Disclaimer: The Harry Potter series and all its characters belong to J.K. Rowling.

Chapter Two
A Crowd in the Fireplace

"No," Laurence Granger stated most resolutely. At the moment, he and his son Harry were pulling up weeds from the family garden and around the house in an effort to make their home presentable for Harry's twelfth birthday party the following day.

"She's bored, though," said Harry, pleading as he spoke about his animal companion, a snowy owl named Hedwig, who the family had locked in her cage, which she hated being in but used only for sleeping or when Harry traveled. "Maybe I could let her out for just an hour or two?"

"Harry, Hedwig is a bird that is not native to Britain," said his father. "And a nocturnal one, at that. If you let her out in the daytime, it will arouse suspicion from the neighbours. Heaven knows we've had to come up with some of the strangest excuses for why they've seen more owls than normal around here."

"But, Dad!" Harry implored to no avail.

"But, what?" Laurence asked, expecting some stupid excuse to make an exception.

"We haven't heard back from anyone," Harry said, rather meekly. "Nobody's written back. Not once, all summer."

That had been a sore point in the Granger household following their first year at their school, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Harry and his sister, Hermione, had come home from Hogwarts after a harrowing last few weeks in which one of their teachers, Quirinus Quirrell, had acted as servant and host to the disembodied form of Lord Voldemort, the killer of Harry's birth parents, and tried to kill Harry and steal the Philosopher's Stone, a fabled object with extraordinary capabilities. Quirrell had died as a result of their confrontation, leaving Harry feeling guilty of his actions, but not ungrateful to be alive.

To their surprise, Harry and Hermione's parents grounded them once they got home. Not for what Harry did to Quirrell, but because they had risked their lives so carelessly to stop Quirrell. So, they spent most of their summer locked up in their rooms, working on their homework for the next year and doing whatever chores their parents ordered them to do. It would have been bearable, if not for one thing.

A very unfortunate part of this summer had been the noticeable lack of post from Harry's friends, particularly their closest friends, Ron Weasley, Susan Bones, and Neville Longbottom. They had sent out invitations to all of them, even to some of the people Harry and Hermione knew around their respective Houses, Gryffindor and Ravenclaw. The first day they didn't get any replies, they thought their friends must be busy with whatever they could be doing at that time. But, then, a week went by, still without any reply from Ron, Susan, or Neville. Harry and Hermione debated about trying to get to Diagon Alley, the proverbial hub of Wizarding life in Britain, and trying to get in touch with their friends there through some other means. They decided against it, though, as they couldn't justify using their pocket money just to get to Diagon Alley.

Instead, they tried to convince their parents to get them there and try to get in touch with their friends. Unfortunately, Laurence, a Detective Inspector with the Metropolitan Police Service, and their mother, Jean, a nurse who worked in intensive care, were so busy over the summer that they could not help their children to get there. So, they decided to send other notes to their friends. Yet again, no replies came to their door. Now, Harry was arguing with his father about sending one last message to their friends, pleading with them to get in touch with them in some way that wasn't by owl.

"Harry, I know you're upset about not hearing from your friends," Laurence began. "But, we can't draw any more attention to ourselves. We still have to keep up this story about you two being at Saint Ignatius and all that goes with it."

"But, can't we please try to get to the Leaky Cauldron or somewhere we could contact them?" Harry pleaded.

"You can send another note tonight, as long as it's after dusk, no sooner. If you can't get an answer back, I don't know what else we can do. I'm sorry."

"Thanks, Dad," Harry grumbled as he continued yanking up dandelions from the verge.

Ten minutes later, Laurence and Harry finished weeding the garden and Laurence had taken the lawn mower out to give it a good trim. While Laurence did that, Harry looked over the lawn in case there were any weeds the had overlooked. As he came upon a juniper bush, he could have sworn he saw a pair of eyes, a bright yellowish-green like tennis balls, gazing at him from deep within it. When he looked again, the eyes were gone. Probably a cat that wandered into their yard, Harry thought.

Once Laurence was done, he and Harry made their way back into the house. There, at the kitchen table, Hermione was working on her essay for History of Magic. While their teacher, Professor Binns, had assigned just one roll of parchment for it, Hermione was in the middle of her third. Laurence gave her a kiss on the temple and told her not to let up, before he went to the bathroom to wash up from the garden work. She paid attention only to her writing.

