Chapter 33 – A Significant Birthday

On his way down to the Great Hall, Harry frowned and shook his head. What did she mean? Would she now play pranks on him or what? When he entered the Great Hall, everyone looked at him and started to laugh. Oh no! What had she done? He quickly walked over to Merlin table, where Severus and Lily had saved him his usual place between them, and asked them, “What is wrong with me? What did she do to me?” He was horrified attracting all these looks.

Lily laughed and whispered, “Your hair is all sparkling in bright neon colours. Just ignore everything and eat.”

Harry growled over to the Head Table and wished his grandmother’s hat to be a big, yellow rubber chicken clucking ‘I love prank wars’. He sneered over to the Head Table, while the whole room exploded with laughter. However, when he tried to start eating, he noticed that he couldn’t grab anything from the table, neither his glass with Pumpkin Juice nor his knife or fork. Everything slipped away from his grip. Helplessly he glanced to Lily.

“It’s alright, I’ll make a sandwich and bring it with me for you, when we go down to Potions,” she whispered calmingly.

Therefore, Harry relaxed, leaned back and thought about how to fight through this war. He transfigured her knife and fork into baby spoons and wished a large bib around her neck with a neon red sentence on it. ‘Minnie is trying to eat! Go’way!’

Suddenly his glass was transfigured into a toad trying to eat from his plate until it was transformed into a howler saying with the voice of Madam Pomfrey, “Don’t play around during lunch! Eat or you will get a nutrient Potion!”

Now Harry got really upset and transfigured McGonagall’s plate into a bunch of pink rabbits saying, ‘cats are horrible’. He then once more exchanged his grandmother’s wand with the faked one, which he had accio’d before from the Transfigurations classroom, put McGonagall’s wand next to his plate, transformed into Icicle and flashed directly into the kitchen to ask the House elves for something to eat and drink. While he was eating peacefully, he wished a big parchment on the wall of the Great Hall that was just opposite the Head Table saying, “Don’t try to pull pranks on a phoenix, Granny!” Once more, the hall erupted in laughter.

-----

For the leaving feast, Harry had planned a special prank even his friends didn’t know about. When he entered the Great Hall, he had expected to see the room decorated with the Gryffindor House banners because they had obviously won the House cup, but the banners above the five tables were those of the respective House. As soon as everyone was seated, Dumbledore stood and announced, “This year it is difficult to award the House cup, because fifteen students joined Merlin House at the beginning of January, after earning or loosing points of other Houses. Therefore, although the Hourglasses show a clear victory of Gryffindor, I think this year it would be unfair to award the House cup at all, as we do not know exactly how many Gryffindor points in fact belong to Merlin House and vice versa. So we have decided that there won’t be a Cup this year, and I hope you can all understand this decision.”

Several students clapped their hands to show their appreciation. Harry grinned mischievously and wished the House banners to change into his own creation he had made at the beginning of the week, when he had to stay in bed. Suddenly the House banners were replaced with white-golden banners, which were decorated by six animals, a stag, a dog, a snake, a teddy bear, a snowy owl, and an ice phoenix. They were just beautiful, and everyone stared at the new banners. Then another banner appeared at the wall the opposite of the Head Table. It showed the same animals with a sentence underneath:

‘The Marauders say good-bye to Hogwarts!’

Severus gave Harry a kick. “Look, the whole Head Table is glaring at us!”

But Harry only grinned mischievously. Suddenly Dumbledore stood up again, looked in Harry’s direction and mouthed, “Finished?” Harry nodded, and in an instant food appeared on the tables.

-----

The five Marauders except for Severus had decided to go ‘home’ to James’ parents at the beginning of summer holidays; and Remus, Harry and Lily would go back to Hogwarts on the 1st of July, which was also the last day of Severus’ Potion Masters’ exams and the first day of James’ and Sirius’ Auror training.

The five really enjoyed the first weeks of their holidays, each in their own way. While Sirius slept in every day until lunchtime, James spent the whole morning in his room or the Potions lab planning pranks on the others, which he pulled during the afternoon and evening. Remus spent the morning in the library preparing his Defence Against the Dark Arts classes for the time after the holidays, while Lily loved to help Mrs. Potter with chores or just to sit in the kitchen talking to her. Moreover, Harry could be found in the library reading just everything he could get his hands on. In the afternoon, they spent their time together, mostly in the huge park, eventually taking a swim in the lake, and in the evenings Remus, Lily and Harry had to suffer from the pranks Sirius and James were irresponsibly playing on them. One of their pranks was even so bad, that Remus and Harry couldn’t keep anything down for two days. After a day and a night of vomiting, Harry was so disgusted and upset that he was on the verge of returning to Hogwarts, when James came to apologize to him promising his son he would never try Prank Potions ever again.

