In which moods become more changeable than the weather.

The most wasted of all days is one without laughter.

e e cummings (1894 - 1962)

Harry woke with a gasp, and started to sit up before realizing that there was a hand on his shoulder. His eyes snapped open, and then he registered that there was a quiet voice speaking to him. “That’s right, you’re okay… Just calm down.” He looked over and saw Remus, who smiled weakly as they made eye contact. “That was quite a nightmare.”

He sighed and nodded. He remembered bits and pieces—the graveyard, his wand locked with that of Voldemort… then Cedric and his parents appearing, along with Sirius… and all of them telling him that it was his fault. The dream had ended with a very real Vernon appearing in the middle of the graveyard to scream at him that he was a freak and beat him while those around him cheered him on. He was relieved to be awake.

“How are you feeling?”

Harry considered this. In truth, his body felt one hundred times better than it had the night before, but at the same time, his feelings from the night before were flooding back. Being tricked into coming back to Grimmauld Place… being interrogated after forgetting himself and admitting to the Dursleys’ part in his injuries… and finally being tricked into drinking something that had caused him to admit to everything. “Fine,” he finally answered shortly.

“Harry…” Professor Lupin didn’t seem to be finding the words he was searching for.

“Just—don’t. I don’t want to hear it.”

Remus continued searching for words that would properly plead his case. Finally, he conceded. “Ron and Hermione are coming today,” he informed Harry softly, clearly hopeful that this would improve the young wizard’s mood.

Harry sighed and looked away. This just got better and better. Everything that he hadn’t wanted to deal with just yet, and on his birthday no less! Of course, this would be the summer that Dumbledore went out of his way to get him out of the Dursleys in time for his birthday. He looked back to the werewolf. “Then can you leave me alone for a while?” The older man was clearly trying to hide his hurt at the brush-off, but not succeeding. It almost made Harry feel guilty…almost. Right up until he remembered how he had been tricked the night before.

“Alright. But don’t get out of bed on your own; Poppy wants you to rest so that you can be up later this evening.” Harry nodded when it became clear that the werewolf wasn’t leaving without some acknowledgement. Finally, he slipped out and closed the door behind him.

He immediately sat up, frowning. He experimentally ran his hand through his hair, and sure enough, it was still short. Then he looked carefully around the small room, and found what he was looking for—a mirror, over there on the wall. Gingerly he slipped his legs out from under the covers, and then gently put both his feet on the ground. There didn’t seem to be any pain in his bad ankle. He stood carefully, keeping a hold on one of the posts of the bed. Finally satisfied, he walked cautiously over to the mirror.

He gasped at what he saw. Nearly every one of the changes that he had been worried about appeared to have reversed themselves. His hair was short and uncontrollable, his face back to its normal shape that looked so much like James’… only his height had remained. He frowned.

“Come now, you’re quite a dashing young man, there’s no need to frown. All you need is to get that hair under control, and then…” The mirror fell silent mid-sentence, something Harry had never heard a magic mirror do before. His hair had suddenly begun to grow as he thought about it. His eyes widened as he realized what was happening. Tonks had said that metamorphmagi were born, not trained. But then why hadn’t he shown signs of this before now?

He closed his eyes and thought about what he had looked like the last time he had looked in a mirror. He felt a light tingling run over him, and when he opened his eyes he looked as he had at Number 4 Privet Drive. He grinned. Now this could be fun! He pictured Ron in his mind, and saw his hair grow rapidly shorter as it turned bright red, his face altering itself to match. He grinned for another moment, then another thought occurred to him.

Were all the strange physical changes just a result of him being a metamorphmagus, then? He focused for another minute until he returned to his James-like face, the one he had been accustomed to seeing staring back at him before this summer. He lost himself in thought until the mirror interrupted him. “Well, that was certainly unusual. If you can change your appearance, why don’t you change your hair so that it will lie flat?” Harry laughed out loud at that. Did all magical mirrors think alike? Had his father had to deal with this his entire life?

