A/N
Bleh... I got the ten reviews I wanted... but I still didn't update. Sorry... I sent two or three of the first people that reviewed a reply that said I wouldn't be posting during November, becasue of NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writers Monh). But that wasn't entirely true, since I told them that I was going to use story for that, so then there would be more frequent updates... but then I changed my mind and did an original story... so I still won't be updating that frequently. But I'm going to try harder I promise
Chapter 3 - Another Birthday
"Harry, Harry, guess what?" Daniel shouted from the second floor as he started running down the stairs.
Harry didn't have a chance to ask "what?"
Three stairs from the top, Daniel somehow tripped – while running at full speed.
He flew headlong down the stairs, as Harry stood at the bottom. Harry didn't even need to consider what to do before reacting. He rushed up the stairs, hoping to reach Daniel in time to cushion the blow.
He did reach Daniel before he hit the stairs – but Daniel's momentum continued carrying the two of them down.
They tumbled down the stairs together, and when they reached the bottom, there was an audible crack. Harry was uninjured, so he looked to Daniel for the source of the noise.
Daniel was clutching his wrist, with an expression of excruciating pain on his face, looking like he was about to cry.
Harry knew that he should try to comfort Daniel, but he the words that came out of his mouth were a shout.
He had thought his heart had stopped when Daniel had tripped. He would never forget the last time Daniel had fallen down the stairs, barely half a year ago.
Harry had been in the library, a few rooms away from the stairs that Daniel fell down. He had known something had happened immediately – he had felt a surge of panic – and then nothing. There was no sign of Daniel in his head. Harry had rushed out of the library, trying to find Daniel without their bond, which had gone silent. He got to the stairs before his parents did, who had heard the crash.
Daniel had managed to hit his head somehow and was unconscious. James, who had arrived just after Harry had, saw Harry leaning over Daniel, and arrived at the conclusion that Harry had something to do with Daniels condition.
Harry had overreacted at the accusation, spitting various insults at James, and demonstrating knowledge of several things he wasn't supposed to know. He still wasn't quite sure what he said, but he knew it had something to do with Pettigrew and Remus - blaming James for the betrayal of one and mocking his distrust of the other.
Normally he wouldn't have reacted that way – but Daniel was unconscious, and he was so panicked that he could barely think in coherent sentences, much less be reasonable.
The resulting argument that had followed, probably had removed any remaining doubts that James might have had about Harry being dark.
It was lucky that Lily had come in before he could say completely irreversible.
So even though he was exceedingly concerned about his brother's broken wrist, he still started yelling, more out of fear that something would happen to his brother if he continued being reckless then anything else.
"You idiot – can't you think for one second. Just one second. That's all I'm asking. But no, can't stop at all, running down stairs at full speed. Moron. Stupid."
Before Daniel could respond, James entered the room, just as Harry was insulting Daniel. He took one look at them, out of breath on the bottom of the stairs, with Daniel clearly in pain, and his gaze grew cold. He looked at Harry with an expression of accusation, though he said nothing, not after the chewing out Lily had given him last time.
"I hope you haven't been fighting again," he said, clearly trying hard to keep his voice level and non-accusing.
Daniel looked up sheepishly, "I, um, kinda fell down the stairs."
James looked disbelieving and shot Harry a look that clearly stated "I know you did this".
"Are you alright?" he asked, looking at Daniel with concern.
"I'm fine," Daniel replied. He wasn't lying – Harry could tell that he was in less pain already, though he guessed that the arm wasn't entirely healed. Daniel's healing ability came in handy often, especially considering how often Daniel managed to injure himself. In the past year or so, it had grown stronger again, though their bond hadn't - this was the first time that Daniel had healed a broken bone in a long time.
James stalked off without another word.
Daniel started talking in a rush, the second he was sure that James was out of earshot.
"I'm really sorry. I'm stupid – I should think before acting. I've gotten in you trouble all over again, and I could have really hurt you falling down the stairs."
Daniel looked like he was about to cry, even more so then earlier with his broken wrist.
Harry briefly considered letting Daniel suffer a little longer, but he couldn't.
