The next few days went by quickly as the trio continued to work on learning new spells and managing the animagus transformation process. Ron was still a bit fickle when it came to studying, but his ability to concentrate was improving. Harry found the time he spent alone with Hermione increasingly alarming and his confused emotions were not up to the task of telling him what to do.
Harry was sleeping worse than ever with his reoccurring nightmares from the Department of Mysteries waking him up and the dull ache in his chest as he tried to sort out his feelings toward Hermione kept him from going to sleep.
It was already bright outside when Harry awoke, still weary from a late night with Remus casting spells on them combined with a prolonged bout of sleeplessness once he finally got to bed. Harry slowly pulled on some clothes and fed a restless Hedwig before heading downstairs to breakfast. He pushed the door open to the kitchen and the room erupted.
"SURPRISE!"
Harry stood stunned as people began to press around him. He looked up and saw a big banner that read "Happy 16th Birthday Harry" flapping magically as it changed colors. Professors Dumbledore, McGonagall, and Hagrid were standing around the table, along with Arthur, Molly, Fred, George, Ron, and Ginny Weasley. Moody, Remus, and Tonks were sitting at the table. Ron and Hermione grabbed his arms and drug him in front of a big cake with sixteen candles on it. Harry grinned, his fatigue and internal turmoil evaporating under the warm glow of his closest friends and the people he counted as his family all around him.
"Go on Harry, blow out your candles," Molly encouraged him.
Harry blew them out with a whoosh, then as everyone clapped Molly cut up the cake and gave Harry a big first slice. Everyone else clustered around to get their own piece as they congratulated Harry.
"Cake for breakfast, well done Harry," Fred joked as he and his twin George came over.
"We got you a present, sorta, well, actually you got it for yourself mate," George said. "It's a basic Ruckus Raising Starter Set from the shop," Fred explained, seeing Harry's somewhat puzzled expression.
"Don't tell him what it is," George said as he gave his brother a light jab in the side as he handed Harry a big box wrapped in twinkling paper.
The two continued to joke and needle each other as they moved along. Everyone seemed to be having a great time, including Moody, though Molly had to scold him when he started to take out his eye again. Continuing in the Fred and George tradition the partygoers all took turns bringing Harry their gifts, but they managed to keep from giving away the surprise before he had unwrapped them.
Professor Dumbledore's gift was a large thick warm pair of socks, just like the ones that Harry remembered him describe when he told Harry what he saw when he looked into the Mirror of Erised. Harry hadn't understood why Dumbledore would desire socks most of all at the time, but he thought he did now. It wasn't that Dumbledore wanted socks, it was that he wanted a gift that didn't relate some expectation or responsibility like spell books. Dumbledore wanted a caring gift from a friend who wished him happiness, not an impersonal gift from someone who saw him as a powerful wizard instead of someone with feelings. Harry smiled broadly at the kindly old wizard as he thanked him profusely.
Moody's thin rectangular package was wrapped in plain brown paper, and nearly as tall as Harry was. He ripped through the package to reveal what appeared to be a mirror.
"That there is a brand new Foe Glass Harry," Moody said.
"Why doesn't it have any shadows in it like yours?" Harry asked.
"New version, meant to be stealthy, so if your enemies see it they won't know what it is." Moody explained, "It'll still show forms quick enough for you to take action though. Put it in your room so it'll focus in on you."
Harry thought about Moody's explanation of the Foe Glass' operation for a moment.
"What if I put it out in the main hall, would it work for the whole Order?" Harry asked.
"I suppose it would," Moody said thoughtfully, "I hope you're still planning on being an Auror, Potter."
"Yes sir, and thanks," Harry said.
Professor McGonagall came over next and thrust a misshapen package at Harry as she cleared her throat uneasily.
"I made it myself," she said as he unwrapped a tiny troll sitting on top of a doorknocker. "Er, thanks Professor," Harry said as the troll stamped its feet and shook its tiny fists at him.
