FicWad

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or any of the characters attached.

Chapter 9: Happy Birthday Harry.

To a Muggle, July 31st dawned just like any other, the sun rose in the east turning the clear summer sky red.

Some Muggles say that when the morning sky is red, it's a warning. Today's warning was one for the wizarding world.

The dark lord Voldemort was going to celebrate someone's birthday.

And it wasn't his.

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In Little Whinging, Surrey, a teenage boy was waking up to the familiar sight of his girlfriend sleeping, her body pressed up against his as they shared body heat.

Had someone told either of the people in that bed a month ago, that they would be sharing a bed, they would have told them that they were crazy, even now Harry sometimes thought that he was dreaming, that he would wake up and she would hate him, but until he woke up, it was one dream he was almost willing to stay in forever.

Blaise woke up to see two emerald green eyes staring at her, eyes that she could get lost in, eyes like that only belong to one person.

"Morning love." he said barely above a whisper.

"Morning Hun..." she said before tensing up, her mind slipping into gear only just registered what he said. "...Did you just call me love?" she asked, hardly daring to believe it.

"Yes." He said simply, guessing at what she wanted to hear, ignoring the stab of fear that he sad the wrong thing...but...all girls want to be loved, right?

Blaise lay there staring at him, shocked, one thought going through her mind. 'He loves me...he loves me...he loves me...OH MY GOD, HE REALLY LOVES ME!'

Harry had been getting worried that he had said the wrong thing, but luckily for him, he could quite easily sense her joy at being loved seeping through after a few seconds, not only that, but he could feel her love for him.

"Well, love, what we up to today?" he said quietly, in a low voice that sent shivers up her spine.

"Can't we just lay here all day?" she asked hopefully.

"No, sorry."

"Well it is your birthday, don't you want to spend it in bed with your girlfriend?" she said with a hint of hope in her voice, while a mischievous smirk rested on her face.

"Birthday? It's my birthday already?" he asked, confused slightly.

"You mean that you don't know when your own birthday is?"

"Of course I do, I just didn't know it was that time already."

"So can we stay in bed then?" she asked.

"As much as I'd love to play around, don't look so shocked, you can't hide your hopefulness from me, I know exactly what you were thinking, but we can't today."

"Ok, so if we can't stay in bed all day, what are we doing?"

"Going to headquarters, Rose is coming too."

"Oh yeah, I remember you organising it with Tonks...what will your friends think of us?" she asked with no small amount of nervousness.

"Ron'll probably go mental because you're a Slytherin, Hermione'll analyse our relationship, Ginny, I'm not sure. The rest are adults that are smart enough to know that love doesn't care about which Hogwarts house you're in, what about yours?" Harry asked, curious to find out about Blaise's friends, for some reason she always steered the conversation away from her friends when they popped up in conversation.

"So, when will they get here?" Blaise said hastily, before seeing Harry's face.

"You don't have to be ashamed of your friends." he said, guessing at the shame that he sensed Blaise was feeling.

"What friends?" she whispered, but Harry still heard it.

"You mean you have no friends." He said, continuing at her nod. "Your ashamed of having no friends."

"Yes."

"What about the Slytherins you hang around with? Parkinson? Bulstrode?"

"They're not friends, they're there to screw you for something, unless you can screw them first, most Slytherins will only get to know someone if there's something to gain from it." She replied bitterly.

"Well you shouldn't be ashamed of that, before Hogwarts I had no friends, besides, you've got me to push around now, you don't need people like that."

"Oh really, and will Hero Potter let me push him around?" she asked with a smirk.

"Hey, first off, don't call me that. Secondly, one thing I've learnt from Hermione is that you don't argue with a woman. Just give them what they want and they might let you keep your sanity."

"And WHAT is that supposed to mean?" she asked indignantly.