“Please Harry, stay for the last week, don’t go back earlier. Look, I’m really sorry, and I have a surprise for you for the night of the full moon!”

Harry groaned and said, “Sorry, James, but you can’t imagine just how fed up I am with your surprises! And I won’t go out on the full moon anyway.”

“And by the way, James, you and Sirius are grounded for the rest of your holidays!” his mother announced. “I am the last one to say something about a little prank, but I cannot accept you playing pranks on your friends – or even on your son! – that makes them ill for a whole day. I am very disappointed; now go to your room and stay there; the House elves will bring you something to eat!”

“But Granny, it’s all right; they didn’t do it on purpose, and Remus and I are fine again, so please don’t punish them like that.” Two days later Mrs. Potter finally listened to Harry’s continuous begging and waived James and Sirius’ punishment for the rest of the week.

Saturday night was the night of the full moon, and Sirius and James were making plans for the night. At dinner, they told everyone they had a big surprise for them and invited James’ parents to come out to the lake at midnight. When Mrs. Potter kept him after dinner and asked if he would go as well, Harry said, “No, I won’t. I know that I would catch a cold if I went, and as I don’t want to spend my last days here in bed, I’d prefer to spend the night in my room.”

“I think that’s better Harry. I don’t know what they are planning, but I don’t think it’s worth risking your health,” his Grandmother agreed.

However, as so often, things turned out differently than planned. After talking to his grandparents in the kitchen for hours, they had left the kitchen to prepare themselves to go out to the lake and Harry went to bed. About an hour later, when he had just fallen asleep, strange sounds resounded in his ear, and before he was awake enough to cast at least a Lumos spell, he could hear a stunning spell – then the world went black.

When Harry regained consciousness, he first noticed that it was cold. Slowly opening his eyes, he found himself sitting on the ground; his back leaning against a tree next to the huge lake of Potter manor. Nobody else was there. Carefully he stood up and looked around, until he discovered the others about 100 meters to the right. He transformed into his phoenix and flashed over to the others, who threw him curious glances, happy that he had decided to join them – but only until he changed back and started to shout at James and Sirius. “What do you think you are doing?”

“Oh, we thought you just shouldn’t miss the fireworks, which will start …. NOW!” And with a ‘bang’ the first firework shot in the air, far above the lake. It was beautiful, but Harry was much too angry and cold to enjoy it. He just stood there in his pyjamas, shaking from cold and anger, and started to cry.

Lily came over to him immediately and asked, “Harry, can you tell me what happened? Why did you come here although you didn’t want to?”

“I didn’t come here! They came into my room, stunned me and brought me here – I just woke up.”

Mr. Potter, who had heard everything, stood up immediately and commanded, “James, Sirius, come back to the House with me and go to your rooms immediately. You are grounded for the rest of the weekend.” After a few ‘if’s and ‘but’s they left and Lily told Mrs. Potter and Remus what had happened.

“I’m sorry for disturbing you,” Harry said with chattering teeth and sneezed. “I’ll just transform and flash back.”

Lily shook her head. “No Harry, let’s all go back and maybe have a cup of hot cocoa if you don’t mind Mrs. Potter?”

“Of course not Lily, that’s a good idea.” Mrs. Potter agreed.

When they were sitting around the kitchen table drinking their cocoa, Harry looked down on the floor and said, “Maybe I should flash back to Hogwarts in the morning. I’m really sorry, but I don’t think I can keep up with Sirius and James anymore.”

“Please Harry, don’t leave. Don’t worry, you won’t get to see James or Sirius, because they are grounded and won’t be able to leave their rooms. It is sad enough that I have to wait 18 years to see you again, but I don’t want you to leave like this,” Mrs. Potter said smiling fondly at Harry.

“I won’t be good company tomorrow, as I’m probably getting ill anyway. I mean, I knew why I didn’t want to come although I know how much fun it is. Sorry, but I really can’t understand why they do things like that, which really can affect others. When Severus calls me irresponsible, I can’t imagine what he’ll call Sirius and James,” Harry complained in a small voice, fighting against the tears that were welling in his eyes. He just couldn’t believe how mean his father was.

