"The glow that the sun gives
Right around sunset
Helps me realize
This is just a journey
Drop your worries
You are gonna turn out fine." Andy's Grammer's, "Keep Your Head Up"

Past and Present Birthdays

James sleepily stumbled out of his bedroom and walked into Lily's room, yawning. In the doorway, he stopped for a moment and smiled.

As the door creaked open, Alexander opened his eyes in alarm, and seeing it was only James, he put his head back to sleep.

Lily's vivid hair was flung about onto her pillowcase and greatly contrasted against the sheets. She was lying on her side, and there was a large, purring fur-ball curled next to her stomach.

When Lily was sleeping, her worry lines from N.E.W.T.'s, homework, graduation and classes disappeared, and James wished it would always stay that way. Unfortunately, he knew she would never be truly relaxed; there was always going to be a difficult Transfiguration essay, a test to study for, a Charms presentation to ready for, and there would always going to be a war going on.

James sighed. He could only hope he could help with that essay and fight to end the war. But, this was quite depressing of a morning, so James shrugged the bad feelings away and headed for the bathroom for a quick shower.

After standing in the hot water for a few moments, James physically jumped as he realized what day it was.

How could he forget his own birthday?

He had no time to prepare himself! James thought to seven years prior, when the madness began…

James and Sirius had been friends for less than a year, but they bonded so quickly, it could have seemed they've known each other since the diaper days.

Their magic had not been at all impressive, but Sirius charmed James (while he was sleeping) so whenever anyone said "Happy birthday" to James, confetti would fly out around him, and even as a first-year, Sirius made it known it was James's birthday.

Second year, Sirius and Remus charmed birds to whistle the Happy Birthday song every five minutes. It had been relatively tame that year, as Remus had been out the week before, due to his "mother's illness".

Then, there was their third year. James woke up to a silent, hoping for the best. Through-out the day, James only received normal birthday wishes from professors and classmates. That was, until the next day…

Hundreds, if not thousands of portraits through-out the day wished James Potter "a very happy un-birthday". It was Peter's idea, which he got the idea from this Muggle fairy tale, called Alice in Wonderful-land, or something silly like that.

Fourth year, the Marauders were well known for their pranks and antics. With their reputation in full swing, they decided to just disappear for the day. They actually went to Hogsmeade for the day and spent a majority of it in the Three Broomsticks. They received the greatest of penalties, but it was worth it in their minds. That year had been James's favorite so far.

Fifth year, the Marauders charmed James's glasses to see everyone, professor and student alike, as birthday decorations. Some were balloons, some party hats and some noise-makers. It made it impossible to tell anyone apart, and James would've taken his glasses off for the day if he hadn't been so blind. The best he could do was not to crack a rib from keeping in laughter when Professor Slughorn walked in as a rather large piece of chocolate cake.

Then, sixth year, last year, all the portraits, tapestries, statues (even the knights) had James's grinning face instead the faces they saw normally. And as if seeing his face everywhere wasn't bad enough, they all smiled stupidly and said, "It's my birthday!" anytime a living soul passed.

This year, he had no idea to what was going to happen. It was pointless to predict Sirius Black. James was also more anxious due to the sleeping redhead. Lily was a brilliant witch who probably had something to do with his birthday festivities.

He tried to wash away the dread of the day ahead of him as he showered. When he stepped out, he felt refreshed. James walked back into Lily's room, where Alexander stretched and jumped off the bed with a thump at the sight of a showered James.

With the sudden loss of company, Lily cracked an eyelid and found James standing in the doorway. She broke out in a sleepy smile and mumbled, "Happy birthday, James."

James smiled and took it as an okay to enter in her room. He lightly kissed Lily's forehead.

"It's time to get up," James said, gently trying her to get up.

She groaned and tried to pull James onto her bed instead. Slightly surprised, James lost his balance and stumbled onto her bed.

"Much better," Lily said, going back sleep.

James chuckled, "I don't think Flitwick will be pleased if we're late to his class."

Lily huffed, "But, it's your birthday!"

"You don't have to get up if you tell me what's planned for today," James said hopefully.

Lily exhaled after a moments' pause, "I'm getting up."

.:.

About an hour later, Lily and James walked in the Great Hall, and James was extremely nervous.

There had been no magical confetti, singing portraits or pictures of James anywhere yet, but James had a lurking suspicion his presence would trigger something the moment he stepped in the Great Hall.

James took a dramatic breath and took a step, bracing for the worst.

But alas, nothing happened.

James looked at Lily in confusion, who only laughed in return.

"Concerned yet?" Lily asked with a sparkle in her eye.

James didn't try to hide it, "Yes, I am. Why hasn't anything happened yet?"

Lily shrugged nonchalantly, "I don't know about you, but I'm hungry." She dragged James over to the Gryffindor table, with the rest of their friends.

James looked uneasy when he saw the table. There was no confetti, singing birds or portraits because right on the table (James guessed it was on all the tables) was James's face everywhere. And he meant everywhere.

His face was carved into butter dishes, toasted into the bread, baked into the biscuits and even the froth on drinks magically shifted to outline of his face.

He was uneasy due to the attainability of this. It would have been manageable by their first year. This definitely could not be the only thing happening today.

"Are they going to start singing or something?" James asked wearily.

Sirius smiled, "They could, mate. They could."

The rest of the group mumbled their birthday wishes or clasped James's shoulder as he sat down on the bench.

James narrowed his eyes, "What's the catch?"

Remus smiled, "There is no catch, Prongs. Lily kept us tame this year."

James eyed a piece of bread, and before it could start singing, he shoved it in his mouth. Nothing weird came from the food in the morning, but James still felt something was off.

The majority of the group walked to Charms class, and when James stepped into the classroom, nothing spectacular happened. Professor Flitwick squeaked a birthday wish before beginning the lecture, but that had been it.

By the end of the classes of the day, James was on edge.

He received a fair amount of birthday wishes, and when lunch came, the food appeared with James's face again, but it was still a mediocre prank. He didn't trust his friends when they said nothing else was to happen.

When the desserts appeared after a lovely dinner of James's face continuing to be on the food, only birthday cakes with icing with either the outline of James's face or words with birthday wishes emerged.

Severus Snape could be seen moodily stabbing a particular red and gold cake. James finished the delicious cake but still had a nagging suspicion.

Eventually, when the cakes disappeared, the sparks began to fly.

I could bore you with the amount of problems I've had, but I have to say that my laptop's mouse broke for about a month, then once that was fixed, enter key was broken for about two weeks. Go to my other fic if you want the full list of problems I've had. I know this is kind of a short chapter, but I have the next one (fully typed out, I swear) I'll post sometime tomorrow.

Thanks to: Scribbles In A Notebook, Loslote, wisegirlweasley, , commandingskipper23, Alleykat203, emandem, emandem x2?, Ellie Ng, Sparkle Ninja27, dementorskiss xoxo, Shivv, Victoria Gryffindor Peverell and the one reviewer who didn't leave a name!