"Well you women nag, and nag repeatedly until we do something, then you nag some more because we didn't do it good enough." he said before attempting to do an impersonation of Hermione's voice. "Hurry up and do your homework, then you can play chess...why didn't you ask me for help, you wouldn't have gotten a D if you let me help you with that potions homework." he said before switching back to his voice. "What she forgets is the fact that she won't help us do our homework."

"Okay, you got a point, and its good to see you're smart."

"What do you mean 'smart'?" he asked warily.

"You're smart enough to know not to argue with us."

"If you say so, now are we going to get up, or are we going to let them find us like this, then have them keep a close eye on us all the time at headquarters to make sure that we aren't doing anything we shouldn't."

"Err...good point, bathroom's mine first." Blaise stated as she shot out of bed, leaving Harry staring at the spot she had recently occupied.

"Damn, she's fast." Harry told the air in front of him before getting up and counting to ten before..."but she forgot something." He finished, smirking at an object on the desk.

"I forgot my...things...Dammit! I get the cold water again!" she hissed as she realised what had just happened. In her rush to get to the bathroom, she had forgotten her toiletries and clean clothes. When she came back for them Harry shot to the shower before she could get halfway across the room.

She decided instead to get out Harry's birthday present for him. One of the things she excelled at in wandless magic was charging objects with her magic, one of the few things that Harry and Rose both struggled with because they couldn't regulate the amount of magic they put in the object, usually causing it to explode or melt, it was a skill that came in handy for Harry's present.

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"Remind me again why we had to use a portkey...twice." Harry asked an annoyed werewolf for what seemed like the hundredth time.

"Because they're safe."

"From being traced, yes, but our backsides aren't safe from them." Harry grumbled, causing the only other adult in the group, Tonks, to start giggling.

"Well that's your problem, not ours." Remus said, smiling fondly at the memories of how a certain James Potter and his wife never used to be able to land properly after using a portkey, just like their son, and as it would appear, their daughter too.

Grumbling about inconsiderate werewolves making them take two portkeys within twenty minutes of each other, Harry stepped up to the front door of number 12 Grimmauld Place, but before he could knock on the door, a certain redheaded girl that he called a sister interrupted him.

"Why are you about to knock on a wall?" she asked inquisitively.

"What? Oh that's right, you don't know the secret, do you? Remus, have you got a note or something?"

"Oh yeah, I forgot about that, I was so distracted by a certain green-eyed Gryffindor's grumblings about portkeys, I forgot to give the girls their notes." He replied with a smirk before continuing. "Read and memorise." he ordered while handing the girls a note each.

"What's this?" Rose asked, confused.

"Just read and memorise, explanations later."

"Fine." Blaise said, while reading the note.

The headquarters of the Order Of The Phoenix is at number 12 Grimmauld Place.

"Okay, note memorised, what's this got to do with anything?" Blaise asked.

"Think about what the note says." Harry said as Remus took the notes back, before burning them.

Rose and Blaise did as they were told, as they reached the part about #12 Grimmauld place, numbers 11 and 13, seemed to be pushed to the sides as #12 forced its way into place.

Judging by their gasps of surprise that they had seen the house appear, Harry walked up to the door, knocking on it, he waited for the familiar sound of the locks clicking open, followed by the door opening to reveal the scowling face of mad-eye Moody.

"What are your Animagus forms?" Moody shot out before anyone could move to pass through the door.

"Paranoid as usual Professor Moody?" Harry asked before answering the question with one of his own. "You were there, how do I know you're the person you say you are, if you're the real Mad-Eye Moody, then you can tell me when and where I told Professor Dumbledore about my Animagus forms, before I tell you what they are, deal?"

"Your learning lad, you told him what they were the day you met your sister, at her house, now answer my question."

"Mine are a griffin and a phoenix, good enough?"

"Get inside lad, next, Rose Potter..." the questioning continued until they were all inside.

"Keep quiet in the hallway." Remus whispered to the girls.

"They still can't get her down?" Harry asked as he attempted to ignore the wave of guilt and sadness that washed over him at the memories that he had from the last few times he was in this house.