“Because someone would notice,” he responded sensibly, and then escaped the mirror to return to his bed. Once safely ensconced such that it appeared he had never left, he leaned back and stared at the ceiling. There was the mystery of the physical changes solved, without any lies from Dumbledore or anyone else. He must have looked like Snape because he was thinking about him and the Occlumency lessons. His smile became a smirk as he considered what he could do with such an ability, especially if he kept it a secret. He wondered how hard it would be to find a book on metamorphmagi without anyone catching on. He would just have to do research on several different topics so that no one would think anything of that topic in particular. Or perhaps simply some casual questions to Tonks…

He was absolutely amazed at what a difference this discovery made to his mood. He drifted off into a light sleep with a smile on his face.

It felt like he hadn’t slept at all before he was awoken by a squeal. “Harry! Happy birthday!” He was being attacked by a bushy haired projectile, and being smothered in a happy hug, before Hermione pulled herself away from him with an embarrassed grin.

Ron was right behind her. “Happy birthday, mate.” He looked around. “Say, what are you still doing in your bed, lazy bones?” Harry concluded from this that they didn’t know what had happened—and he had no interest in telling them.

Willfully ignoring his warning from Remus Lupin, Harry sprang out of bed. “Getting some sleep so that I could stay up late with you two!” he smiled, deliberately holding it even as he saw Remus appear at the door and frown at him out of bed. He caught the man’s eye and warned him silently not to interfere. “How are you?” His bright tone seemed to make a silent pact with them that, for now at least, they would not speak of the darker happenings in their world.

“The Chudley Cannons are actually winning!”

“I can’t believe they haven’t gotten us our O.W.L. results yet!” Ron and Hermione spoke at the same time, followed by groans as each realized what the opposite had said.

“Harry doesn’t want to talk about school!”

“Let’s not talk about quidditch!” The two spoke in unison once again, and Harry burst out laughing.

“Spending a lot of time together, then?” he asked with a grin.

It was perhaps fortunate that the two of them were too embarrassed to look at one another, as they both turned an identical shade of pink at his not so subtle teasing. He laughed. “Let’s go to the kitchen, I’m hungry!”

This finally brought Hermione out of her speechlessness. “And no wonder, you’re skin and bones!” At this, Harry turned such a dark look on her that she promptly changed the subject. “I noticed you’ve grown this summer… you’re almost as tall as Ron now!”

Harry smiled, though not so broadly anymore, as his exceptionally good (and exceptionally fake) mood had been broken. He looked at Ron and saw that she was indeed correct, as he made eye contact with Ron’s eyes at almost exactly the level of his. Ron grinned himself. “We’ll see how Malfoy likes having both of us towering over him!”

Malfoy… He thought of the elder, not the younger. And Bellatrix Lestrange. And Sirius… Tonks’ voice intruded on his melancholy thoughts. “Alright there, Harry?” He could see her at the end of the hallway, in the door to the kitchen.

His mood now completely ruined, he frowned. “I would be better if I weren’t here.”

“Harry!” protested Hermione.

“Isn’t this at least better than your aunt and uncle’s house?” asked Ron quickly. “I mean, we’re here, and…”

Harry was surprised how easily the fake smile sprang to his lips. “Yeah, seeing you guys is wonderful. As intelligent as Dudley is…” He laughed, and his friends hesitantly joined him. He sternly reminded himself that the smile needed to remain on his face, especially on his birthday of all days. He wanted to be able to act like a normal teenager with them, and he certainly didn’t want to endanger their friendship with his bad mood like he had done the year before.

Looking back to Tonks, he saw that she was watching him with a small frown on her face. He almost felt bad for snapping at her. Hermione gave him a pointed look, following it up with a glance at Tonks. He sighed. “Sorry, Tonks, I know it’s not your fault I’m here.”

Tonks shrugged. “None of us really wants to be here, Harry. But this is the still the safest place for Order headquarters, even more so now that no one will suspect it.” He nodded reluctantly, understanding the logic but wondering why he had to be at the headquarters.

“We’re both going to be staying here for the rest of the summer too, Harry,” added Hermione.

