For the first time in his life, Harry woke up with high expectations for his birthday. Draco’s birthday had come to pass a week ago, and Severus had made sure that there were presents and people waiting for him in the Great Hall at breakfast time. Draco had been greatly surprised by the gesture of other staff members, including Minerva McGonagall showing up. Harry wasn’t sure, but he thought he saw a present from Draco’s mother sitting on the small pile.
Harry yawned, and smiled to himself, alone in the seventh year boy’s dormitory in Gryffindor tower. He was now of age, and could use magic whenever he wanted. It was unfortunate, he thought to himself wryly, that he was stuck in the castle where he could already use magic whenever he wanted.
Somewhere just then he imagined Ron levitating plates and silverware to his dining room table for Mrs. Weasley just because he could… something Harry would be more than willing to do if he could only escape the castle for a day.
Downstairs Harry greeted the empty common room with a smile. He couldn’t wait for the rest of the students to return so that the tower and rest of the school would be full of people again. Sure he had no curfew and could go wherever he liked during the summer, but it was no fun without someone to go exploring with… that was the kind of thing best friends were for. Harry was quite lonely without Ron and Hermione. He had Snape for company on occasion, and other staff and Draco at meal times, but that wasn’t the same as finding some kind of trouble to get into with Ron.
The last week had been particularly empty and lonely for Harry. Severus had been gone on Order business and Harry had no one to talk to. But he would be back today Harry was sure. There was no way he would miss his birthday.
Harry made his way down through the castle at a casual pace. He didn’t really care about presents, but he wondered what he had gotten all the same. When he was almost to the Entrance Hall he was both pleased and surprised to hear familiar voices.
“Ron!” he called from the top of the stairs. Ron and Hermione looked up at him from where they stood, and Harry walked down to them.
“What are you two doing here?” he asked.
Ron rolled his eyes. “Did you think we wouldn’t come for your birthday?”
Harry grinned. “You have no idea how happy I am to have you two here,” he said with heart.
Ron snorted and said, “I’ll bet… I might kill myself if I was stuck in an empty castle with Snape and Draco…” he trailed away, remembering how Harry thought about Snape. Harry’s feelings for their Potion’s Master had never sat right with Ron, but knowing that Harry now had some kind of parent, which Hermione had reminded him of forcefully on several occasions that summer, made him hold his peace about it.
Harry shrugged. “I hardly see them… it’s pretty lonely here without you two.”
“Lonely!” Ron said incredulously. “You’ve got a fast broom and an entire Quidditch pitch in your back yard! Here, you go home to my mum and do all the chores she has me doing now I can do magic legally, and I’ll come here and sleep in til’ noon and play Quidditch all day long…”
Laughing, Harry shook his head. “No Quidditch for me. They won’t let us outside the front doors.”
Ron made a disgusted face and rolled his eyes again. “Figures. Mum almost wouldn’t let me and Hermione out of the house to come see you… Death eaters on the loose and all. We had to remind her for an hour that we’re of age now.” They made their way into the Great Hall, Hermione nudging Ron in the ribs because he’d made a comment about Snape earlier.
Inside Harry found Dumbledore, McGonagall, and Sprout, but no Snape. They made their way to the table the three Professors were sitting at, and had a seat. As Harry sat down on the bench between his two friends, a small pile of presents appeared before him, along with a small cake with sloppy red and gold icing. For a moment Harry wondered if Hagrid had made the cake, but discarded the thought when he noticed that he also was not there.
“Good morning Harry,” Dumbledore greeted him warmly, cup of coffee in both hands.
“Good morning sir,” Harry replied just as he had done every morning that summer.
Harry looked around for Snape again, hoping to see him walk through the door, but did not find him. Trying to distract him, Dumbledore turned to McGonagall, who was sitting next to him, and said, “Minerva… I wonder, could you tell me why there are presents stacked on this table?”
She rolled her eyes, thinking Harry was too old for this game. “Maybe because you put them there,” she said, trying to make the words not sound forced.