"No."

"Okay, Mad-eye, where are my friends?"

"Upstairs. Get going, a meeting's about to start."

"Okay." Harry said as he walked upstairs, Rose and Blaise following behind him.

As soon as he reached the door to the room he shared with Ron the last time he was here, he was almost flattened by the mass of bushy brown hair that smashed into his chest, as he attempted to regain his balance, and hug Hermione back, he was knocked to the ground by a mane of fiery red hair that belonged to none other than Ginny Weasley, smashing into his side.

"I missed you guys too." he said as he tried to lift them off him so he could get up.

"Hey mate, Hermione, let him breath." Ron smirked, as Hermione pulled back with a sheepish grin, only to be replaced by Ginny as she tried to hug him to death.

"Ginny, he's turning blue." Ron said as Harry gently untangled Ginny's arms from around his neck.

"As I tried to say before, I missed you guy's too."

"Harry, how are you doing? I hope the muggles weren't too bad, did they behave themselves? You know that you shouldn't blame yourself for what happened, don't you?"

"Calm down Hermione and take a breath, no the muggles were nice for a change, yes they behaved themselves, and I know I shouldn't blame myself for what happened to Sirius. It helped to talk to someone."

"What, the muggles listened to what you had to say?" Ron asked in disbelief.

"No, I did." Came a feminine voice from a dark haired girl stood to the side of the group.

"So did I." Came another voice. This time from the red-haired girl that was stood next to the dark haired one, both of them were watching with what appeared to be longing on their faces.

Ron reacted in an instant, leaping to his feet, wand in his hand in an instant, Harry was instantly between him and the girls.

"What's Zabini doing here?" Ron asked furiously.

"She's on our side Ron." Harry said in a deadly calm voice.

"She's a Slytherin."

"So, why does it matter what house she's in? Would it matter if she was a Ravenclaw?"

"That's not the point, Slytherins are evil, and why are you defending her?" Ron asked in a furious whisper as the girl in question stepped to Harry's right, the redheaded girl to Harry's left.

"Yes, it is the point because I love her Ron, love doesn't care about houses, she was staying with me for her protection. Her parents are out to kill her because she won't join the death eaters. I love her just like you love Hermione."

Ron just stood there staring at Harry as if he'd grown three new heads, while Hermione decided to move on to something else, neither noticing that Harry already knew about their supposedly secret relationship.

"Who's this Harry?"

"This is my sister."

"Your what?" Ginny asked in disbelief.

"My sister. I only discovered that I even had a sister at the beginning of the summer, she was wiped off the records after that night, by Dumbledore, he told everyone that she was dead when she was actually sent to an orphanage. She never went to Hogwarts because all records of her existence were destroyed, no one knew that she was alive, let alone a witch."

"Okay, let me get this straight, Harry, you're going out with a Slytherin, and you have a sister that no one knew about. Next thing you know you'll be telling us you're an illegal Animagus." Ron said, his expression showing that he was trying his hardest to understand what he had been told.

"Err...can we move this out of the hallway before we wake something up, please." Harry said in an attempt to calm the situation down slightly.

"You can't be Harry, what about underage magic, how can you be an Animagus?" Hermione screeched at Harry, waking up something on the wall one floor down.

"MUDBLOODS, TRAITOR, HALF-BREEDS..." the familiar screeching of Mrs Black filled the house.

The screeching wouldn't normally have affected Harry in the slightest, but seeing the effect it had on Blaise was enough to set his temper soaring. Blaise covered her ears, clenching her eyes tight shut at the pain the screaming was causing. She slumped against the wall, sliding down until she was sat on the floor, her legs pulled up into a foetal position.

With one last look at the cowering Blaise, Harry shot down the stairs, coming face to face with the lifelike painting of Mrs Black.