“Yeah, and Ginny and Mum and Dad, too. Speaking of Mum…” Harry followed his gaze to the doorway, behind Tonks.

“Mrs. Weasley!” he cried happily. She opened her arms to him and he rushed into them, ending any further conversation regarding their location. A moment later, she pulled him away from her and looked at him.

“Don’t those horrible muggles ever feed you anything??” she complained in a motherly tone. Harry felt his smile slipping and forced himself to think about the fact that she cared about him, not about the Dursleys. Or about why he had been there. She watched him as he did so and he felt like she could see right through him. Breezing past her, he continued the conversation.

“Is there anything to eat in this crazy house? I’m famished!”

“Harry Potter!” he heard the high-pitched voice squeal right before something small and fast-moving crashed into his legs. He stumbled to catch his balance, and looked down to find a familiar house-elf hugging his legs.

“Dobby! How are you?”

“Dobby is doing wonderfully, sir. Dobby was being told that Harry Potter was coming, and Dobby was volunteering to come and help Harry Potter and Harry Potter’s friends!”

“Well, thank you, Dobby!” Harry couldn’t believe how fake his voice sounded. He really had to work on doing a better job at pretending to be happy. He glanced back at the others, some of whom had entered the kitchen and others of whom were still in the hallway, and saw that they were exchanging glances. They had noticed, then. He sighed quietly and turned back to Dobby, keeping the smile on his face but speaking a bit less animatedly. “So, Dobby, do you have anything good to eat around here, or are you saving it all for dinner?”

“Oh no, Dobby is having lots of food for Harry Potter, sir!”

Harry grinned genuinely at this, his stomach growling at the mere thought of food, and even better, Hogwarts quality food. “Thanks, Dobby.” He turned around to see people still loitering around the door, as if he were dangerous or infectious. “Come on in, guys! Dobby’s getting us food, and I promise I won’t bite you… unless he takes too long!”

Though the mood was at first awkward and uncomfortable, slowly everyone loosened up and began talking and laughing. Harry mostly observed, a small smile on his face. He had believed it impossible, but the anger was slowly draining from him in the face of the happiness of all of these people who he loved. Finally, he released his grief and fury for the day, deciding that it might be okay to enjoy his birthday.

They played exploding snap for hours. Harry foolishly challenged Ron to a game of chess—and lost miserably. For which Hermione scolded the redhead and told him that he should have let Harry win, and he protested, “I tried!” Hermione then gaped at him for a moment before Ron turned and winked at Harry, and they both burst out laughing.

Before any of them knew it, it was time for dinner. He was relieved to find that Dumbledore had had the wisdom to not show up for dinner. Harry had a feeling he might come later, and he intended to demand a private conversation when he did. He sat himself in the middle of his fellow students, distancing himself from the adults. Having been betrayed by those few adults that he had known well and trusted, his faith was now severely shaken. But these “children” had traveled by his side into the Department of Mysteries to battle death eaters and (they thought) to save Sirius. Them, he could trust. At least, as much as he could trust anyone.

“Presents, or cake?” Mrs. Weasley’s voice broke into his reverie after dinner had ended. He blinked and refocused on the world around him, only to find that everyone was looking to him for an answer.

“What? Presents and cake aren’t mutually exclusive?” He preserved the innocently surprised expression for just a moment, before cracking up at everyone’s uncertainty and grinning. “Oh come on, I’m not that stupid! And I’m full now, so I call for presents!”

“Dobby is getting the presents right away, sir!” With one snap the table was cleared, and with another there was a rather large pile of presents on the table. Harry’s eyes widened, his reaction sincere this time.

“All these are for me? Where do I start?” Everyone laughed, and then he heard a quiet voice from the other side of Hermione speak.

“You can start with mine,” said Ginny, and he realized with a start that he had forgotten that she was even here. He wondered why she had been so quiet… had she returned to her younger, shy self? But as he watched her pluck a small box out of the pile and hand it to him, her movements seemed confident, and she met his eyes easily enough as she handed it off to him. He smiled and her and then looked down to the tiny box.