"What did he say?" said Hermione as she finished her current sentence. Harry sat down across from her.

"We can send a letter to them tonight," Harry told her.

"Hedwig would like that."

"If we don't get a response, we can't try again."

"That's not fair," she cried, finally drawn away from her work.

"Dad's rules."

"But, it's your birthday party. We have to try and bring them here."

"I tried telling him that. He's worried about breaking the Secrecy statutes. He doesn't want any more attention drawn to us than necessary."

"Just like Dad."

"You'd be the same way."

Ignoring the comment, she said, "So, just one message, and it has to count."

"That's right."

Hermione set aside her essay and the two of them took about twenty minutes to write a message to Ron, which went thus:

Ron,

Are you getting any of our letters? We still haven't heard anything back from you, or Susan, or Neville. The party is still on. It starts at noon tomorrow, and we really want you all to come. If you can, please try to get through to us some way other than owl post. We're really looking forward to hearing from you.

All the best,

Harry

They wrote copies to Susan and Neville as well. Once Hedwig took them from Harry, she flew off into the night sky. Harry gazed up at the stars, in the hopes that some part of the universe would sway the chances of her getting through to them in his favour.

***HPG***

The weeds had come back, in scads. There seemed to be no end to them. He kept pulling them up, but one, two, even three more sprouted in their place. He looked around for help, but no one else was outside. He ran to the back door and tried to open it, but it wouldn't budge. Banging on the door got no response from inside either.

He looked around again. His eyes fell on the juniper shrub from yesterday. Again, he saw a pair of bright green eyes, peering back at him from deep within. He dashed up to it and pulled back some of the branches to find…nothing. No one was hiding within the bush. He peered in deeper to see if something had burrowed below and made its home there. The deeper he looked, the more the hairs on the back of his neck were on end. He peered deeper, and then—

He soon found himself surrounded in darkness. He didn't know how he passed into this space, but he knew what the rushing sound in his ears meant. He was falling, fast, through this pitch black space, wherever it was. He looked around madly, trying to gain some bearing of which way was up or down. A shimmering caught his eye. As he gazed more strongly, the shimmer reminded him strongly of something he couldn't quite think of right away, but seemed ever so familiar. As it drew closer and closer, Harry soon terrified of what it was.

Was it the green light again? he asked himself. No, he told himself. If it was, he'd actually feel truly afraid, like he always did in its presence.

As he came closer, the shimmer became at once all too familiar.

Liquid. Water, maybe.

Harry had jumped into water from great heights before. He got the wind knocked out of him once trying to prove he could go off a high dive at a rec center swimming pool. Realizing that it would soon happen again, he spun himself around so that he would hit the water as much like an Olympic diver as he could manage. Arms stretched straight forward, chin tucked in, body straight and rigid. He squeezed his eyes shut as he braced for the impact. It felt like his body knew it was coming before he did.

The rush of water flooded his ears and the cold consumed him. He opened his eyes to the sting of the liquid. Blackness was all he could see, so much he thought the fall had blinded him somehow. He looked around to see which way the surface was. Only on pure instinct did he swim up to the surface.

He broke through with a gasp and immediately began treading water. Something about the water didn't feel right. It felt different, even smelled different than real water. That didn't matter now, he told himself. What mattered was surviving this.

As he looked around, fear began to grow within his mind. He was the only one out here. There was no ship, no boat, no shoreline or land anywhere to be seen. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw something flutter from above down to the surface. He swam as fast as he could to whatever it was.

When he got to it, he could only stare at it in incredulity. It was a letter, addressed to no one and sealed with red wax with no stamp. Still treading water, he tore it open to find—

The letter burst into flames! Bright green flames spread across the water's surface and surrounded him. As he looked around in panic, the letter, somehow undamaged by the fire, flew out of his hand and sailed back up into the darkness, leaving him surrounded by the flames. He looked around madly, trying to find a way out.

His fear grew and grew as he felt something pulling at him from below. Nothing had taken hold of his feet, but something was drawing him down into these strange black waters. As he turned his gaze downward, his fear became even more palpable. The green light was rising from the depths, evil and insidious as it always had been. As it drew closer, Harry fought every fibre of his being to scream in terror, until—

***HPG***

He woke, with a deep panting breath, drenched in sweat. As soon as he wrote down what he imagined, he lay back in his bed, staring at the ceiling, hoping and worrying about what he would do if no one showed up the following morning.

