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Chapter 11: A Birthday in the House

Relative to the first three weeks of summer, the final week before Harry's sixteenth birthday passed fairly uneventfully. Under Mrs. Weasley and Moony's watchful care, the Weasley children's moral support, and Professor Dumbledore's tutelage, Harry's physical and emotional well-being improved dramatically.

Only once had Voldemort attacked Harry's mind, and because of the Headmaster's Occlumency training, Harry had been able to force him out within a few seconds. The effort involved had sent him back to bed for the rest of the day, but Harry had been encouraged and even a bit proud of himself for managing the feat.

Because of Molly's wonderful cooking and insistence that Harry eat three square meals each day, Harry had gained enough weight that he lost the gaunt, unhealthy look he had when he had arrived. The day before Harry's birthday, Madam Pomfrey had pronounced herself satisfied that he was healthy once again, and had allowed Harry to stop taking the potions she had prescribed. She did, however, discreetly leave a few vials each of headache potion and dreamless sleep potion in Lupin's care, after he had told her quietly that Harry still had considerable trouble sleeping.

The dreams had not stopped, but they rarely morphed into visions. They were simply nightmares, and while they were plenty bad enough for a normal teenager, Harry actually felt a bit of relief that Voldemort seemed to have given up trying to invade his mind. It also helped that whenever Harry woke up, he would find either Molly or Lupin dozing in the armchair by his bed, ready to help him if he needed it. Although he was starting to find being constantly watched a bit irritating, he had to admit to himself that when he woke in the night, he was glad they were there.

Ginny and Ron were nearly always at Harry's side during the day, and he found that he did not mind their company. It felt more like they were just spending time with him like they would at Hogwarts than watching him, even though he knew that Mrs. Weasley still insisted that Harry never be alone in case of another attack. They played games, talked about school and Quidditch, wondered about O.W.L. results that would be coming for Ron and Harry soon, and even did chores around the house. Harry, of course, was not required by Mrs. Weasley to help with the chores, but he found that the mindless tasks were a welcome distraction from his troubles, so he often helped Ron and Ginny clean out dusty old cupboards, sweep floors, and even scrub the toilets.

All in all, Harry was feeling happier than he had since before the end of term, and as he drifted off to sleep on the eve of his sixteenth birthday, Molly reading the Daily Prophet in the armchair next to his bed, he finally felt safe.

*

Nine a.m. on July 31 found Arabella Figg strolling down Wisteria Walk on her way home from buying cabbage from the local grocer, her carpet slippers slapping the pavement in a shuffling cadence. Her mind was not on the walk, which she made every morning, but on one of her cats who had fallen ill. Imagine her surprise when she found, standing on her front stoop and trying to look as inconspicuous as possible, Petunia Dursley, dressed in her suburban-housewife best, and sporting her usual pursed lips. Mrs. Figg stopped in her tracks and stared. What in Merlin's name was Petunia Dursley doing on her front stoop?

"Mrs. Dursley?" she inquired, trying to sound polite, but not able to completely mask her surprise.

"I want to know how he is," Petunia snapped with no preamble. "I know you are one of those freaks he hangs around with. I've known it for years. The sooner we get this over with, the better."

Mrs. Figg was completely taken aback by this statement. Petunia Dursley had never shown any sign before of caring about Harry's welfare. Was she actually concerned about him, or was something else going on? "Er...of course...won't you come inside for a bit? Quite hot already, isn't it?" She babbled a bit in her confusion.

"I won't be staying," Petunia said bluntly as she followed the batty old lady into the house. Her pointy nose wrinkled as she smelled the combination of cabbage and cats that permeated Arabella Figg's home, and she scanned the cluttered décor with obvious distaste. "I just want to know if the boy is alive or dead. I have a right to know."

"Of course you do," Mrs. Figg answered. "The problem is, I don't rightly know. I'm afraid that I haven't talked to anyone since a few days after they took him away through my fire." In her fluster, she didn't even think to offer her neighbor a cup of tea.

