A/N: Okay, so I said that this would take longer, but work was extremely easy today so I got more accomplished tonight than I anticipated. I will say that trying to find a Children's TV programme that was on Wednesdays in 1985 is very time-consuming, but I did it. Thanks to all who have reviewed! I appreciate any and all comments! The Neville/parents interaction is for jlyric! Thanks for getting me to think about another facet to this story.

Chapter Thirteen-- Gifts

July 30, 1985--Longbottom Manor

Neville Longbottom was now proud to be five years old. He just wished that he knew that his parents were proud of him as well. It seemed that they were constantly at work now. Neville scrunched up his forehead in concentration trying to figure out what his parents would be working on that was so important. His concentration was broken by the arrival of those in his thoughts.

Alice Longbottom bounded into the room and swung her son up into her arms. Frank, who came in the room more sedately, was astounded by the fact that his wife could pick up their son still. Not that Neville was large, but simply Alice didn't look like she could lift a Quaffle, much less a five year old boy.

"Nevvy, my darling son, happy birthday! How does it feel to be five?" Alice greeted her son with a wide smile wihle setting him back on his feet.

"It's great, Mum," Neville responded rather more sedately than Alice would have liked to see. "So are we doing anything special?"

"Of course we are, Neville!" his dad responded. "After all, it's not every day that your son turns five. We thought you would like to have a special dinner."

"Oh, is anyone coming over?" Neville asked brightening.

"Well," Alice started before biting her lower lip. "We wanted to keep it strictly family, you know." She had a very downcast look on her face as if she was ashamed at not planning a better birthday.

"Mum! You're lying to me. How could you?" Neville sprung at his mother and hugged her.

"How…" Alice sputtered and gave her husband an astonished look. "Neville, how did you know I was lying? I thought I was very convincing."

"You had me fooled, dear," Frank added, giving Neville a puzzled look.

Neville stopped to think for a minute. "I don't know. It was almost like a voice in my head saying 'She's lying to you.' I don't know how else to explain it." Remembering that people were coming over, he turned to his mum. "So who's coming?" he asked eagerly.

"Are you sure that you don't know already?" Alice joked. Seeing the clouded look that was starting to overtake her son's face, she relented. "Well, let's see. There's Susan Bones. She's your age and her aunt works with us. Ernie MacMillan is also coming. Hannah Abbott will be here with Michael Corner. Oh, Nymphadora wanted to come as well so I figured that would be okay, right?"

"Nymph is coming? Awesome. Maybe she will show us some things she learned this past year at Hogwarts," Neville exclaimed, clapping.

"Now Neville, she can't do magic outside of school until she's of age. You wouldn't want her to get in trouble, would you?" Frank rebuked his son.

"I guess not," Neville said discouraged. But then he brightened, "She still can morph right?"

"Yes, Neville," Alice said with a laugh.

"Excellent."

Later that night-- Number 4 Privet Drive, Surrey

Five year old Harry Potter woke up to the sounds of muffled steps on the stairs above his cupboard. Yawning, he started to roll back over to go to back to sleep when he heard another set of footsteps descend the stairs. Curious, the young boy knew that it definitely wasn't morning as his aunt would have been yelling for him to get up and cook breakfast. So what was going on?, Harry thought. Quietly pushing open the door to his cupboard, he let out a small sigh of relief that his uncle had not locked his door on him. Harry continued to creep over to the kitchen as a small ray of light was radiating from under the door.

"Petunia, are you sure that you are all right? You don't look at all well," Uncle Vernon's normally booming voice was instead soft and barely carried out to where Harry was standing.

"I'm just having some pain. That's all. It will be fine. Go back to bed," Petunia soothed her husband. Harry scrambled to get back into his cupboard as he heard his Uncle Vernon laboring to get to his feet. With seconds to spare, Harry closed the cupboard door and waited for his uncle to return to his room upstairs before silently sneaking out again. He heard the sound of weeping coming from the kitchen. Knowing that it was his Aunt Petunia, Harry briefly thought about the fact that he had never heard his aunt cry before. He laughed inwardly as he recalled the fact that she wouldn't let him cry either. Harry had learned at a very early age that crying got you absolutely nowhere with Aunt Petunia. Still, he wondered what would make his aunt cry. The young boy wanted to go comfort his aunt, like he had always wanted her to comfort him, but he knew that his sympathy would be unwelcome. He returned to his cupboard and laid down, not realizing that the weeping in the kitchen had lessened tremendously before he fell back asleep.

July 31, 1985

Mena Frayne, a precocious almost four-year-old, danced around the living room of the Frayne's flat. The television was tuned to Button Moon with its catchy theme song. Trixie, a sandy blonde looked over at her foster daughter and laughed as the redheaded girl spun around with a spoon in her hand.

Jim Frayne came through the door to the flat with a forlorn expression on his face and turned towards their bedroom. Seeing the expression on her husband's face, Trixie immediately jumped up and hurried after him.

"Jim, what is it? It's not Brian or Honey is it?" Trixie asked, worried that something had happened to her brother and sister-in-law.

"No, Trix. It's not about them. I…I had a phone call from our solicitor while at work," Jim responded slowly as if unwilling to share this information with his wife.

"Solicitor? What's a solicitor? Oh, right. A lawyer! Well, what did he want to talk about?" Trixie was at a loss to figure out what was going on.

"It seems that our paperwork in adopting Mena is meeting some resistance," the man told his wife very reluctantly.

"Resistance? What kind of resistance?" she parroted back to him again.

"Apparently, because we're Americans, the court system is refusing to let our adoption application go any further, especially since they can find no legal birth certificate for her. While we are still her foster family for as long as we remain in Britain," Jim turned his wedding band around on his finger. "We can't officially claim her as a Frayne."

Trixie looked at her husband, who was trying his best to appear stoic, but she knew that he was very disappointed. Jim was the one who wanted to adopt a child as he himself had been adopted. As they were in England for several years to deal with Jim's business, the couple had decided to look into adopting a child. Nothing had pleased Jim more than to find a child that needed someone. Trixie was happy that the girl had red hair like her husband. The joy that had filled their life since Mena came into it was like no other. Trixie often recalled all the times she had had to baby sit her brother and decided that dealing with your own child was infinitely better than babysitting. Fury welled inside her at the fact that because they were different nationalities, she might be denied her daughter.

"What good is all of our money if we can't use it to get us our daughter?" Trixie yelled in frustration.

Hearing her mother yell, Mena ran into the room. Looking at her parents, she went to her father, took his hand and led him to her mother. Drawing them both into a three-way hug, she patted both of their backs- one with either hand. At the touch of their daughter, both Jim and Trixie felt all of their negative emotion melt away.

"We can't lose you, pumpkin," Jim whispered to his little girl.

"We won't lose her, Jim," Trixie said with an air of calm resolution.