It took him another hour to get back to sleep.

***HPG***

Harry woke on the morning of his birthday, eager for the results of his letters. Hedwig was perched in her cage, her head tucked under her wing as she dozed. Harry looked about her cage, hoping to see some letter with Ron's messy scrawl, Susan's prim script, or Neville's mix of the two. No letters lay around her cage, or anywhere else in his room. He groaned to himself and walked downstairs.

The smell of freshly cooked breakfast wafted from the kitchen, lifting Harry's spirits slightly, but not entirely. His mother had whipped up a hash served along with some scrambled eggs for the family.

"Any word?" Jean asked her son.

"Nothing yet," Harry replied a bit glumly.

"They'll find a way to talk to you, Harry," she assured him. "They're your friends. Besides, at the very least, I'm sure Ronald's mother will make sure her son can get through and come over for his friend's birthday."

That thought perked him up a bit more. Ron's mother, Molly, had come to be very good friends with Jean, helping with many errands concerning the Wizarding world. Molly had a bit of a soft spot for Harry, seeing as their family had harboured him as a baby shortly after he and his birth parents had been attacked. No doubt, Harry thought, if Molly Weasley had any say in it, he'd have been a part of the Weasley family in an instant.

Hermione had woke up and come downstairs. She carried with her a package wrapped in red paper, tied with a gold ribbon. From the shape of it, it was obviously a book. His sister always got him books, but he didn't mind. It was always something he enjoyed reading, like science fiction or fantasy or a mystery.

Today was no exception, as his sister had got him the newest of Terry Pratchett's books, for which he was very happy.

"Any letters come?" she asked him.

"Nothing," he said. "This is so bloody weird. Did Hedwig happen to drop them off with you?"

"No," she answered. "I would have dashed in and told you the moment I got them."

Harry took his new book with him into the sitting room and began reading. He tried to think about anything other than the lack of communication with his friends. He wondered about how the Wizarding World would regard a character like Rincewind, or how they would regard the Muggle World's many depictions of Merlin or Morgaine le Fay. Still, the thought that his friends didn't get his letters, or worse, didn't want to talk to him at all, lingered in the back of his mind.

Hermione joined him with a book of her own. They read as time passed. When they looked up, the clock on the mantle read 11:59. Still, no-one had shown up or sent word they were coming. Harry was about to set his book aside and seclude himself in his bedroom, when the oddest sight caught his eye.

There were embers glowing in their fireplace.

Their family never had a fire going at any point during the summer. Who started a fire here? Harry thought to himself. He set the book on the arm of the sofa and got up to examine the embers. As he drew closer, some sparks shot up. The embers were the usual glowing red-orange that embers usually were. The sparks, though, were bright green.

Harry motioned to his sister to come and look. Hermione got up and came over. Her expression became quizzical as she gazed upon the hearth. As she approached, the embers turned to the same shade of green as the sparks they spat out. Very quickly, the heat expanded and—

Green flames erupted from the fireplace. They grew so large that Harry was about to dash and call the fire brigade. Harry and Hermione gaped in shock as a man's disembodied head poked out from the hearth. The flames haloed around him to make his visage more eerie and sinister than it already was. The flames reflected off the glasses on his face, obscuring his eyes and blocking whatever they might have been able to discern about his intentions. The man looked about the room with a scrutinizing wince, his gaze falling on Harry, then on Hermione.

"Hello!" it said in a cheerful way, to their surprise. "Is this the Granger House?"

Harry and Hermione could only stare dumbstruck in shock at the head surrounded in green flames, talking to them.

"Are you two all right?" the head asked them. "Is something wrong?"

Suddenly, Hermione let out a frightened scream at the sight of the head in the fireplace. Jean and Laurence dashed into the sitting room, panicked at their daughter's cry.

"Hermione, what on earth is the matter?" Jean asked, fraught with worry. She and Laurence caught sight of what their daughter saw and screamed in shock as well. He grabbed the poker and pointed it at the head like a fencer ready to spar.

"Who the hell are you?" shouted Laurence.

"You were expecting us," the head replied defensively. "My son, Ronald, he's friends with your children?"