"It's a Portable Pass Protector," she explained, "simply affix it to a door and give it a password. It will function like the portrait entrance to the Gryffindor common room and I've already set it to only take password commands from you. Of course once you set the password and put it on a door it will open for anyone with the password."
"Wow, this is perfect, thank you Professor," Harry said enthusiastically. He could have sworn that he saw McGonagall's cheeks redden slightly as she moved back to talk to Dumbledore.
"Hey ya Harry, hope you're havin fun," Tonks said as she handed him a compact package that Harry was sure contained a book as soon as he felt it.
"I can easily say this is the best birthday I've ever had," Harry said happily.
"Well I hope that help you out, I know you wanted to do something about that scar," she said.
Harry looked down at the book, its cover looked like a maelstrom of shifting colors. "Standing out Stealthily" he read silently as he opened the book. Each chapter covered a different type of spell or potion to change specific parts of your appearance.
"Thanks Tonks, this will definitely come in handy," Harry said.
Hagrid was too emotional to do anything more than enveloped Harry in a massive hug. He had brought a huge basket full of Honeduke's chocolate that Harry was positive he would be unable to eat on his own. He just managed to extract himself from Hagrid's ever-present moleskin coat when Ron bashfully thrust a long thin box at him.
"It's not much," he said blushing. Harry knew Ron didn't have a lot of money to spend on gifts and that it embarrassed him.
"Ron, this is great," Harry said as he unwrapped a wand servicing kit.
"Ya think so?" Ron asked.
"Yeah! My wand is getting so grimy; I've just been rubbing it on my robes. Thanks Ron." Harry said. Ron actually got a thoughtful, practical gift. Who knew?
The party was starting to wind down as the morning drew on. Arthur was abruptly needed at the Ministry, Dumbledore and McGonagall had left hurriedly on undisclosed business soon thereafter. Hermione, who had been whispering with Remus, produced a large neatly wrapped package and presented it to Harry.
"It's from Remus and I," she said happily as Harry unwrapped it, "It was my idea, but Remus is the one that made most of it happen."
The book was bound in leather which was carved on the front was a lot of ornate looking curves and magical symbols. He ran his hand over the bumpy surface before flipping open the book to the first page. He immediately recognized a picture of himself and Sirius that had been taken the previous Christmas. Sirius had been so happy then and his photographic self reflected that as it waved at Harry with a big toothy grin.
"This is wonderful," he said, "Thank you Hermione, Remus."
"I'm glad you like it," Remus said.
"Why don't we go up to the study so you can look at it more comfortably," Hermione suggested.
Harry nodded and after thanking everyone again for the marvelous party he gathered up the rest of his gifts before following them upstairs. Ron and the twins were laughing riotously as they left the room. The three of them pulled their chairs closely together so that they could all see the album.
The first pictures were all of Sirius, most of them were from his days at Hogwarts.
"It was hard to find anyone who had kept their old school photos of Sirius," Remus said, "and it was even harder to explain why I wanted them."
"Why was that?" Harry asked.
"Well, you see, Sirius is still sort of considered a criminal," Remus said hurriedly, as if by speaking fast it wouldn't impact as hard.
"What!" Harry exclaimed, "After what happened…"
"I know Harry-"
"How could-,"
"Harry listen-"
"In the Department of Mysteries,"
"Doesn't matter…"
"BUT THEY ALL SAW VOLDEMORT," Harry shouted out.
"I know Harry, but it isn't that simple. First of all, Kingsley and Tonks had to leave before Ministry Aurors showed up or else risk exposing themselves. You can imagine how Fudge would react to their presence at such an event. Moody's name is mud these days and not just because of his paranoia. I'm, ahem, well, inherently untrustworthy due to my nature." Remus explained.
Harry just nodded sadly.
"I would have thought that Professor Dumbledore would have explained this to you." Remus said slowly.
"I'm sure he has been busy," Harry mumbled, shocked that Sirius was still considered on the wrong side of the law.
"Dumbledore doesn't always tell Harry everything he ought to," Hermione broke in angrily. Harry and Remus looked at her in shock, not just for her lack of respect, but because they couldn't ever remember her saying something negative about Dumbledore before.