“Oh yes… that’s right… I remember now.” He turned to Harry and said, “Happy birthday Harry.”
Harry nodded, “Thanks,” and Hermione pushed a few presents from the stack towards him.
The first gift was a book on advanced defensive techniques from Hermione, and the second a Snitch with purple wings from Ron. “It flies almost twice as fast,” Ron explained. “Fred and George made it… they said you needed practice with something better than the beat up Gryffindor Snitch.”
Halfway through the third present, a new pair of khaki pants from Mr. And Mrs. Weasley, Draco walked into the Great Hall, forgetting it was Harry’s birthday and expecting breakfast as usual. When he was halfway to the table, he rolled his eyes and made a face at the presence of Ron and Hermione and the stack of gifts for Harry. Professor McGonagall sent him a warning look, and he sat quietly down the table a little ways and on the opposite side as Harry, Ron, and Hermione. Ron made a face similar to the one Draco had just let go of when he sat down, but Draco ignored him, eyes scanning the gifts Harry had already opened. There were two left from the stack.
The fourth gift was several new shirts from Ginny. Ron explained that she had wanted to come, but Mrs. Weasley wouldn’t let her because she was still underage, and he had gotten shirts and pants for his birthday because somebody had wrecked all his clothes the year before. Ron shot a glare at Draco as he said this, remembering the mess somebody had left his and Harry’s things in because they were searching for what they had supposed was homework Harry was supposed to be grading for Snape. Draco looked away, and remained silent.
Harry thought the final unopened gift to be from Snape, but was disappointed to find that it wasn’t. It was wrapped in shiny silver paper with odd shapes in a lighter silver color, and the tag revealed that it was from the Headmaster. Draco also had received a gift from Dumbledore on his birthday: A book about legendary heroes and their lives… Draco had been amazed that he had received the gift from the old man at all, which had intrigued him enough to open the book and read it, when it seemed completely uninteresting from the cover.
Harry pulled away the paper to find an even older copy of the same book: Heroes of Our Past, Present, and Future: The Life and Death of Those Who Sacrificed Themselves For Us. Harry tried not to frown at the gift, and Draco did it for him.
“I believed you would find the book interesting,” Dumbledore told him, warm smile still on his face.” Harry nodded.
“Thank you sir.”
After they had eaten cake, Harry, Ron, and Hermione roamed the empty corridors of the castle in the same way Harry had been doing since the first day of summer vacation.
“I’m sure he meant well,” Hermione said about Dumbledore’s gift. “I don’t think he would give it to you if he didn’t think you could find some meaning in it.”
“The only meaning he wants me to get from it is that I’m going to die if I don’t murder Voldemort,” Harry said, agitated.
“Oh Harry, I’m sure that’s not-” but Harry waved her off. Ron put his arm around Hermione’s shoulder and she didn’t say anything else about it.
As they walked, Ron asked, “What was that git doing at your party?”
Harry knew he was referring to Draco. He shrugged. “It was just breakfast for him I guess… I was there at his party a week ago.”
“They threw him a party?” Harry nodded and Ron made another face. “Well, at least you have the entire castle to avoid him in… I bet if you timed it out right you wouldn’t even have to see him at meal times.”
Harry didn’t respond. He had his hands in his pockets and was looking at the corridor floor as they walked. Why hadn’t Snape been there? There wasn’t even a gift… not that he needed a gift. He would rather that Snape had been there for the twenty minutes that everybody else had showed up.
Hermione nudged Ron in the side gently at the look on Harry’s face, and trying to get his attention, Ron asked, “Are you sure they won’t let you out to the pitch?” Harry nodded.
“I tried… so did Draco I think. I heard McGonagall telling him off one day… said if she caught him outside the castle he was going to be doing summer time detentions with Filch…”
“It would serve him right,” Ron said. Apparently he thought he was helping, but Hermione felt that he wasn’t.
“Ron!” she scolded him. “You just wanted Harry to go out there and play!”