"SILENCE!" Harry bellowed at the painting, not noticing the order members stood in the doorway to the kitchen, but everyone nearby noticed that for the first time ever the painting shut up when told. "What's the password to the charm on this painting?" he asked in a terrifying whisper.

"Why should I tell a filthy half-blood like you?" the portrait asked in a disgusted tone.

"It's either that or I smash you into the opposite wall."

"How dare you threaten your betters you filth."

"Fine." Harry said as he began to use the hardest, but most useful form of wandless magic there is...magic manipulation, simple in theory, difficult in practice, it requires complete understanding of how different forms of magic work.

What Harry was about to do was the simplest form of manipulation magic around, the sticking charms and repelling charms are similar in form, like a magnets, the magic simply lines up in a certain way to force the object it's cast on to behave in the desired way. To overcome these spells, all that is required is to reverse the polarity of the 'magnets'.

Harry placed his left hand on the portrait, his right on the wall. Concentrating on the magic at work, he quickly identified the sticking charm used was as believed, the permanent sticking charm. Over the next few seconds Harry put his own sticking charm in place while reversing the previous charm.

Then after stepping to the side of the painting, he sent his magic through the wall to the charm he put in place and removed it.

What happened next appeared to start off in slow motion before accelerating to fast forward. As the charm Harry put in place disintegrated, the picture, slowly at first seemed to pull itself of the wall, but when Harry's charm finally collapsed, the portrait was flung across the hall where it smashed into the other wall.

Stepping up to the portrait after it fell flat on the floor, Harry said simply. "I did warn you." Before he turned to the stairs where Blaise was stood, relief evident on her face, he walked up to her and began to comfort her, just like she comforted him when he had nightmares.

The love Harry and Blaise shared for each other was obvious to everyone there, it could almost be seen flowing from them. Even Ron would struggle to find a problem with her being a Slytherin now.

Several minutes later found them in Harry and Ron's room. Harry, Blaise and Rose were sat on Harry's bed. Ron, Hermione and Ginny were sat on Ron's bed as they all caught up on the summer's events so far.

Harry decided to keep Blaise's present a secret for now. It was just a simple silver necklace. What made it special was that Blaise, being the only person to be able to calm his temper, had charged the necklace with her magic, causing it to have a calming effect on Harry, giving him more control over his magic and emotions, making wandless magic easier and accidental magic virtually impossible.

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Meanwhile at the southernmost tip of England, a cloaked figure with red slit eyes was giving his servants their last chance to prove themselves.

"Lucius, you know what to do, she may have failed me twice, but you have failed me more, don't let it happen again, or you'll regret it." he hissed. "Now go, get them out ALIVE, they won't wait in there forever. Don't forget to bring some playthings back alive, I want some entertainment tonight." the red-eyed man hissed with a sadistic gleam in his eye.

"You have four hours before the ritual begins, then you've got 10 minutes to get the hell out of there and to Potters Home."

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After several hours of catching up, Harry lead his friends, girlfriend and sister downstairs to get some food, the meeting had finished moments earlier and the 'young uns' were hungry.

"I'm sorry Molly, I'd love to stay and eat. I'm starving, but I've got guard duty at Azkaban, I've got to go, see ya'all later." they heard Tonks say before she left the kitchen, almost running straight into Harry, who despite his best efforts, could only stop the visions coming through his scar, not the pain, and who was rubbing his gently throbbing scar.

"Hey Tonks, my scar's hurting, that means he's either mad or happy, I can't tell, but neither are a good sign, be careful at Azkaban, his favourite servant's in there, he'll want her back, make sure that the Aurors are ready for something, okay?" Harry said, worry on his face.

"Thanks for the warning Harry, you know, I've already got a bad feeling about this, that just confirmed it."

"See ya later Tonks, good luck."

"Yeah bye, sorry I couldn't stay for the party." they heard Tonks say as they stepped into the kitchen, and she went through the front door.