Remus gave him a pensive glance. “The problem with Sirius and James, especially with Sirius, is that he doesn’t think at all. He does things and afterwards wonders why matters have gotten as they are. I don’t know why James does things like tonight with him, but I’m sure that by now James is very sorry about what they did.”

“Alright, now, it’s 3 o’clock, and maybe we should all go to bed. Harry, please promise me that you will not flash away tomorrow morning, and when you have problems during the night, send Remus to call me. Can you promise me that?”

“Yes, I promise,” Harry said and climbed up the stairs to his room.

-----

On the next day, he was so ill that his grandmother called Pomfrey who said he had a respiratory infection again and insisted that he had to stay in bed and she would come again the next day to look after him. Lily again took turns with Mrs. Potter to stay with Harry, who enjoyed having some time alone with his mother and grandmother. Finally, after a week Poppy hesitantly allowed Harry to get up and to return to Hogwarts. As glad as he was to be able to go back to Hogwarts, he knew he would miss his grandmother. But at least Severus, Remus and Lily would be staying with him.

Severus had managed to pass the Potions Masters exam as the youngest Potions Master England had ever seen. When he got his results, he came over to Harry, hugged him fiercely and said, “Harry, this is all thanks to you – You can’t believe how grateful I am!”

Harry hugged him back, saying, “And I am very happy for you Severus! And I’m looking forward to meeting your new future self!” Harry spent the next weeks visiting Severus, Lily and Remus in their new teacher’s apartments and helping them decorate their rooms and prepare for their lessons. How much he regretted not to be able just to stay here in their company. Would he meet everyone he loved so much, when he arrived in the future? What if…

“Harry, are you all right?” Lily asked him.

“Yes Lily, sorry, I was just thinking. You know, in only two weeks I have to return to the future, and I don’t even know if all of you will be there, when I arrive.”

Lily came over and hugged him fiercely and said, “You’ll see everything will be okay. However, I think it is time for you to go back to your room and rest. I will come with you.”

-----

In the evening Dumbledore and McGonagall joined Harry, Lily and Severus in Harry’s room.

“Harry, I have something I want to give to you,” Dumbledore said to gain Harry’s attention and gave him a small green envelope. Harry threw a surprised glance at his grandfather and proceeded to open the envelope. Inside was a Gringotts Key. He glanced at his grandfather questioningly. “This, Harry, is the key to a vault I opened last year to deposit the money you received for your book and for vanquishing Voldemort.”

“Hmm?”

Severus laughed. “As eloquent as ever Harry.”

Dumbledore continued, “Harry, for every exemplar of your book, which is sold, you receive 20 percent of the book’s price from Flourish and Blotts. This money is being put directly into your vault at Gringotts. And I have also asked the ministry to put your money in, which you received together with the Order of Merlin 1st class. Therefore, when you are back in the future, go to Gringotts and have a look at your vault. And there will probably be even more money, because I think Severus now has time to look through the bunch of Potions books, and if he decides to publish at least a part of them, he will do it under both your names; so when they are sold you will each get a certain percentage of the money.”

Harry frowned and whispered, “Severus can have the books printed under his name only and can keep the money; I’m fine with that.”

Severus growled at him and said, “No Harry and I’m not going to have this discussion with you either. As you won’t be here, you can’t do anything about it anyway; at the moment, you can’t even talk properly, so just shut up and listen please.”

Harry scowled at him and mumbled, “We’ll talk again in 18 years time,” and tears began to form in his eyes.

Lily immediately hugged him and said, “Please Harry, I know, but don’t cry, you’ll only make yourself worse; you’ll see everything will be all right. We’ll all be waiting for you.”

McGonagall tried to change the topic and asked, “Harry, about your birthday. Is there anyone except for the four of us, Poppy, Remus and Hagrid you want to invite to your party? What about the Potters or Sirius or James?”

Harry thought for a moment and whispered, “No, only you, Remus, Poppy and Hagrid. That’s enough, because I’m sure I’ll spend half the day crying and I don’t want many people to see it. And I’m still not able to forgive Sirius and James for ruining part of my holidays like this. I’ll forgive them in the future, but not now. And Lily, please don’t make Sirius my Godfather, take Severus and Remus this time!” Everyone laughed.

