A/N: The story behind this is...bizzarre, to say the least. My sister and I were bored at the laundromat, and we'd had the wax from Babybell cheeses that we were sculpting with. We decided to make a 'birthday cake' and see how many 'candles' we could put on it. We decided that it could only be Dumbledore's cake, and thus...the randomness below. I can't blame it entirely on my little sister, I came up with about half the insanity...
When the students woke up that morning, the first thing they noted was the absence of candles. Harry pushed back his bed curtains, expecting the beside candle to light, as it always did, as he put on his glasses. It took a couple seconds for the continuing darkness to penetrate his consciousness.
"Harry, do you have my candle?" Ron's voice came floating to him.
"No, mine isn't there, either." Harry said, having groped the entire bed stand in search of it. The others also found that there was no light beyond the grey dawn filtering through the small window.
"Dressing by wand light, how fun." Snorted Seamus, "Lum-"
"NO!" Everyone else in the dorm shouted; last time the Irish boy had tried the spell, he'd set Professor Flitwick's eyebrows on fire. But it was too late.
"-os" he finished. BOOM! The resulting explosion set his and Neville's bed curtains on fire, briefly illuminating the room until the hastily conjured water put it out, soaking the two boys. Dean had perforce, as Seamus' best friend, become good at 'aguamenti'; Neville was adept because of his Herbology specialty.
Almost an hour and lots of cursing later, the five fifth year boys were dressed, and stumbled down the stairs to the Common Room, ready to hex Fred and George, whom they blamed. To their surprise, they found Lee, the only other Gryffindor seventh year boy, and the twins' best friend, on one of the couches, rubbing a large lump on his forehead, and frowning.
"Who stole all the candles?" He growled, shaking back his dreadlocks.
"All ours are gone, too. We thought the twins did it." Harry said, and resumed rubbing his arm where he'd banged it on Dean's bed.
"Nah, they're nursing a pair of goose-eggs bigger than mine, where they ran into each other. I wonder where they candles have gone… there's none down here, or in the girl's dorms, either." Angelina said, sourly. It looked like it was the start of a very long day.
Meanwhile in the Slytherin Common Room….
"Ow! Who on earth just stepped on my foot?"
"Get your finger out of my nose!"
"Where's my Drakie-poo?"
"That was my eye you elbowed!"
"Who the bloody hell just punched me?!"
"Sorry, Draco."
"Crabbe!"
"Merlin, just light you wands, you idiots."
"Zabini, you are a genius!"
"I know, Goyle. You lot are a sorry sight. The Lions are going to have a hoot; you look like you were locked in with a set of bludgers."
"How come you aren't beat up, Blaise?"
"Daphne, I simply waited on the stairs until you lot mustered the intelligence to hold still."
"Let's just go, and hope there's light once we get out of the dungeons, unless you want to spend the day banging into the suits of armor."
In the Great Hall…
"Uh, Ron… why are you wearing Ginny's shirt?" Hermione asked carefully.
"What? Ginny! What was your shirt doing in my trunk?!" Ron yelped. His little sister shrugged, but a mischievous glint in her eyes was strongly reminiscent of the twins.
"You did that,"
"On purpose, Gin."
"Just to see if"
"Ickle Ronniekins would"
"Put it on."
"How was I to know? There wasn't any light in there!" Hermione quickly Transfigured the article in question into a more masculine form. But before anyone could tease Ron further, there were a series of loud thumps, shortly followed by the majority of Slytherin stumbling into the hall, blinking gratefully at the light from the ceiling and windows.
"Who gave Crabbe the shiner? I'd give them a hug for services to the school." George snorted, listening to the conversation of the snakes.
"No you don't, Katie, it was Malfoy."
"Eww! Never mind." Just then, the front door opened, revealing what had to be Hagrid, no one else was quite that large, but completely covered in tiny glowing figures. The fairies also darted about in an aura almost three feet from his massive form.
"I brou' th' fairies ye wanted, Headmaster."
"Excellent job, Hagrid. Filius, if you would?" the headmaster beamed at the tiny charms professor, who waved his wand. The glowing swarm split, and suddenly a fairy was hovering over each student's head, casting a decent light. It would be enough to find their way, and write by, in class.