"Your son?" Laurence asked.

"You're Mister Weasley?" Jean asked, utterly surprised.

"Yes, Arthur Weasley," the head confirmed. "How do you do? May I please come in?"

Laurence sheepishly brought the poker to his side and nodded, waving the man into his home, not knowing what else to do. The head disappeared and more green flames erupted from the fireplace. Out from the fireplace stepped a tall lanky man with receding red hair and horn-rimmed glasses. He was dressed in drab green robes that were covered in soot.

"I am so terribly sorry for the surprise," Mr Weasley said as he straightened up, brushing the soot off his robes. Mr Weasley extended his hand out to Laurence. Harry noticed that it appeared to be made of wood and wire, like one that artists might use for reference in paintings and drawings. "Ronald said this might be the best way to come over."

"We were hoping you would," Laurence said, finally taking Mr Weasley's hand. "We just didn't expect you to come in this way. What happened to your hand, if I might ask?"

"Oh, old war wound from back in the day. Boring story, really. Dear me, is that a lamp?" Arthur walked up to their floor lamp, entranced by it as if it were some rare antiquity from ancient history. "And does it run on eckeltricity?"

"Electricity, and yes, pretty much everything in our home runs on it," said Laurence.

"May I?" Arthur asked, almost as if he were worried he might break it.

"Of course?" Laurence replied.

Arthur turned the knob on the lamp and the bulb lit up. He turned it once more and it turned off. "Ingenious… Utterly ingenious…"

The flames in the fireplace erupted once more and out of the fireplace stepped a young boy, standing as tall as Arthur's shoulder and just as lanky, with hair just as red as Arthur's.

"Hello, Harry, Hermione," Ron Weasley said happily.

"Hi, Ron," they said, still shocked at what was happening.

"Apparently, you didn't tell them how I'd be giving them a hearth-call, Ronald," said Arthur, in a stern voice.

"I sent them a letter, Dad," said Ron in defense. "I swear!"

"Oh, it's not his fault," said Harry. "We've been having issues with our owl post. We've been wondering if you had got any of our letters."

"Oh, yeah, I have been," said Ron. "Got every single one. You seriously didn't get any of mine?"

"Not one," said Harry.

"Really?" said Arthur in disbelief. "Errol made us believe he'd delivered our letters properly. That poor owl, forgetting a lot in his years."

"Their owl took my last letter, Dad," Ron told his father. "She's as sharp as they come."

"That is odd," Arthur said to himself. To the Granger family, he said, "I have some friends whose specialty happens to be Owl Post. I can talk to them about your troubles, see what solutions they might have in mind."

"We'd be grateful for that," said Jean. "We don't want to have to go without getting letters from them for a whole year."

The fire flared up again, startling everyone backward to look at the fireplace.

"Arthur, did you get through to them?" Molly Weasley shouted, her head emerging from the flames. Seeing the Grangers, she said very happily, "Jean! Laurence! Hello! Glad we could get through to you!"

"So are we," Jean said in surprise. "How were you able to do this?"

"This is the Floo Network," Arthur explained. "Witches and wizards use it for quick local transport when a broomstick isn't fast enough or for communication when owl post might take too long. Come on through, Molly!"

Mrs Weasley pulled her head back and, after another flare-up of the flames in the fireplace, stepped through into the Granger sitting room. She brushed off the soot from her shoulders, straightened her front, and quickly took Jean into a hug.

"Can't tell you how swell it is to see you again!" Molly told her.

"Same here, Molly," Jean replied.

When they broke apart, Molly turned to Harry and took him into a gigantic hug as well. "Happy birthday, lad!"

"Thank you, Missus Weasley," said Harry.

"Hermione, how are you, dear?" said Molly as she took Hermione into her own great big hug.

"I'm well, Missus Weasley," said Hermione.

The fire flared up again. The head of Ron's older brother Percy hovered among the flames. "Mother, have you and Dad got through? Ah, hello, Harry. Happy Birthday!"

"Thanks, Percy," said Harry.

"Sorry I can't stick around today. I have loads of papers I need to write for the start of the new year, and I can't fall behind. I hope you understand."

"I understand," Harry said in sympathy. In truth though, Harry breathed a sigh of relief in his mind, as he remembered whenever he saw Percy at a party in Hogwarts, the word "killjoy" always came into his mind as well.