“I never said he should sneak out.” He tried to look innocent, but Hermione knew that that’s where the conversation would have lead eventually.
Ron and Hermione stayed with Harry until five in the evening, and then said that they had to head home before Mrs. Weasley called half the Auror force out to look for them.
“We were supposed to be back by 4:30,” Hermione said. “Ron, your mother’s going to kill us… and I’m not even part of your family.”
Ron grinned and waggled his eyebrows at her as they stepped into the fireplace with floo in the Great Hall. “Not yet anyhow.” Hermione tilted her head at him in surprise, and Harry laughed as Ron shouted, “The Burrow!” and they disappeared. Harry watched the orange flames flickering for a moment, considering finding some floo powder somewhere and following them. He was seventeen now… he could do whatever he wanted, couldn’t he?
Just as he was about to take a step back and was thinking about where some floo powder might be, the flames in front of him suddenly roared purple, a color Harry had never seen fire turn before, an icy chill momentarily replacing the warmth the flames had given him, and then the purple flames were gone. Harry frowned. What was that about?
“They took it off the floo.” Harry turned to see Draco walking over to sit at the empty table they had been using at mealtimes that summer.
“What?” Harry asked him.
Draco rolled his eyes at having to repeat himself. “They took it off the floo… that’s what happens when they disconnect a fireplace from the floo network. They only opened it up for Weasley and Granger.” Draco thought this should have been quite obvious, but Harry turned back to look at the flames some more. They were back to regular flames you would expect to find in any fireplace.
“Do they think Voldemort would try to floo in?” Harry ducked as soon as he had said Voldemort’s name, because Draco had thrown a fork at him like a spear, and it had gone sailing past his left ear, coming to a clattering halt on the floor behind him.
“Don’t say that name in front of me,” he warned. Harry frowned, and continued toward the table where Draco was at, a little shocked that Draco had thrown something at him. He had a good aim.
Draco glared as Harry sat down opposite him and food appeared between the two of them. They stared at each other quietly for a moment, before Draco said, “They think we’ll try to get out.”
“We can leave any time we want,” Harry said, pulling a chicken leg from the platter between them. “We’re seventeen now.”
“Yeah, and be dead,” Draco scoffed. “Are you that eager to die?”
Harry shook his head. “How many times has Vol-” he paused as Draco picked up his empty goblet and held it as if he was going to beat Harry over the head with it. Harry rethought his question, and then asked, “How many times has You-Know-Who tried to kill me, and how many times has he succeeded?”
Draco put the goblet down and shook his head. “You’re worse than Crabbe and Goyle Potter.” Harry knew this was an insult, considering that Vincent Crabbe and Gregory Goyle were most likely the two stupidest guys in school
“How do you figure that?” Harry asked, putting his chicken leg down and looking up at Draco.
“Because it doesn’t matter how many times he tries to kill you… it only matters the one time he actually does.”
“You think I’m that easy to beat?” Harry knew he sounded cocky, but he was already in a bad mood, and didn’t care.
Draco looked up at him, disbelieving for a moment, and then looked away. “I think you haven’t seen half of what the bastard can do. He doesn’t get followers because they want to join or because he puts them under a spell… he gets them because he tortures them in ways you can’t imagine until they say yes.” He looked down for a moment, clearly remembering something horrible, and then finished. “More than a Cruciatus was used on the Longbottoms…”
Harry frowned, trying to think. What kind of pain was worse than a Cruciatus? “Like what?” he asked, feeling stupid for having to ask Draco.
“It’s because of him that only one Longbottom goes to this school.” Harry didn’t like the implications of that. Not that he had been famished in the first place, but now he wasn’t hungry at all. He watched Draco, mouth slightly open, waiting for more.
“You don’t mean-”
Draco pushed his plate away and stood up. “Neville had two older brothers. The Cruciatus isn’t what made his parent’s go crazy.” He turned and began to walk away, also not hungry any more.
Harry wasn’t sure if he believed what Draco had told him. “Does he know?”