"That's Professor Dumbledore, Hermione, and if I may say so you've both changed a lot. Quite nearly role swapping," Remus said.
"S-Sorry, I just kinda snapped for a second," Hermione said sheepishly, but Harry didn't think she sounded sorry at all.
"Why did you think that you only inherited this house?" Remus asked, returning to the larger issue at hand.
"I dunno, I didn't really think about it I guess," Harry said.
"The Black fortune is quite extensive, and incidentally most of it is yours, but not until Sirius' name is cleared. Fudge has appointed a commission to study the matter, you can expect speedy results in the next century probably." Remus said dryly.
Harry scowled darkly at the injustice of it all.
"Anyway," Remus said, "back to pleasanter things, here is a picture of Sirius throwing water balloons on some first years."
"So that's where Peeves got the idea from," Harry said as he related the tale from fourth year.
"Ah yes, Peeves, he was always a odd sort, that does sound just like something he'd do," Remus laughed.
"What's going on in this picture?" Hermione asked as she pointed to a picture of Sirius and a person that Harry immediately recognized as his father. James Potter was trying to juggle various oddly shaped objects while Sirius jumped in the background. Every now and then James would slip up and several of the things would drop on his head. Remus laughed again.
"That was one of Sirius' mad schemes to get Lily to notice James. James couldn't juggle at all; Sirius is using a spell to keep everything in the air. If you look closely you'll see that everything falls apart when Sirius has to blink and breaks the spell."
"He spent a lot of time trying to impress Mum didn't he?" Harry asked.
"Well, it got progressively worse, but there at first Sirius had to egg him on or he'd never have worked up the nerve," Remus chuckled and then went on, "Of course eventually they started going out and then he didn't have to try Sirius' crazy schemes. In retrospect I think Lily was more impressed by his willingness to try and impress her more than by anything he actually did."
Remus stopped talking as Ron and Ginny came tromping up the stairs. Harry suddenly realized his head was nearly bumping into Hermione's as they hovered over the album.
"Mum sent us up here," Ron said, "broke up a perfectly good game of Exploding Snap."
There was a fleeting flicker of something, annoyance perhaps, Harry couldn't tell, across Remus' face.
"I'll leave you guys alone for a while, I just remembered something I wanted to discuss with Molly," he said as he stalked out of the room.
"We're looking at all the pictures Remus and Hermione collected," Harry said as he motioned for them to draw up chairs.
"Here is the section from school, I got a lot of these from Colin Creevy," Hermione said as she flipped a page.
Harry remembered all the scenes, starting from second year, and was surprised at how complete Colin's collection had been.
"I didn't know Colin was stalking us," he laughed.
"Yeah, I don't know where he was when he took that picture," Hermione said as she pointed to a picture of Harry and herself as they walked around the lake.
"Ya, course as I recall I was pretty bummed out at that particular time, I probably wouldn't have noticed a lot," Harry said.
Hermione gave a nervous glance at Ron before looking back at Harry, but apparently he hadn't noticed anything. They finished looking through the book and Harry again thanked Hermione for the thoughtful gift before excusing himself to go put it up in his room with the rest of his gifts. Harry was trudging back down the hall when he heard pops and nervous chattering coming from below.
"Guys, something is going on," he said as he peeked through the door to the study.
The four rushed to the top of the steps where they could see what was happening. Order members were rushing into the dining room. Molly bustled up the stairs to shoo them away.
"We're having a meeting, just stay out of the halls so you don't wake anything up," she whispered before tiptoeing back down the stairs.
"I wonder what's up?" Ron asked.
"Voldemort is probably on the move again," Harry said darkly, ignoring Ron and Ginny's shudders.
"I've been keeping up with the Daily Prophet and there hasn't been so much as a word since the articles they had acknowledging his return last term," Hermione said.
"Fudge must be leaning on the papers to keep things hushed up again," Harry said.
"Well, they're probably going to be in there a few hours, we might as well make the most of it," Hermione said.