However, not all the teachers would allow the living lights into their room, namely Snape. So, the students struggled to brew by wand-light, resulting in near constant explosions from his classroom, and a steady stream of students straggling to the hospital wing, recovered fairies floating above them, laughing. The worst, however, happened when Harry's year had to head down for their turn. In the darkness, Neville didn't see the spilt flobberworm mucus, and slipped on it. He flailed wildly, trying to catch his balance, and flung his arms about the nearest item. It happened to be Snape.
"Unhand my person, Mr. Longbottom. Five points from Gryffindor for disrespect of a teacher." Neville squeaked, and fainted as soon as he realized who he'd given an impromptu hug.
McGonagall also refused to allow the fairies in, but she at least had enchanted the ceiling of her room to emit a bright light. This however proved a problem when the Weasley twins arrived, as they continuously changed the color of it, and even created moving pictures. When they had a lion devour a snake, McGonagall lost her patience, and gave them detention, the awarded them five points for creativity in their spell-work.
Walking in the corridors proved hazardous, as Peeves had taken advantage of the confusion, with no little glee. The light provided by the fairies wasn't strong enough for most students to notice him lurking about, with water balloons filled with brilliant dyes. The Weasley twins managed to avoid him, mostly because they were helping him target the unsuspecting. They'd managed to peg Draco with a neon pink balloon, while Pansy had received a hideous chartreuse. They lit up the vicinity nicely.
It wasn't until dinner that evening, did the school discover why all the candles had been missing. They'd sat down to eat, the torches on the walls leavened with some levitated salamanders over the tables, only to discover there was no food. There was a great deal of muttering and discontent, until the more observant raised their hands for quiet. The sound of many small feet, and squeaky voices raised in song was now clearly audible, as the doors opened.
This set of two very purple fireworks which wrote out the words "Happy Birthday" before exploding into golden showers. When everyone's vision had cleared, they saw all the house elves of Hogwarts, working together to float an enormous cake in, over their heads, Dobby in the lead.
"Happy Birthday to you! Happy Birthday to you! Happy Birthday Master Dumbledore! Happy Birthday to you!" Their squeaky singing drowned out Peeves, who was belting out rather rude lyrics to the tune. The cake was huge, it would easily have squashed Hagrid, if it fell, and coated in candles, even the bottom. Hundreds more floated about it.
"We's missed Headmaster Dumbledore's birthday the past five years. So we's decided we had to put candles for those birthdays too!" Dobby said proudly. At the Gryffindor table, Harry and Ron thumped their heads down onto the wooden surface, while Hermione eyed Fred and George suspiciously. There was a trill of song, and Fawkes swooped in over the cake. He flapped his wings once, and every candle was lit. Dumbledore shook his head, smiling, and waved his wand, creating a puff of air that blew them out.
"Albus, that was cheating, you're supposed to blow them out, without resorting to magic." McGonagall said, trying to look stern, and failing to hide her smirk. There were lemon drops on top of the cake spelling out 'happy birthday headmaster' each with a traditional birthday cake candles. The frosting was violently purple. With another wave of his wand, about ten candles flew to each person to have the frosting licked off. It turned out that the purple frosting was what else, but lemon flavored.
"Once you have cleaned the candles sufficiently, please return them to a teacher, so we can relight our school." Dumbledore said, and conjured a table big enough to hold the ten foot in diameter cake. Shortly thereafter, the purple monstrosity was sliced, and a piece as big as their head landed in front of each student, much to Ron's delight.
"No one can each until the Headmaster's taken the first bite!" someone hollered. It sounded suspiciously like one of the twins. Dumbledore looked up, a bit of purple frosting stuck to his beard, and a bit on the tip of his long nose.
"He did that on purpose!" Lee whispered to Harry, who nodded. It seemed likely, knowing the eccentric old man.
"Lemon and mint-chocolate layers, my favorite." Dumbledore declared. "Excellent."
That night, even Ron, Crabbe, Goyle, and Hagrid had eaten enough cake that they wanted nothing to do with it anymore. The house elves gleefully cleaned up the remains, and hauled it back to the kitchens, where it was strongly suspected, it would be cheerfully devoured. It had been most amusing to see Hagrid attempt to smuggle a huge chunk out of the hall, probably for Grawp. Harry strongly suspected that Fang would manage to steal part of it in transit. But the best part had probably been when Hagrid had patted Snape on the back, sending the sour potions master face-first into his slice, leaving him coated in purple goo. More than one student suspected it had been done on purpose. All in all, Dumbledore's birthday had been fun for everyone.