"He was alive, then?"

"Yes, and they expected him to make a full recovery," the squib answered, confused even further when she saw no sign of emotion, relief or otherwise, cross Petunia's face. "I'm afraid they don't often remember to keep me informed, see. My job is to watch out for Harry, and when he is not here..."

Petunia nodded curtly. "I want to speak with them. I know you can make that happen."

"Well, I..." Mrs. Figg wondered if Petunia Dursley, a Muggle, was permitted to use the floo network, or if she was even able to.

"That old man. The one with the revolting eye," Petunia began. "I want to speak with him, or with that other man that came and took the boy."

"You don't want to speak with Harry?" Mrs. Figg asked tentatively. She could not figure what was going on here.

"No, of course I don't want to speak to him. Why would I want to speak to him? He's the reason my family has been tossed into the middle of this freak show." Petunia was growing extremely impatient. Dudley would be awake soon, and she needed to be back at Number 4, Privet Drive before he got up. She would have come earlier, but she had to wait until Vernon had left for his office.

Mrs. Figg was startled. No, she was more than startled. She was completely shocked.

"Mrs. Figg," Petunia began haughtily, no more respecting the woman in front of her than she respected the people who cleaned the toilets at the market, "I want to speak to someone, and I do not have all day to wait. If you want that boy to come back to my home next summer, then you will contact one of the men I wish to speak to."

Mrs. Figg simply stared at her, slightly offended and completely befuddled. Thoughts of her sick cat were replaced with her surprise visitor's demands. She knew the boy had to return to Privet Drive next summer, and did not see any way to avoid fulfilling this rude woman's request. "Right," she muttered. "We'll just have to use the floo."

"Fine," Petunia snapped. "Quickly, then."

Mrs. Figg moved to her fireplace, and Petunia watched, completely unimpressed, as the old woman grabbed a handful of glittering powder from a flowerpot on her mantle, tossed it into the grate, and muttered something unintelligible as she got down on her knees and stuck her head right into the emerald-green flames. Because Dumbledore himself had never told Petunia Dursley the location of Headquarters, she could not understand the woman's words, but she honestly didn't care. She watched as Mrs. Figg kept her head in the fire for a moment, then nodded curtly when the old woman leaned back out, shaking soot from her hair and rubbing her forehead, announcing, "Someone will be here in a moment."

*

Remus Lupin and Molly Weasley sat in the kitchen of Number 12, Grimmauld Place, planning the small gathering that would be held that evening in honor of Harry's sixteenth birthday. Molly had sent Ron, Ginny, and Harry upstairs not five minutes before, telling them that their task for the morning was to clean Buckbeak's room and keep the hippogriff company for awhile. The animal had not had proper company since Sirius' death, and it had been a good excuse to make sure Harry stayed out of the room and occupied while the preparation was going on.

"I don't think it would be wise at this point to startle Harry," Remus advised.

"No, of course you're right," Molly answered. "Just a small, quiet dinner with all of us, and cake of course, and his presents."

Remus nodded. "Maybe Fred and George could bring in a few jokes from their shop. I believe Harry would enjoy that diversion, as long as they agree not to do anything that would startle him too much."

Molly was saved having to reply to this request (she still had not quite forgiven her sons for the biting teacups) by the flash of emerald-green flame in the kitchen grate, and a loud yelp when Mrs. Figg's head collided violently with the copper teakettle on the trivet.

"Arabella?" Remus asked, jumping to remove the teakettle from the fireplace. "Is something wrong? Do you need to talk to Albus?"

"No, no," the old lady answered, "and I can't stay in here long, this is murder on my knees."

"What is it?" Molly asked anxiously. She was suddenly afraid for Harry, even though she knew he was safe upstairs and that Ron or Ginny would have gotten her straightaway if anything had happened to him.

"Well, it's...well, I can't rightly explain it, but I've got Harry's aunt here and she insists on speaking to one of you. Says she wants to know how Harry is, but she doesn't want to talk to him. She was quite adamant about that, actually."