There was no answer for a moment, and Draco kept walking. At the door to the Entrance Hall, he said behind him, “Nobody ever told him.”
Harry wasn’t sure why he had to know, but five minutes later he was in the Library, pouring over old issues of the Daily Prophet that Madam Pince had pulled from a shelf for him. The paper they were printed on was crumbling and yellowed on the edges, and the cranky Librarian scolded Harry several times for not being more careful with the papers.
“We can’t get more of those you know!” she told him angrily. “It’s not like they make the same issue day after day!”
Harry slowed down a little bit as he rifled through the papers. Finally he came to an issue marked November 20, 1981. The bold headline on the front page read: Longbottom Children Mysteriously Die: Deaths Suspected Cause by You-Know-Who’s Followers.
Harry shook his head and scanned the article until he found the names of the two boys. Two year old Terrance and four year old Jason Longbottom were found at the bottom of the well on Malfoy Manor late this morning by Ministry officials. The well is dry and it appears that the two youngsters had been thrown… Harry stopped reading, disgusted. It made sense that Draco knew about the deaths now. Harry didn’t think that Draco had sat pouring over old newspapers like he had and just stumbled across the information. Anger boiled inside him as he wondered if Lucius Malfoy had been responsible for the two boy’s deaths. Harry was sure that he was responsible for so many others.
A cold chill overtook the hot anger in his veins, and Harry shivered. He was so sick of all the death and destruction Voldemort had caused. Harry carried the stack of Prophet’s back to Madam Pince’s desk and left the Library, not having any other place he needed to go, but not wanting to sit still and do nothing. Every day that he was stuck in the castle he felt more and more like a caged animal. He wondered if Draco felt the same way, but suddenly didn’t care.
Not watching where his feet were taking him, Harry ended up at the top of the East tower. He stopped in front of the attic door. Last year he and Ron had been sent to clean the attic with two other boys as part of a five-day detention. During the battle against Voldemort and his followers the previous fall, half the roof had been blasted off and had to be replaced. Harry unlocked the door with a first year spell and pushed it open. It was neat and tidy, but a new and thick layer of dust coated everything.
Evening sun still shined in through the four attic windows, and Harry crossed the dusty floor to look out one of them. He climbed on top of an enormous desk the size of Dumbledore’s that sat under the window, and sat looking out across the grounds. He could see part of the forest and a piece of the lake and a good part of the grounds. In the distance he could see the empty Quidditch pitch. Cold loneliness filled him from the inside out, and he pulled his legs to his chest to hug. Snape had shown up to Draco’s party, and given him a gift… why didn’t he show up to his?
* * *
Severus Snape strode angrily past the two aurors guarding the front gate to the school. They had tried to stop him in the darkness to verify his identity, but he had hurriedly flashed them his ID and they had let him pass, seeing the angry look on his face and not wanting to deal with him.
It was nearly two am. The cool night air breezed through his long, dark hair as he walked, angry at Dumbledore for sending him on such a meaningless task that any other Order member could have completed easily. It wasn’t so much that he minded putting his life on the line now that the Dark Lord knew who’s side he was on, but more that he had more important things to do than to go chasing down false leads on one of the stupid Weasley children. He had been running around the country for a week trying to find signs that that goody two-shoes Percy had been helping the Dark Lord. He highly doubted that the brown-nosing son of Arthur and Molly Weasley would ever relay information to the Dark Lord about the Ministry and it’s movements. He may as well have been investigating Hermione Granger for all the information he had found, which amounted to nothing more than Percy’s favorite restaurant, and the name of his current girlfriend.
As Severus made his way into the castle and then down to his room in the dungeons, he had no idea that Harry was sleeping fitfully against an old attic window more than ten floors above him because he had not shown up to tell him happy birthday. In his anger at Dumbledore over the last few days, he had almost forgotten his surrogate son’s birthday, and in the angry moment that he climbed into bed at two in the morning, he actually did forget.
Why had Dumbledore sent him away for such a meaningless errand?
The Glum of Night