A voice from behind him turned Percy's head. "All right, I'll ask her," he said crossly over his shoulder, which must have still been in his house. "Mum, Ginny wants to know where her green jumper was last."

"I laid out an outfit for her," Molly said in exasperation. "Why won't she wear that?"

"Something about it clashing with her green jumper," Percy explained. "She's tearing up the house trying to find it."

"It's in the wash," said Molly. "She'll have to come over without it. Tell her."

Percy relayed the information back to his sister. The groan of an exasperated young girl resounded from the other end of the fire. "She's not happy," said Percy.

"She can live with it," said Molly. "Tell her, Fred, and George to come over here, on the double."

"Certainly," said Percy. "Harry, always a pleasure." He pulled his head back into the flames.

The flames rose again and a pair of burly, twin redheaded boys burst into the sitting room.

"For he's a jolly good fellow!" Fred & George Weasley sang as they began dancing around Harry, pulling him into their dance. "For he's a jolly good fellow! For he's a jolly good fe-hell-low! And so say all of us!"

"All right, that's enough!" cried Molly.

"And spin!" cried George. He sent Harry spinning into Fred.

"And dip!" Fred cried, as he took hold of Harry and brought him into a dip that Harry swore only a chiropractor would use. Fred brought Harry back up sharply, and shoved him toward the fireplace, right into Ginny, Ron and Fred & George's sister. The collision sent them both falling to the floor, Ginny landing on top of Harry. They looked into each other's eyes in surprise.

Harry stammered. "Er, hello."

"Hi," she said softly, getting up in a panic, before launching into a rapid apology, "I'm so sorry about running into you like that! I wasn't expecting anyone to be—"

"It's all right," said Harry, getting to his feet. "Your brothers have a penchant for making trouble when you least expect it."

"Always," Fred & George chorused in pride.

"That'll be enough of that," said Molly sternly, swatting her twin boys on the shoulders. "No more horseplay in the house. We're guests, so don't wreck the bloody place."

Mrs Weasley bent into the fire again and pulled something large and metal through the flames. It appeared to be an old washtub full of food and drinks for everyone.

"I'm sorry for imposing like this, Jean," Molly said. "But, I know my kids will eat you out of house and home, so I brought extra sandwiches and drinks for everyone."

"Oh, that's no problem at all," Jean told her. "Whatever we don't get through, we can divide for leftovers."

"Arthur, can you use the Floo powder to bring two of Harry's other friends over?" Laurence asked.

"Yeah, Neville and Susan should be trying to come over, too," Ron told his father.

Arthur brought out a handful of the Floo powder and threw it on the hearth. The green flames flared and the passage to the Weasley home disappeared. Only flames existed.

"Longbottom House!" Mr Weasley shouted. He stuck his head into the flames, leaving his body stopped over in front of the fireplace like some bizarre piece of modern art.

"Hello, Missus Longbottom," said Arthur. "I'm Arthur Weasley. I've been asked to help guide young Neville to Harry Potter's birthday party. You see, Harry Potter's guardians are Muggles and could only communicate via Owl post. So, I'm doing them the favour of opening a temporary Floo passage to their home just for the young man's birthday. Wonderful! I'll step out of the way, then!"

Arthur stepped out of the way, brushing the soot off his robes. The flames rose and out stepped Neville, their chubby, kind, and slightly bewildered friend.

"Hi, Harry, Hermione!" said Neville, as he came into the living room.

"Hi, Neville!" said Harry. "Long time, no see."

"Yeah," said Neville. "Why haven't you written me back?"

"We can explain later," said Hermione. "We should bring Susan over here, please."

"Ah, yes," said Arthur, grabbing another handful of Floo powder and tossing it into the hearth for one more trip and shouted, "Susan Bones!"

The flames flared in recognition of the name and he stuck his head back into the flames. Harry heard him say, "Yes, hello, my name is Arthur Weasley and—yes, I'm here to escort Susan to Harry Potter's—oh, dear me!"

Arthur bustled out of the flames just in time for a girl with a strawberry blond plait burst through the flames, carrying a package wrapped in red foil wrapping paper affixed with a gold ribbon. Susan ran up to Harry and gave him a great big hug. Stepping back, she slugged him in the shoulder.

"Why haven't you written me back at all?" she asked in a very indignant voice.