"Petunia Dursley wants to speak to one of /us/?" Remus asked in bewilderment. "Whatever for?" He did not believe for a moment that the woman was concerned about her only nephew; something else was going on. Even as he tried to remain calm, he could feel the pent-up anger he had felt towards the Dursleys all summer simmering dangerously close to the surface.

"I don't know," Mrs. Figg answered. "She said that if we want Harry to go to her home next summer, she insists on speaking to one of you now, and she's quite snippy, really."

"Oh, I'll speak with her," Molly snarled, her voice dangerously low.

"Molly, stay calm," warned Remus, although he was clenching his fists so tightly that his knuckles were white.

"Can one of you come here, then?" Mrs. Figg pressed. "She won't leave until you do, and I've a sick cat to mind."

"Right, Arabella," said Remus. "You just go back and tell her one of us will be along shortly."

Mrs. Figg nodded, and her head disappeared from the flames. Molly and Remus simply stared at each other, then Molly whispered in barely-contained rage, "I'll go, Remus. I've a few things I want to say to that woman, myself."

"Which is precisely the reason why you will not go, Molly. We can't risk anything negating the blood magic," Remus answered calmly. "I will go."

"We'll both go."

"Don't be silly. You know that one of us has to stay here," Remus reminded her gently. "I will go, and be back in a few moments, and I will tell you everything that is said as soon as I return. Besides, the children will find it far less suspicious if I leave than if you do."

Molly knew that was true. Since Harry had recovered, Remus often left headquarters to speak to Albus or to perform some duty for the Order, while she usually stayed at the house with her children. She hesitated, and then nodded. "But you tell her, Remus...you tell her..." she could hardly get the words out, she was still so furious that the Dursleys had mistreated Harry so badly and then let him get so ill that he had almost died.

"OK, Molly," Remus said in the same calm voice. He was just as furious as she was, but both of them knew that he was much more likely to keep his temper than she. "Let's just see how this goes, alright?" He took a handful of floo powder and threw it into the flames, saying clearly, "Arabella Figg's," and stepped into the fire.

*

Showing the first sign of apprehension, Petunia Dursley took several steps back as the flames in Mrs. Figg's fireplace burned green again a few moments later, and the thin, haggard-looking man she had seen with her nephew stepped out of the fire. He did not even look at her at first, making rather a show of brusquely brushing soot off of his faded brown robes and greeting Mrs. Figg. Finally, he turned to her. "You wanted to speak to someone about Harry," he stated quietly.

"Yes," Petunia answered, and then quickly recovered her usual haughty, snappish attitude. "You drop the boy on my doorstep, leave him in our care, and then take him away at your own whim, without even the courtesy of letting us know if he is alive or dead. You forget, sir, that it has been my family, not your kind, who has taken care of him all of his miserable life."

Remus closed his eyes and took a deep breath, willing himself not to lose his temper with Harry's aunt. That simply could not happen right now. He pointedly ignored her claims of having "cared" for Harry in any way, and answered in a low voice, "Harry is alive, Mrs. Dursley, and is expected to make a full recovery. Now, if that is all you wanted to know, I'll just be - "

"That is certainly not all I want to know," Petunia almost screeched. "I want to know what caused him to get that way, or who caused him to get that way. I want to know if it had anything to do with that man...that man who killed my sister." Her voice lowered by the end of the sentence, and Lupin thought that he might have detected a note of emotion when she said the word "sister," but he could not be sure.

Remus hesitated. He had to tread very carefully here. If he said the wrong thing, she was sure to forbid Harry to come back to her home, and that would make Harry an open target to Voldemort with the remaining blood protection negated. He decided that for the time-being, a half-truth would have to do, and he wished that Albus was here to handle this situation. "Mrs. Dursley," he said, his voice clipped. "About a week before he came back to Little Whinging, Harry went through a horrible ordeal with Voldemort." He shot a warning glance at Mrs. Figg, who had gasped when he said the name. "He also had to watch as his godfather, the closest thing he can ever remember to a caring parent, was murdered. Quite understandably, Harry has been having a rough time of it."