It didn’t weigh much, though he wouldn’t have expected it to based on the size. He carefully opened it and found a tiny but amazingly detailed phoenix figurine. It appeared to be clear crystal, except that he could swear that he saw glints of color flashing out of it that had no relation to the light in the room. He looked up at her, a question in his eyes, and she answered quickly, “I’ll tell you more later.” He smiled, looking forward to the chance to have a conversation with her, and thanked her quickly.

The rest of the gifts were as he had expected: books on Defense against the Dark Arts from Remus and Hermione (he thanked Remus dutifully but limited his eye contact with the werewolf), a Chudley Cannons calendar from Ron, which was of course so bright orange that it hurt Harry’s eyes, and some new clothes from Mr. and Mrs. Weasley. Oh, and he couldn’t forget the Gryffindor socks (which matched, except in size) that Dobby informed him had been knitted by the house-elf himself.

With a snap, Dobby cleared away all the leftover wrapping paper and boxes, and then a beautiful cake appeared on the table. Beautiful, except for the fact that it had Harry’s moving face on it. Everyone agreed that that was slightly creepy, but everyone eventually got into the spirit and began eating Harry’s brilliantly green eyes (which watched the fork carefully), his nose, and his ears. The mouth seemed to be a bit too much for anyone. Harry might have taken it, if he hadn’t been distracted.

At that moment Hogwarts’ headmaster, Albus Dumbledore, had entered the room. “Happy birthday, Harry! And hello, everyone… It looks like you are all having a wonderful time!”

Harry felt his rage return with a vengeance, drowning his happiness in an instant and transforming his smile into a frown. “I was,” he muttered under his breath, but Hermione apparently heard him and shot him a sideways glance that was both surprised and reproving. He ignored her and looked across the room to make eye contact with the elderly headmaster, then said loudly enough for everyone in the room to hear, “I need to speak with you, sir.”

Dumbledore was unfazed by the anger in Harry’s expression and voice. “Certainly, Harry. Perhaps tomorrow morning?”

The younger wizard, however, was already making his way through the crowd to the door of the room nearest the headmaster. “No, I think now would be better,” he answered icily, adding as an afterthought, “Sir.” Hermione gasped.

“Harry! You can’t speak to the headmaster that way!” she protested.

Dumbledore’s calm expression remained, and he turned his attention to Hermione momentarily. “I’m afraid Harry has a valid reason for being upset with me, Miss Granger. I expected him to wish to speak with me, though I had rather expected that it would be tomorrow rather than on his birthday.” Dumbledore gave Harry a questioning glance, giving him an opportunity to postpone the discussion if he wanted to.

“What, and give you time to disappear for another couple of weeks?” he replied bitterly. His tone seemed to finally gain Dumbledore’s full attention.

“I think we had better take this conversation into the other room, Harry,” he commented slightly more quietly than Harry had spoken. For his part, Harry glanced around and found that he now had the incredulous stares of nearly the entire room on him, and allowed himself to be gently guided out of the room by his elbow.

“I owe you an apology, Harry,” the headmaster began once they had removed themselves to a more private room and closed the door. “I’m terribly sorry to have broken your trust last night by coercing you into speaking of what had happened. But I hope—“

Harry interrupted quickly, knowing that in a moment he would be too angry. “What was it?” he demanded.

“What?” Dumbledore appeared momentarily surprised that he had been interrupted.

“The potion,” he clarified shortly. “What was it?”

“Oh.” The older wizard sighed. “An invention of Professor Snape. The basic form is that of a Calming Draught, but it has the added effect of dramatically reducing one’s inhibitions. So in your case, you were rendered incapable of censoring yourself. You were more or less speaking whatever came to mind.”

“And was it worth it?” Harry asked coolly, just barely managing to keep his voice calm. “Was what you learned worth destroying my trust?”

“I understand that you are very upset, Harry. But I hope in time that you will be able to understand that we were only looking to serve your best interests.”