"It's a long story," Harry told her, "and I promise I'll explain later. Right now, I'm really glad you were able to come."

"Hermione, why don't you give everyone a tour about the house?" said Jean, noticing just how crowded a house could get when the Weasleys visited.

"Okay, Mum," Hermione said. She guided everyone out of the sitting room.

"Molly, would you help me in the kitchen?" Jean asked her friend. She asked her husband, "Laurence, why don't you show Arthur the garage?"

"All right, dear," Laurence replied. "Come on, Arthur. I'll show you around."

"Is the garage where you keep your 'tools of great power?'" Arthur asked.

"We just call them power tools," Laurence said as they left the main part of the house.

Mrs Weasley closed the Floo portal and followed Jean to the kitchen. Harry followed his sister and friends upstairs, where Hermione showed Susan and Ginny her room.

"You've got a lot of books!" Ginny said in fascination.

"C'mon, Harry!" said Ron. "Where's yours at?"

Harry quickly guided the boys to his room, where he opened the door and Harry led them inside.

"It's not much," said Harry, gesturing to the room which his family had repainted scarlet and gold for him since coming back from Hogwarts, "but this is my room."

"I think it's loads better than mine," said Ron, in fascination while he jumped onto the bed.

"Yeah, it's really cosy," said Neville, perusing Harry's books. "I didn't think so many Muggles wrote so many books."

"Yeah, we have all sorts of stories out there," said Harry.

Later, Susan, Ginny, and Hermione came into see Harry's room. Hedwig took an immediate liking to Susan and Ginny and began preening their hair. Hermione barred the boys from her room, which they saw had a Ravenclaw colour scheme of sky blue and bronze since she came back, to many protests, until they ushered the other kids back downstairs.

"Harry," his mother said to him as they came into the kitchen, "why don't you all go outside? You can play some football or something in the backyard."

"What's football?" asked Molly.

"I was going to show them the Mega Drive, Mum," Harry told her.

"On a nice day like this?" she asked in disbelief. "No, you and your friends should play outside."

"But, Mum!" Harry protested.

"But, nothing," she said, shutting him down almost at once. "You play outside for at least an hour, then you can play your games in here, okay? The ball is already out there."

"Fine, Mum," he grumbled. Harry led them all outside. He picked up the bright blue and white ball he and his father would use when they had the time to play. Hermione set up a goal on one side while he set up the other. Once that was done, Harry explained the most rudimentary rules he could so his friends could understand.

"So, there's just one ball?" asked Ron.

"And no brooms?" asked Fred.

"And you only use your feet?" asked George.

"And no Magic?" asked Susan in disbelief.

Ginny, however, looked at the ball, ran up to it, and gave it a mighty kick, sending it straight through the goal, bouncing off the fence and rolling back onto the lawn.

"Like that?" Ginny asked.

As soon as Harry picked up the ball again, he quickly said, "She's on my team."

Ginny blushed at what he said, but looked proud nonetheless.

About an hour later, Harry, Ginny, and Ron lost to Susan and the twins, four to three, while Hermione and Neville sat nearby as spectators. The Weasleys, while more fond of Quidditch, the Wizarding World's primary sport, than Muggle football, quickly became respectful of the sport. Fred & George even whispered amongst themselves how they could convince Oliver Wood to work some football strategies into the Gryffindor team's playbook.

"Kids!" Jean cried from the kitchen. "Come inside! Lunch is ready."

"You told your mum I don't like corned beef, right?" Ron asked Harry.

"I told her," Harry replied. Ron was off like a shot, hurtling toward the kitchen.

"What else from the Muggle World have you got to show us?" asked Susan, the ball nested under the crook of her arm. Despite how she initially regarded it, she found herself enjoying it quite a bit.

"I'll show you all after lunch," he told her.

Jean, with Molly's help, had set out a lunch spread of sandwiches, crisps, and fruit juices, along with Mrs Weasley's sandwiches and some pumpkin juice and butterbeer. Every Weasley, even Ginny, loaded their plates until no plate could be seen. Out of all of them, Ron was the most voracious with his food, practically eating one sandwich in one bite before going back for seconds.

Laurence and Arthur came in from the garage for some food. "How do they put all that eckeltricity into the battery, though?" Arthur asked Laurence.