"I know about the nightmares," Petunia informed him coolly. "The boy told me about them."

Remus almost lost his temper. "Was that before or after your husband hit Harry so hard that it caused his face to bruise, Mrs. Dursley?"

Petunia looked away from him and did not answer the question.

"Harry also had vivid flashbacks during his waking hours," Remus continued, willing himself to calm down, and telling her something that, if not quite the truth of Harry's condition, might explain it sufficiently enough for her. "These flashbacks left him physically and mentally weak, and any food you gave him made him sick."

"The food I gave him was perfectly good," Petunia snapped, assuming that Remus was making a slur on her cooking ability.

"That is not the point," Remus answered. "You asked how Harry came to be in the condition we found him in while under your /care/, and I have answered. Will that be all?"

"No," Petunia said softly, and he could detect, for the first time, some fear in her voice. "I want to know if...that man..."

"Voldemort," Remus prompted, causing Mrs. Figg to gasp once again.

"I want to know if having that boy stay with us is going to cause that man to come after my family."

"Mrs. Dursley," Remus began, wishing once again that Dumbledore were here. It should be him having this conversation with her, but Remus could see no way out of it now. "While Voldemort is still alive, there is no family in the world, magical or non-magical, that is safe. You may not understand it, but Harry is our greatest hope in defeating him once and for all, and by keeping him safe, you are helping to ensure not only the safety of your own family, but the safety of countless other families as well."

Petunia had not been looking for that answer. All she wanted to know was that Vernon and Dudley were going to stay safe if she allowed Harry houseroom for one more year. "This...thing..." she could not bring herself to say the word magic. "This protection you say the boy has. Will it keep us safe as well?"

"You will be as safe as Harry is while he is with you," Lupin answered quietly. "Blood magic is a powerful magic, and as I am sure Headmaster Dumbledore explained to you, when your sister Lily gave her life to protect Harry, the boy remains safe while he can still call home the place where her blood resides."

Petunia nodded, and with a curt glance at her thin gold wristwatch, she turned and hurried from the room without another word, or a glance back. Dudley usually woke around ten o'clock, hungry for breakfast, and it was already quarter till. Remus watched her go and swore softly, biting back the barrage of words he wanted to throw at her back. He could not fault her for her concern for Vernon and Dudley, but he was immeasurably angry that not a modicum of that concern extended to her nephew. He sighed, once again keeping his temper, told Mrs. Figg goodbye and that they would contact her again in a few days, and flooed back to Headquarters.

*

"Harry, Ron, Ginny! Come down for dinner now!" Molly called up the stairs.

Harry grinned at his two friends, knowing that he was actually heading down to his first-ever birthday party, and the three trooped downstairs. "Now Harry," warned Ginny. "You'd better act surprised, or else they'll all think I told!"

"Well, you did," Ron commented, and then, imitating Ginny's voice, said, "oh, no, Harry, nothing's going on...well, almost nothing...well, it's supposed to be a surprise, you know..."

Harry chuckled at this. Ginny, despite all of her experience dealing with her older brothers, was still useless when it came to keeping secrets under pressure, and he had to admit to himself that he had enjoyed teasing her until she told him why they hadn't been allowed in the kitchen all day. He had no idea about the conversation Remus had with Aunt Petunia that morning. Molly and Remus had both decided that they did not want to spoil his birthday party, and would talk to him about it at another time, if they needed to talk to him about it at all.

"Ginny didn't really tell me anything, Ron," he teased. "Only that it was a surprise, and it was going to be in the kitchen, and that it had something to do with my birthday." Ginny blushed, and then blushed even more when she realized how much Harry had been making her blush during the past week as his normal personality had begun to return to him.