"It's okay. I know you didn't mean it." He smiled briefly. "How much do you want to bet you're going to spend half the evening with dad, repeating, 'yes, I'm sure that Harry had nothing to do with it'?"
Daniel groaned.
"Maybe he'll be convinced easier this time. Last time, he was sure that when I hit my head I had suffered some sort of memory loss."
Harry grinned, flippantly, unconcerned that his father thought he wanted to kill, or at least injure, his twin. He had gotten used to it a while ago. He'd had a solid year to dwell on the prophecy by now.
"Want me to go tearfully tell mum that you tripped and fell down the stairs again, and that dad's convinced it was me, again? I can start sobbing about how 'dad doesn't love me – he hates me I know he does, I can tell every time he looks at me.' Which isn't even a lie…"
Daniel sighed, "No, I don't want another fight. Mum and dad, they really love each other. It's the stupid prophecy that's making everything wrong."
Harry didn't want to give up on a chance to stir up something interesting. "How about you tell him that I really did push you off the stairs – and then I tell mum that I really hate you, and hate everyone, and my secret desire is to take over the world – and to join Voldemort."
Daniel looked vaguely horrified. "Why would you want to say that?"
"I donno… it'd be interesting. And I want to see what they would do. I mean, I don't think they would try to kill me, would they? Not even dad would, really. He wants me kept away from you, but he doesn't hate me enough to kill me, even if I really did want to kill you.
But then, what else could they do? If they were sure that my deepest desire is to see you dead and that I would do anything to make it happen. Can you get arrested for something you might do in the future?"
Daniel shuddered, "Don't say stuff like that."
But Harry persisted, "No, I'm being serious now. I've been thinking about the prophecy a lot, and it still makes sense, even assuming that I will never betray you."
Daniel nodded, not any dumber than Harry, "Yeah, I know, the line, 'the world will see the betrayal'. You have to pretend to betray me. But, Harry, that would just kill mum. And doubt even dad would be pleased to be right – not with how broken up mum would be."
Harry shrugged, looking away. He sighed, "I know… But it's the only thing that makes sense. And you have to admit it would be perfect, for the two of us, assuming that what we've been guessing at is true – especially if it Voldemort again."
They were assuming that either Voldemort was alive somewhere, or a new Dark Lord was going to rise up and take his place – that was the only way the prophecy made sense. And Voldemort had to know about the prophecy, based on what he had said before he tried to kill them.
"Yeah, but if it's Voldemort again, he's going to remember that the curse hit both of us." Daniel protested.
Harry shook his head, "So? I doubt his memory is going to be perfectly clear about what happened. And he's not going to assume that the curse hit both of us at the same time – why would he, that's never happened before. So he's going to believe the same thing as everyone else. The curse was a little closer to you; therefore you got hit by it."
Daniel looked like he wanted to argue about it, but then his face lit up.
"Hey, I forgot to tell you what I nearly killed myself going down the stair for. You'll never believe what mum just told me!"
"What was it?" Harry asked, genuinely curious.
"You know how we and Neville have almost the exact same birthday?"
Harry nodded.
"We get to celebrate our birthdays together this year! Can you believe it?"
Harry grinned. "That's totally brilliant! We're finally going to have another kid at our birthday party."
Birthday parties were mostly family affairs – the four Potters, Sirius, and Remus.
Then he paused. "Is his grandmother coming?"
Neville's grandmother was horrible. Even the way James treated Harry had nothing on the way Neville's grandmother treated him. She constantly praised both Daniel and Harry, but constantly told Neville how clumsy and stupid he was, and how his father would be disappointed in him.
She didn't tell him that so bluntly in front of Lily and James, of course, though they knew that she wasn't especially pleased with Neville.
But Harry had managed to worm the story out of him, bit by bit. Harry was good at things like that.
Daniel nodded. "She's coming."
"Can't have everything, I suppose."
…
Neville was staring, rather wide-eyed, at all the present. He was holding one rather uncertainly.
The three children had been left alone to unwrap the presents, on the assumption that by age nine, they were capable of opening presents on their own. And the presents had been scanned for anything harmful.
"Oh, come on, open it already." Daniel urged impatiently. "I want to know what it is."