"Electricity, Arthur," Laurence said, correcting him. "And it's a little complicated. Let me get something to draw it out for you."

Once they were all done with their meal, Harry led the other kids into the den, where he turned on the telly.

"Dad and I will watch football games when they're on," Harry told them. "When we don't watch those, I'll play games on this."

"With what?" asked Susan. "There's nothing here except the furniture."

"I play games on this," Harry said, pointing to the console.

"What is it?" asked Ron.

"This is a Mega Drive," said Harry.

"A Mega what?" said Ginny.

"A Mega Drive," Harry explained. "It's a video game system. See, the game loads into this slot here, and it's connected to the television with these wires. When I turn it and the television on, the game shows on the screen and I use this controller to move the character about."

"None of that made any sense to me," said Susan.

Harry turned on the console. The screen flared to life with the start screen and music of Sonic the Hedgehog.

"Why would you play games about a hedgehog?" asked Ron. "Aren't they supposed to be really, really small?"

"Just watch," Harry answered.

Soon, everyone was gathered around as they watched the little blue character dash across the screen, gathering up rings and fighting bosses. Everyone would shout out directions to the person who was actually playing, like pieces from a game of wizard's chess. Ron spent more time reclaiming rings he lost when he got hit than anything else. When Susan took her turn, she quickly showed that she was the best player among them. Her playing style sent Sonic across the screen faster than Ron going after anything that wasn't corned beef.

Harry got up to get a drink, asking others if they wanted anything. Ron asked for a pumpkin juice and another sandwich if there were any more left that weren't corned beef, but everyone else was focused on the game. As he got to the kitchen, Susan let out a triumphant cry as she just beat the current boss.

His mother had just set out his birthday cake. Jean had made him a three-tier cake of chocolate Genoise sponge covered in a rich vanilla bean buttercream frosting and decorated with sprinkles, bright red cherries, and candles. His mouth watered at the sight of it.

He looked outside at the patio as his mother and Mrs Weasley were discussing cooking and baking tips and how wizards and witches went about their everyday cooking, while his father and Mr Weasley were taking up with discussing cars and how they work, probably continuing the discussion they had coming in from the garage. Harry breathed a sigh of relief as he finally recalled how scared he was that his friends wouldn't make it for his birthday party.

Harry and Hermione did have friends outside of the Wizarding World, but they all were on holiday, either out of town or the country. Not to mention, they fell out of touch within the past year, and Harry didn't know how he could have reconciled the oddities of Magical life with the normalcies of Muggle life, especially for Muggle kids. And a birthday party without Ron, Susan, or Neville wouldn't have felt the same, not after what happened last year. They had truly become some of his best friends since then.

If they hadn't been able to make it, he wasn't sure he would want to return to Hogwarts. Childish as that might sound, it was the truth.

The sound of someone coming into the kitchen turned his head. Hermione had come to check on him, most likely.

"I didn't think that would enchant them as much as it did," Hermione said. "I think Susan's got farther in that game than you did."

"What?" Harry said in surprise. "She got past the Labyrinth Zone?!"

"Yeah! She never played it before." Turning somewhat serious, she asked, "Are you feeling better?"

"Loads," Harry told her. "I'm really glad that Ron's dad was able to get everybody here."

"Me too. Part of me questions whether it would be a good idea to have the Floo Network permanently connected. It would make things so much easier for us to get in touch with everyone."

"Dad wouldn't think so. If those Statutes got him worried about Magic in the house…"

"True," she said ruefully. "Why wouldn't they have got our letters, though?"

"I'm not sure, but that doesn't matter right now. We should enjoy ourselves while they're here."

"I think so, too," she said. "Are you coming back to play?"

"Yeah, in a little bit." He passed her a bottle of pumpkin juice and a sandwich (not corned beef), asking, "Will you bring that to Ron for me?"

"Yeah, of course." Hermione took the sandwich and pumpkin juice, then took another sandwich just in case one wouldn't be enough for Ron, and went back to join their friends.

Harry was going to go back to his thoughts, when he came upon the oddest sight. Odder to him than seeing all his friends filing out of a flame in his fireplace. Odder than seeing Diagon Alley and seeing everything that happened his last school year. Odd to him only because it was happening in a place where Magic didn't happen on a regular basis.

His birthday cake was floating away from the kitchen