The kitchen was just as Harry remembered it, except maybe a bit cleaner. Now Harry thought about it, the whole house was cleaner than he remembered, but that's not hard, the place was that filthy before, but then again, Sirius and Remus probably had a lot of free time on their hands.

"Wait a minute, what party?" Harry asked them.

"Your birthday party of course." Mrs Weasley said as she walked over to give Harry one of her hugs.

"What do you mean, my birthday party?"

"Don't tell me the Dursleys never gave you a party for your birthday." Blaise asked, shocked.

"No, this year was the nicest they've ever been."

"Well, welcome to your second birthday party." Remus said from behind him.

"Second?"

"No matter how much danger they were in, or how heavily pregnant your mother was, your parents wouldn't dare miss your first birthday." Remus said, a nostalgic smile on his face.

"What was it like?" Harry asked, his eyes lighting up at the prospect of learning more about his parents.

"Well, your father was the happiest that I ever saw him, your mother was as pretty as always, not even being 8 months pregnant could dampen her spirits, not when it came to you. Actually to tell you the truth, I think she enjoyed being waited on hand and foot by your dad. Anyway Sirius was playing with you and Neville in his dog form, except you got your hands on your dads wand and turned him pink, with yellow dots." Remus said, chuckling with everyone else at the memory.

"It was two weeks before the full moon, so I was at my most energetic, so I was the one chasing after you, god you were fast, even back then, Sirius, once he had stopped being so mortified about being pink and yellow, collapsed laughing at the sight of me chasing an armed one-year-old baby that would occasionally turn around and try cast a spell at me. That was until one of those spells missed me and hit him instead, turning into a fluffy teddy bear. We were worried that your mum would go into labour she was laughing that hard."

"No matter how many new presents we all gave you, you would only play with your favourites. A stuffed wolf, dog, stag and tiger, there was a rat as well, but you hardly ever touched that." Remus was grinning now.

"Before you ask, there was a reason your father often called your mum 'Tiger-Lily' she was a tiger Animagus, beautiful, strong, but with a fiery temper and fiercely protective."

"It's often said that magical babies could sense the darkness within people. Things like werewolves would often make a baby cry when they picked them up, but you and your sister when she was born could see deeper than that. You could see right into the heart of someone, their very soul. We didn't see the pattern until it was too late, but the two of you would always cry when Wormtail picked you up, but not me. It always warmed my heart to know that you liked me over a wizard." Remus said, his smile fading at the thought of Wormtail's treachery.

"Enough of my bad memories, this is supposed to be a happy occasion, so dry your eyes Harry, or your girlfriend might start thinking you're a wus." Remus finished, managing to get a chuckle out of Harry who had not realised that his eyes were filling with tears of joy, looking around, he saw that he wasn't the only one on the verge of tears, hearing about such happy lives that would end three months later was enough to bring most people to tears.

"Thank you Remus, people are always telling me I'm like my dad, but no one really tells me stories about them, so I don't know much about their lives." Harry said with a genuine happy smile on his face.

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As the party began to wind down Harry looked back at his second ever birthday party, about half an hour after he discovered that he was having a party, Neville and Luna arrived. While Luna barely spared anything a second glance, Neville looked around in what was almost horror. This house was covered in Slytherin things. When he saw Blaise there, he had to be restrained from running away, but then again, Harry would have done the same if he had Blaise smirking at him like that.

When Harry had all of his presents shoved in his arms he didn't know what to do, there was more than he ever dreamed of getting, staggering from the weight of the pile, slowly made his way over to the table to put the presents down.

Once his arms were free he was forced to give in to the temptation, and demands, to open his presents. From the twins he got a note saying that he had special present waiting for him on his bed and to open it when he was alone, from Ron he got a practice snitch, while pointing out that his Quidditch ban was on competitions, not friendly or practice games. Rose got him a selection of muggle sweets.

From Hermione he got the customary book, one on, as usual, DADA, but this appeared to be one of the few that gave tips on duelling. From Mr and Mrs Weasley he got the usual cake and sweets, from Remus he got 'the marauders prank diary', from Tonks he got a guide to becoming an Auror.