"But, but, it's not mine – it's your present." Neville said uncertainly, "I've never seen this many presents in my life."
Harry responded flippantly, "Oh, come on, you know about how he's famous and all that. We get so many presents every year I don't even know why we bother opening them. That's a package of chocolate frogs by the way."
Daniel whacked him with one of the larger, softer presents, which was still wrapped.
"I told you! No revealing what the presents are until we've opened them."
Harry laughed. "Sorry – I forgot."
He added mischievously, "That doesn't mean you're allowed to whack me with giant teddy bears. You'd think that now that we're nine, they'd have stopped sending them."
"HEY!" Daniel proceeded to hit Harry some more, while Harry grabbed another present – a toy broomstick that was already unwrapped– and proceeded to block the blows.
Eventually, they tired out, still laughing.
Harry turned to Neville, who was still holding the present.
"Just open it already." Harry commanded, growing impatient.
Neville finally unwrapped it, trying to be careful at taking off the wrapping paper. Harry had been right – chocolate frogs it was.
Harry grabbed the box from Neville – judging by how long it took him to unwrap it, if they wanted him to open the box, it would take the rest of the year.
He hastily opened it, and handed a chocolate frog to both Neville and Daniel.
Daniel shoved his into his mouth quickly, but Neville stared at his.
"Th-thank you," he stammered uncertainly. Before he could eat it, the frog jumped out of his hands.
He lurched unsteadily to his feet, trying to catch it. He had barely taken half a dozen steps in pursuit of the frog before his foot caught on one of the many presents lying on the floor.
He fell, and there was the sound of glass shattering. Whatever Neville had landed on had been made out of glass.
Harry reacted the quickest, jumping to his feet and helping Neville up.
"Are you bleeding?" he asked, examining Neville for any obvious damage.
"N-no." Neville stuttered, even worse than before. "I'm s-sorry. Th-the thing I broke was pr-probably v-valuable."
Having gotten Neville to his feet, Harry leaned over and opened the package to see what Neville had broken. "Silverware? And I thought that we had gotten every type of crazy gift imaginable already. What on earth would we want with silverware?"
At that moment, James, Lily, Sirius, Remus, and Neville's grandmother entered the room, in that order.
Despite being the last one in the room, Neville's grandmother, her horrible vulture had still on her head, spoke first.
"You clumsy, foolish boy. The Potter's were kind enough to invite you to celebrate their sons' birthday, and this is what you do – break expensive gifts? I knew I shouldn't have let you come. Neville, come, we're going home now."
She turned to go, and then said the final cutting words, "Frank would have never behaved as disgracefully as this."
Mostly just filler, I guess. To show how things are progressing. Something is actually going to happen next chapter though...
To explain Daniel's healing ability - it was very, very strong initially... strong enough to heal a curse scar that couldn't be removed. But then, the magical afteraffects faded, and his ability diminished. Now its growing stronger again, because he's getting a stronger grip on his magic.
Since Madam Pomfrey can heal broken bones in a second, it's not going to be some amazing cure-all magical ability, though it will grow stronger. In the wizarding world, broken bones aren't much of an injury or at least that's my opinion.
I know that I'm making Daniel seem less intelligent than Harry - he's not, not really. He'll shine later on, I promise. Their abilities and intelligence are around equal.
Also, Daniel's personality is closer to cannon Harry then my Harry is. I know that, but I've never seen a Harry has a twin done where Harry was commonly regarded as the boy-who-lived, and it was his twin who was suspected/neglected. So I decided to stick with the common usage for that - I couldn't quite picture it the other way around.
If you have any questions or criticisms, feel free to ask and/or comment.
Just to clear up the ages a little, since I keep changing them, I bumped everything forward, since I decided not to go with something extra I wanted to do before Hogwarts, so I really didn't need all the spare years that I was building.
Chapter 1, the first birthday, went from four to six, and now its at seven. Chapter 2, the chapter before this, was when they were just about eight. Now (as you should have noticed from the story) they're nine.
Now review! Please!
I don't feel I can promise that if I get more review's I'll update sooner, since it didn't work out last time, but I'm going to really, really try. Reviews are wonderful motivators.