Harry laughed shortly. “And how exactly is it going to help me? Did you have some way of undoing what has been done? Or maybe you’re planning to convince the Dursleys that magic is really a wonderful gift?” He snorted at that. “You’ve already told me, even when I begged you to stay at Hogwarts, that I have no choice but to return to their house each summer, for my safety. Or have you changed your mind now?” He paused briefly, not long enough to allow Dumbledore to continue speaking. “But apparently my ‘best interests’ are now equivalent to satisfying your curiosity.”

“We don’t want you to deal with this on your own, Harry,” answered Dumbledore gently.

“Ha!” Harry couldn’t hold in a short, barking laugh at this. “And I’m supposed to ask you for help, after you’ve done such an effective job of showing me that I can’t trust you?” he asked incredulously. “No thank you!”

The headmaster leaned forward, clearly concerned. Harry felt a bit of anger welling up in him at the calm façade that continued to grace the man’s face. Could nothing he said shake this man, cause him to doubt himself for even one second? He noted, however, that he had managed to kill the oft-noted twinkle in Dumbledore’s eyes. What talent. But the headmaster was speaking again. “Then who will you trust, Harry? You can’t do this on your own.”

“I can’t? That’s funny, it seems to me that that’s exactly what I’ve been doing for the past fifteen years!”

Harry thought he had caught the headmaster by surprise, for once, but he quickly realized that it was not for the reason he had expected. “Harry, has your uncle abused you before this summer?” His tone indicated that he had not even considered this a possibility before this moment.

He glared at the floor. He was torn between the desire to throw the headmaster’s mistakes in his face, and a warring desire to keep whatever secrets remained.

Long before he came to a decision, Dumbledore had already correctly interpreted his silence. Harry could see him becoming angry, though not at him. Their eyes met. “It appears I owe you a much larger apology than I had thought. My only excuse is that, though I knew there was no love lost between your mother and your aunt, I felt sure that Petunia would not dare actively mistreat her own nephew.”

Harry replied softly in response to a strange desire to protect his aunt from the wrath of this suddenly dangerous man. “She didn’t know.”

“What?” the headmaster asked incredulously.

“I said, she didn’t know.” He frowned at the headmaster’s disbelieving stare. “It wasn’t so hard. All they had to do was avoid anything suspicious in front of her, and blame any bruises that happened to be obvious on my inherent clumsiness. Not that she was looking for bruises… she never pretended to care about me.”

“They?”

Harry cursed himself mentally. Of course, the headmaster wouldn’t miss something as obvious as that. When had he stopped choosing his words carefully? “He. I meant he.”

“Harry…”

“No.” He looked up, the fury flashing in his eyes. “No. I’m not going to tell you. What are you going to do? Feed me another mind-altering potion? Or maybe this time you could be a bit more creative and break into my mind using Legilimency!”

The mild victory that he felt when he finally saw the defeated look in the headmaster’s eyes was accompanied by a twinge of conscience. He violently shoved it down, trying to savor his victory, but found it difficult. He sighed and turned his eyes back toward the floor.

“I assume Mr. Weasley and Miss Granger know nothing of all of this?” Dumbledore continued finally.

“No.” He barely restrained himself from adding a nasty barb about giving the headmaster opportunities to turn his friends into spies against him.

“And who are you going to speak to about this?”

“No one,” he replied, looking into the older wizard’s face to glare defiantly.

“I must insist that you speak to an adult about this, Harry. You need not tell me whom, and you may swear them to secrecy if you so desire, but you can’t keep this inside of you.”

“Oh yes I can!” exclaimed Harry in defiance.

Dumbledore shook his head slowly. “No, Harry. I understand that you may not see the need for this at the moment, but I must insist. We will remain in this room until either we have spoken about this or you have promised to speak with another adult.”

Harry leaped to his feet. “You can’t keep me in here forever!” He ran to the door, but heard the headmaster muttering something and saw a burst of light pass him and melt into the door. He presumed it was some kind of locking spell, but tried the door anyway. To his surprise, he felt a small tingle and then the doorknob turned without complaint. He had just begun to open the door when it slammed back shut. He spun around to see a look of surprise in Dumbledore’s eyes.

