I'm complaining..."

Ginny also felt herself blessed to have Harry as a boyfriend; in fact, she really couldn't find one complaint with him whatsoever.

Lying down next to him, they began to simply chat and flirt, talking over nothing much...

Finally, as the two of them got sleepy, Ginny snuggled into the bed under the covers, wrapping her arms around Harry. Kissing her on the forehead, he whispered, "Good night, my tigress." Not long afterwards, both of them fell asleep next to each other.

A few moments later, Mrs. Weasley passed by the semi-open doorway and looked in. She couldn't be happy enough for both her daughter and surrogate son that the two of them were finally together. Gazing upon their sleeping forms one last time, she smiled and closed the door.



TBC...

A/N: This chapter seemed a little funky... it was okay, wasn't it?

As for the "Animagus Doll"... I just had this idea for a while. So there.

Next chapter is going on vacation for Ginny's birthday and unexpectedly meeting a certain relative... -Quillian