Harry got up and followed her back to the study. Ginny and Ron reluctantly followed, grumbling about overworking.
"Comon Ron, just look at it this way, you'll have more time for Quiddich when next term starts if you've done all the reading now," Harry said.
Ron continued grumbling, but he did take out one of Harry's schoolbooks and start flipping lazily through it. Harry continued reading and practicing the spells in his pocketbook for what seemed like hours before noticing that Hermione was flipping through Harry's transfiguration book with disinterest. Harry realized that she must surely have already finished reading it.
"Hermione, the library might have something on Arithmancy or Ancient Runes if you want to go check," he said tentatively.
"Oh, I don't want to be a bother, you looked like you were really concentrating," Hermione said.
"Its no bother," Harry said as he stood up and opened the door. Hermione jumped up and bounded out of the room after him and right into Molly.
"Where are you two going," she said coolly.
"We were going to look for a book on ancient runes so that Hermione can study it for school," Harry said.
"You shouldn't be fooling about that dangerous library alone," Molly said sternly, "I'll have Remus look later. Its time for dinner now anyway."
Harry and Hermione went down to the dining room while Molly rousted her other two kids out of the study. Everyone had already left from the Order meeting except Remus who was sitting in a chair stewing over a butterbeer.
"What's happened Remus?" Hermione asked.
"Dark creatures went on a rampage today. Muggles all over England have been dying in gruesome ways, the Ministry is in an uproar trying to keep it all underwraps," he said glumly.
"Well, we knew it was just a matter of time," Harry said.
"It gets worse though," he began, but was cut off.
"Remus," Molly exclaimed, "Is that really necessary?"
"They can make up their own minds Molly," he said more crossly than necessary, "It's all in the Daily Prophet anyway, so its not like we can hide it from them."
"What do you mean?" Harry asked anxiously.
"Here, read this," Remus said as he slapped a paper down in front of them.
He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named Targets Muggles in Wake of Foiled Ministry Plan
Minister of Magic Fudge reveals today that a rash of Muggle killings were the work of Dark Forces. Minister Fudge also revealed shocking new details of a nearly twelve months long plan to trap He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named that was foiled by vigilantes working outside the law at the bequest of none other than Albus Dumbledore. Even more shockingly, He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named's evasion of justice may also be the result of unwitting actions taken by none other than the Boy-Who-Lived. Minister Fudge refused to give out further details for fear of compromising on going investigations. Headmaster of Hogwarts Albus Dumbledore was unavailable for comment. For more details on Dumbledore's alleged complacency with Dark Forces turn to page 6. (Story continued on page 12.)
Harry opened and closed his mouth in shock as he stared at Remus. "You've…Got…To…Be…Kidding," he exploded.
"What does Fudge think he's playing at?" Hermione sputtered hotly.
"He's quietly been working to shift the blame away from himself by concocting this ridiculous story that his denial of Voldemort's return was just a ruse to capture him." Remus said wearily.
"Are people actually buying that load of rubbish?" Hermione asked.
"Not everyone, but there are definitely some who are. It doesn't help that they've been portraying Harry as insane and Dumbledore as a criminal for months now," Remus said.
"We wouldn't be having this problem if the Ministry didn't step on the papers all the time," Harry said, "What happened to freedom of speech?"
"Huh?" Remus said.
"Honestly Remus, it's a Muggle concept, you really should read Muggle philosophy once in a while," Hermione said sharply, "I think Harry makes a very good point. The Ministry is quite anachronistic."
"That's the way it's always been, wizards don't easily change habits," Remus said.
"Yes, well, those habits make it easier for Fudge to abuse his position," Hermione said pointedly.
Remus apparently decided that it wasn't worth arguing because he quieted down and concentrated on reading a section of the paper. Harry kept staring at the article that he knew would cause everyone a lot of headaches for the foreseeable future. All the happier thoughts from earlier in the day seemed to be swallowed up in the bad news and Harry couldn't help but wonder if perhaps Voldemort chose this particular day to stir up so much grief on purpose.