“What did you do?”

“I tried to walk out the door. Now let me out!” Harry was aware that he was acting mildly childish, but he hated to be trapped.

“No, Harry,” Dumbledore responded mildly. “This is not up for discussion. You are going to promise to talk to an adult before you leave this room.” He seemed to have recovered from his surprise of earlier.

Harry began pacing back and forth in front of the door, but the nervous energy seemed to be building up inside of him faster than he could work it off. Finally he spun on Dumbledore. “There’s no one I can possibly talk about this with—you can’t just keep me trapped in here waiting for me to make a promise I can’t keep!”

“I take it then that you are not willing to talk about this with Remus?” Harry narrowed his eyes and shook his head. His talk with the werewolf was still to come, though after the way the tables had been turned with the headmaster he might be a bit more reluctant to initiate that one. “What about Mr. or Mrs. Weasley?”

Harry was horrified. “I can’t talk with Ron’s parents about this!”

The headmaster chuckled. “I assure you, Harry, they think of you as one of their own. They both care very much about you and I’m sure that either of them would be very pleased if you were willing to trust them with this secret—not to mention supportive.”

Harry shook his head violently. “No. No. I don’t want them to know.”

Dumbledore frowned at this. “The only other adults who are present with any frequency in this house are Nymphadora Tonks and Severus… While you may certainly speak with the former, she may be a bit young to give you the support and understanding you need. And I believe that last year’s disaster with Occlumency does not recommend Severus for the job.” He gave a wry smile at this.

Harry paced back and front a few more times, and then looked back to the headmaster. “You can’t make me talk with someone if I don’t want to!” he insisted.

“That is why I am giving you the choice of whom you speak with. Come, Harry, stop stalling. Everyone is waiting for you.”

Harry’s eyes widened. He had utterly forgotten about the party that he had left. “You’re making me miss my birthday party!” He spun and tried the door again, but it didn’t budge. He pounded on it a few times, and then realized that the headmaster had probably included a silencing spell and turned back around. “You—you—“

“I am doing nothing of the sort, Harry. All I’m asking of you is a simple promise, and then you may rejoin your party.” This was said with a small smile, but then his expression turned serious. “Come, Harry, I know you can do this. Just promise me that within the week you will approach one of the people we have discussed and talk to them about this.”

Harry leaned back heavily against the door and then slid to the ground, wrapping his arms around his knees and staring at the ground. Could he…? He wasn’t sure he had it in him to talk to anyone about this, much less a member of the Order of the Phoenix. How weak would they think him, to let himself be beat up by a couple of muggles? But then, he had no other choice…

“Fine,” he whispered finally, hanging his head in defeat. He raised his voice just above a whisper so that Dumbledore could hear him. “Fine, you win. I’ll talk to someone.”

He could just feel the pleasure radiating off of the headmaster. “Good! It will help, Harry, I promise.”

“Right.” Harry rolled his eyes. Did he look like he was doing so badly on his own? “Can we get out of here, already?” he grumbled, not willing to discuss this any longer.

“Certainly!” Dumbledore uttered several spell words under his breath and Harry felt a little tingle go through the door. That was odd… it felt exactly the same as what he had felt when he touched the doorknob. He stood up and opened the door without looking back at the headmaster, but if he had he would have caught the older wizard watching him thoughtfully.

“Finally!” exclaimed Ron when Harry re-entered the kitchen. “We thought you were never going to be done! What were you talking about all that time, anyway?”

Harry sighed, and then a small smile crossed his face when he saw Hermione elbowing his red-headed friend. He shrugged. “Not as much as you might think. If he had just let me out of there I would have been back half an hour ago.” He said this knowing that however those present in the room interpreted it, they would not assume that Dumbledore had truly locked him in the room. He changed the subject quickly. “So, is there any cake left?”

Ginny grinned at him, and he knew enough to be a bit worried when he saw that mischievous expression on her face. “Only half of your mouth, because no one could stomach it.” Harry laughed.

“Well, is it cake, or isn’t it?”