When they reached the kitchen, Ron and Ginny let Harry go through the door first. He looked around and saw all of the Weasleys (besides Percy, once again), Tonks, Moody, Lupin, Dumbledore, Kingsley Shacklebolt, Professor McGonagall, and...Hermione. No one shouted "surprise" or made any sudden movements, they all just stood grinning behind the table, which was loaded down with food, a huge birthday cake, and the biggest pile of presents Harry had ever seen.

"Hermione!" Harry heard Ron exclaim as he came in behind him. "Mum didn't tell us you were going to be here!" Harry noted with some amusement that Ron's voice had gone all high-pitched at the sight of their friend.

Hermione rushed around the table, but before she greeted Ron and Ginny, she threw her arms around Harry's neck in a tight hug. "Oh Harry! I've been so /worried/! Are you OK? How are you feeling?" Harry staggered a bit under the force of the hug, but hugged his friend back all the same.

"I'm fine now, Hermione. Really!" he assured her. She finally broke off from him and gave Ginny a quick hug, and then turned to hug Ron. Harry and the rest of the people in the room couldn't help but notice that her hug lasted a little longer than was strictly necessary.

"OK, you four," Mrs. Weasley said. "No reason to stand around in the doorway. Come on in, and let's get this celebration going, then!"

The food, as usual, was fantastic, and Harry thought he had never done anything so much fun as blowing out the candles on his birthday cake in one huge huff that made him gasp. He had never done that before - actually, the only cake he had ever been given on his birthday had been the small cake that Hagrid had brought five years before when Harry had turned 11 and found out he was a wizard.

After everyone had been served cake, Harry finally got to open his presents, and he was amazed at the sheer number of them. 'So this is why Dudley gets so excited about his birthday,' he thought. In truth, though, as excited as he was about the presents, the fact that all of these people had come to celebrate his birthday was the most wonderful feeling in the world.

Fred and George, of course, had given Harry a huge box full of merchandise from Weasley's Wizard Wheezes, "compliments of the owners." Bill and Charlie gave Harry a sleek silver carrying case for his Firebolt, which had anti-theft detection which would alert Harry if anyone other than himself tried to carry it. Mr. and Mrs. Weasley and Ginny had given him an old-looking box with a large gold key to keep any special possessions of Harry's safe and hidden, and Ron had given him the usual box of Honeyduke's chocolates and candies. Hermione, Lupin, Tonks, Kingsley, and Professor McGonagall had given him an assortment of books on Defense, as well as a copy of /Advanced Transfiguration/. "You'll be needing that this term, Potter," McGonagall said, smiling at him with something of a proud glint in her eyes.

"I will?" Harry asked. O.W.L. results had not come out yet, and he knew he had to receive at least "Exceeds Expectations" on his Transfiguration exam to make McGonagall's N.E.W.T. class. McGonagall nodded, but would not say anything else on the matter.

Harry's last gift was an oddly-shaped, squashy package from Professor Dumbledore. Harry couldn't think what it might be. The last package he had gotten from Dumbledore had been his father's invisibility cloak. He opened the wrapping and laughed when four pairs of heavy woolen socks, in an assortment of colors, fell into his lap. He remembered Dumbledore's many comments that he never received any socks during the holidays. He looked up at his Headmaster and saw the familiar twinkle in his eyes. "A man can never have too many warm socks, Harry," Dumbledore said. "I'm particularly fond of the red ones," he added, pointing out one of the pairs.

Harry felt a well of emotion as he looked at his friends, no, his family, from Bill with his long red hair tied back in a ponytail, to Hermione, who had tears sparkling in her eyes. "Thank you," he choked. "Just...thank you."

"You're quite wel-" Mrs. Weasley started, but was interrupted by Lupin, who exclaimed, "Harry!"

For Harry had suddenly let out a loud yell and fallen to his knees, clutching his forehead. His face had at once gone deadly white, and he swayed. Charlie, who had been standing nearest to him, caught him right before he hit the ground.