This was written for part one of EvylinDevilin's Choose Your Path Challenge in the HPFC forum.

Every year I made the same wish on my birthday. Dad always asked me if the wish had come true yet.

'Not yet.' I'd answer. I wanted to tell him my wish because then maybe he'd make it come true for me, but he didn't want to hear it. He said it wouldn't come true if I told anyone. So I promised to keep it to myself.

"Well, this must be some big wish. It's been ten years in the making," my mom had said on my tenth birthday, with a light hearted smile on her face.

Inside though, I knew that both my parents were sad. I was their only child and all they ever wanted was the best for me. So I knew it hurt when every year I told them my only wish had not come true.

Eventually, though I still longed to have a brother or sister, I gave up on the wish. I'd grown enough to realize that it wouldn't happen.

Now, at seventeen years old, as I sat with my parents, my old birthday wish was the last thing on my mind. I just wanted to enjoy this evening with them because I knew that it would be our last. After this summer I'd be leaving with Harry and Ron to search for the remaining horcruxes and I couldn't leave my parents in danger.

They on the other hand did not know this, and so the topic of that childhood wish, which we hadn't discussed since I started at Hogwarts, was brought up just once more.

"Honey, do you remember that wish you made every year on your birthday when you were younger?" my mom asked me, a small smile on her face as she probably thought about some birthday years ago as I blew out my candles focusing on nothing but that one wish.

"Yeah," I said. I knew what was coming. They'd ask me if it had come true at Hogwarts and I'd say 'no' and they'd say 'maybe next year' both of them with smiles on their faces. But I'd know that yet again they were wishing there was something they could do to give me whatever it was that they had failed to for seventeen years.

"Is there any chance the magical world has finally made it a reality?" my dad asked. I could hear the hopefulness in his voice.

I wanted so badly to tell them that 'no, it hasn't' and then to cry and have them hold me and comfort me just one last time as they had when I was younger. And I wanted to tell them what was happening in the wizarding world, and that I didn't need a brother or a sister anymore. That I just wanted to be able to keep my parents.

And that's the moment I'd remember forever. My parents' beaming faces as my mom squeezed me tightly and my dad kissed the top of my head. They'd done all they ever could for me and they were sure of that now. It wouldn't be long before they wouldn't remember me at all, but I needed to know that I didn't loose them with them still thinking there was more they could have done. Because they really had done so much for me.

And now I had to do all that I could for them.

"Yeah," I said, my voice low, catching slightly at the lie as I held back my tears. "Everything's great."

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