-----

Finally, Harry’s birthday arrived. The evening before, Poppy had given him a sleeping draught, so that he could undertake his journey well rested. When he woke up, Severus and Lily were sitting on the edge of his bed.

“Good morning, Harry, and happy birthday!” both of them shouted.

“Morning,” Harry mumbled sadly. He had just remembered what his birthday meant.

Poppy, who had heard them talking, came around the corner to check on him. “You are much better but still not well Harry. Please go to see my future self immediately when you arrive in the future. Tell her about your health problems – no, that’s not necessary, because it’s me, right? You don’t have to tell anything, I will remember. Just come to see me anyway!”

“Alright Madam Pomfrey, I’ll do that,” Harry promised sincerely.

“Now Harry, get up and let’s go down to breakfast,” Severus urged him and Harry hurried to get ready. When they got down to the Great Hall, Harry was astonished to find all teachers sitting around the round table, which replaced the five House tables during summer holidays. The Great Hall was decorated beautifully, and even Fawkes had joined them and was sitting on a perch near the table. As soon as they were seated, a huge birthday cake appeared just in front of Harry, and everyone began to sing for him, before Dumbledore motioned him to blow the candles out. Finally, McGonagall divided the cake giving Harry an extra large piece. After he finished only half of it, he was already so full that he even didn’t want to see anymore cake; so Lily pulled him with her to the Head Table, where many presents in different colours were waiting for Harry.

-----

From Severus he got a Spring-sprong-spell-gone-wrong cauldron cleaner, his newest invention, which might come useful in the future. Lily gave him a beautiful photo album with photos of his friends, the complete Hogwarts team, the Gryffindor team, and scenes from the game against the teachers, Dumbledore handing the Quidditch Cup to Harry and many, many more – Harry was stunned. He hugged Lily and tears were filling his eyes. Professor McGonagall gave him a Broom tuning kit for tuning his Nimbus so that it would be well able to keep up with the brooms of the future, and from Madam Pomfrey he received a book on Ancient Healing Techniques. In Remus’ present he found a full set of contemporary chocolate frog cards (sure to be a hit in the future), and Hagrid gave him something suspicious with holes in it ... again? Harry groaned and glared at Hagrid.

“Um... Hagrid? Could it be that something is alive in this box?”

Everyone laughed.

“Yeah Harry, just the right thing for you! Open it Harry, you’ll like it!” Hagrid beamed at him, and Harry very carefully opened the box and revealed... an egg?

“Eh... Hagrid? An egg? Um...”

“Yeah Harry, a Runespoor’s egg!” Hagrid beamed. “It’s small enough to take it with you”, and they will hatch in about three weeks time.

“Thank you very much Hagrid, I appreciate it very much.”

Now there was only one package left. It was wrapped in dark blue paper with twinkling stars on it. When he opened it carefully, he got a view of a whole batch of ... chocolate frog packages? Harry threw a confused glance at his grandfather, who laughed merrily and said, “They aren’t what you think Harry, they aren’t Chocolate frogs – take one in your hand and have a look!”

Harry did as he was told; he held a Chocolate phoenix in his hand. “Wow! A chocolate phoenix. Is that new? I have never seen one before.”

“Yes, they are new, and so far only three of them exist – Merlin, me and only one more person.”

Severus beamed at Harry and said, “Let’s see the cards Harry.”

Harry gave a chocolate phoenix to each of his party guests and noticed that the package was still full. He looked questioningly at Dumbledore, who laughed at his grandson’s unbelieving face. “It is a self re-filling box Harry. Keep it well and you will never run out of Chocolate phoenixes!”

“Harry! You are the third person!” Remus suddenly shouted and showed Harry a Chocolate phoenix card. He looked suspiciously at the front of the card. It showed him with his phoenix Patronus chasing the Dementors in Hogsmeade – a very well shot photograph. On the back of the card it said,

‘Harry Pane, famous for vanquishing Voldemort during his 6th year at Hogwarts, saved the village of Hogsmeade from Dementors several times, finder of the Chamber of Secrets, Translator of Salazar Slytherin’s diary and Potions books, founder of the Hogwarts Quidditch team, re-founder of Hogwarts’ Merlin House; Great Grandson to Albus Dumbledore and Minerva McGonagall.’