From the order as a whole, he got two dragon hide wand holsters designed to stick to anything the owner wanted them to, a thigh, a wrist, an ankle, etc. On top of that they were also charmed to stop the wand from being stolen in any way, only the wands owner could remove it from the holster.

All of the Weasley siblings, along with Lee Jordan, Angelina Johnson, Alicia Spinnet, and Fleur Delacour (who had all, except for Ron and Ginny, apparently joined the order at the beginning of the summer), got together to buy him a full set of dragonhide armour (Ironhide), which could stop all but the unforgivables.

He had, after talking to his friends, discovered that the reason Hermione was already there was because she had been attacked on her way to the airport for her customary holiday. And Luna's trip to Sweden had been cancelled because with Voldemorts return, they couldn't get a portkey.

Of course Harry had gone on a guilt trip when he found out about the attack on Hermione, but it's amazing what a good kiss can do to your mood.

To put it simply, it had been a good day...too good to last.

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"Avada kedavra." shouted a really pissed off man in black robes and a white mask. He'd been here for 3 hours fighting the Aurors, somehow, only Merlin knows how, the Aurors had been ready, when he found out who tipped them off he was going to kill them himself, of course only after he had had some fun with them and their women.

Psychological torture was so much fun, watching someone tear themselves apart from the inside out.

What the man in the death eaters robes didn't know was that during his sadistic musings about torturing, his current opponent took her chance to beat the arrogant fool that is Lucius Malfoy with a simple yet effective "Stupefy."

"Dumb fool." the female Auror whispered to herself as she bound him, before slipping a portkey into his hands. "No escaping this time Malfoy." she hissed, as Lucius Malfoy was portkeyed away, leaving her free to return to the fight.

The battle was by no means small, but wasn't big either, but it was one of the most brutal battles the wizarding world had seen.

The normally deserted corridors of Azkaban prison had been turned into a brutal battleground. Luckily for the Aurors, the killing curse was rarely being used for two reasons. First because it was too long to cast and second because it used too much energy. The Death Eaters couldn't afford to get tired too quickly.

Every time a corridor fell to the dark side, the Death Eaters would release their comrades, handing them the wands of the fallen, so the Death Eaters seemed to have an unlimited number of followers.

But the Aurors had been reinforced by an extra 30 people that arrived several minutes before the attack began, and they weren't in a hurry to be forced out of the island prison.

Auror Tonks had seemingly taken over the command of the defence from her superiors since they had frozen the second the attack had begun. They were supposed to be veterans, the best of the best, but they still froze, the memories of what they had seen in the first war flooding to the surface.

Tonks had been the first to react when the attack began, grabbing the reinforcements and dragging them to the point that the Death Eaters were attacking, all the while trying to call the Order of The Phoenix and the Ministry, but it appears that the Death Eaters put up some sort of communications shield, so reinforcements were being called the old fashioned way; with owls.

But that was almost three hours ago and hope was running low, the Aurors were about to break.

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Back in number twelve Grimmauld place, Harry Potters' party had just ended. The order members were about to go home when a very tired owl shot through the window and collided with Professor Dumbledore's head, succeeding in knocking itself out.

Bending down to take the letter all colour drained out of Professor Dumbledore's face when he saw the handwriting, opening it, the headmasters normally calm face took on a look of horror, before he regained his composure and announced his orders.

"Molly, you are to stay with the children, the rest of the order is to get ready for battle, Azkaban is under attack, Remus, you will lead alpha group, Arthur, you take beta, Alastor, you take delta, the units are..." he ordered before naming all of the unit members.

Five minutes later and the order was prepared for battle, as Dumbledore made three portkeys out of conjured rope, after handing the portkeys out, Dumbledore said the password; "good luck, god speed, and happy hunting."

A blinding flash of light later and the order had vanished from number 12 Grimmauld place.