Suddenly Harry’s owl Cyclops arrived carrying a package from his Grandparents. He motioned to Cyclops to stay for a moment and took him over to Lily. “Cyclops I have to go away for a few years, and I cannot take you with me; so I would like to give you to Lily; she is your new owner and will look after you. Alright Lily, Cyclops?” Cyclops hooted and nodded his head.

Lily hugged Harry and said, “Thank you Harry. I promise that I will look after him.”

Harry opened the package Cyclops had brought and found another book: A self-updating History of the Potter family.

-----

Soon it was time for lunch, after which Lily, Severus and Remus helped him to take all the presents up to his room, so that he could pack everything into his trunk. Finally he shrank his trunk and put it into his pocket, before he asked his friends, “Shall we go for a walk around the lake?”

“Yes, that’s a good idea,” Severus agreed immediately. But when they were sitting beside the lake, and Harry looked around at Lily, Severus, Remus and his Great Grandparents, who had joined them in the meantime, he began to think about the future and what was awaiting him tonight. He slowly began to panic.

“Harry, are you all right?” Lily asked suddenly.

“Yes Lily, sorry, I was just thinking. I am somewhat afraid of going back. You know, I like it here so much, and I love you all, and don’t even know if all of you will be there, when I arrive.” He began to cry, and when Lily came over to hug him, he sobbed into her robes for a long time, which helped his nerves to calm down but was not too good for his not yet completely healed respiratory infection, so after a while his sobs turned into coughs and Lily could feel the heat he radiated.

“I’ll better take you up to Pomfrey to have her check on you, before you leave,” Lily said.

Hearing this, McGonagall came over, felt his forehead and said, “Oh my, he is burning up again. I wonder if he’ll be able to leave at all.”

“Yes, I have to. If I don’t go tonight, I won’t go at all, so I will go tonight,” Harry croaked.

“All right, so let’s take a walk back to your room, so that you can rest for a while before dinner,” Severus said calmingly.

Poppy took his temperature and frowned. “I do not appreciate that you want to leave tonight, you are in no condition to do so. But I will make sure to be there when you arrive. Now, you still have three hours until dinner, try to get some sleep.”

Harry drank the Potions she gave him and lay down. Fortunately his friends and grandparents all stayed with him and kept talking for the whole time, so that he had no chance to nurse any sad thoughts.

-----

At dinner, everyone was trying to joke and be as funny as possible; McGonagall, Pomfrey and Hooch, who had been in the same year in Gryffindor and were best friends at school, recounted many funny stories from their own school days. Harry listened half-heartedly and continued to push his food around his plate. Finally, Dumbledore asked, “Severus, you have the Potion ready?”

Severus nodded and replied, “Of course Professor.”

Dumbledore laughed and said, “You are a professor yourself now, my boy, so please call me Albus. So it will take Harry to exactly when?”

Severus sighed and answered, “In fact I’m not sure about the time, only about the date. It will be the 9th of September 1996. He arrived here on the evening of the eighth, and from what he told me, he must have left on the eighth. So in order to avoid a paradox, I have made the Potion so that he will arrive one day after he left. I have tried to make the Potion as precisely as possible, so he should arrive at the same time as he leaves here, but I really don’t know how exact it will be.”

“Very good, Severus, thank you very much my boy. I will be in my office the whole day on the 9th of September 1996.” Dumbledore said, his eyes twinkling.

“If I may suggest something, Albus,” Severus added. “You know he is not very healthy, and I don’t know how the long ride in the floo affects the body. I don’t even know how long he will have to travel – you know we only tested it with a rat from one day to the next, and it arrived about a minute after the time I sent it – so I would like to suggest that Madam Pomfrey should be with you when Harry arrives.”

“Yes Severus, I will be there as well, don’t worry. Now, before we all go to the Headmaster’s office I want Harry to come to my office for a minute. I want to check him once more and probably give him a few Potions before he leaves.”

“Alright Poppy. Harry, go with Poppy please, and Minerva, Lily, Severus and Remus, will you come to my office with me?”

-----

15 minutes later, after a lot of hugs, tears and good-byes, his belly full with Potions, Harry sat down in the fireplace of the Headmaster’s Office, and Dumbledore threw the powder in, shouting “Headmaster’s Office, Hogwarts.”

Harry’s world began to spin… and spin… and everything turned around and around – it was horrible and just didn’t want to end. Harry could only think ‘I cannot vomit in the floo, can’t get sick now’, closed his eyes and only wanted the whirling to stop, until everything went black.