It is our choices that show what we truly are.
Disclaimers – They're not necessary. If I owned Harry Potter, I wouldn't be posting this on FF.N.
Chapter Four
Sweet and SourThey walked out of the Leaky Cauldron, now garbed in "Muggle clothing." Mr. Weasley was terribly excited about his jeans. "Look, Molly, they're blue! And you can't put a hole in them with ANYTHING!" He promptly tripped over a curb and proved himself wrong. "It's amazing how well Muggles have got along without – " Mrs. Weasley had clamped a hand over his mouth.
"Where to, Harry dear?" Mrs. Weasley acted more like his mother than anyone he'd ever met.
"Lunch!" chimed Harry, and several people who weren't Harry.
Though they were dressed as Muggles, the jovial group still drew a lot of attention. For one thing, six of them had flaming red hair. For another, they kept staring at things like stoplights and revolving doors. Also, they were very loud and laughed quite a lot, or so it seemed to the jaded policemen and drill-company directors.
They wound up at a Chinese buffet, eating princess chicken and fried rice and egg rolls. The nine of them ate so much that the owner of the restaurant began walking around looking worried and dropping hints that they might close early. Finally they had eaten all they could and left.
Hermione and Ron and Harry and Ginny skipped down the sidewalk singing "Happy Birthday," with Draco hanging behind them looking embarrassed. George and Fred ran around them in circles. Mrs. Weasley tagged along, pleading, "Come on, Arthur, we'll lose them. Stay away from that… kids! Slow down! Where do you think you're going anyway?"
Harry hadn't even thought of that. He hadn't had fun in the Muggle world in so long he didn't know what there was to do. He tried to remember what Dudley had always done on his birthday. He thought of Dudley going with Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia to adventure parks, to hamburger restaurants, to the movies, and once to the zoo. Harry had gone with them on that occasion. The day at the zoo had been just before Harry found out he was a wizard, and the experience had been rather tarnished by his magic-prejudiced family blaming him for setting a snake free. He had done it, but not on purpose – it really hadn't been fair.
Harry thought wildly, but everything that flashed through his head had nothing to do with celebrating birthdays. Finally he turned to Fred and George, who always had something to say about everything. "Any ideas?" Harry asked.
They still looked stunned by all the fantastically tall brick and shiny metal buildings surrounding them.
Harry laughed and turned to Hermione. "Hey, Hermione, you've seen this already. Have you got any good ideas?"
She pointed at an advertisement on the side of a passing bus. "What about that amusement park?"
Everyone seemed to think this was a fantastic idea, so they flagged down a couple of taxis, somehow crammed everyone in (though how they did it with so much space left over, the drivers didn't seem to know), and headed for Seven Banners London.
At the gate of the park, Harry and Hermione sorted out the Muggle money that Mr. Weasley had obtained at Gringotts and paid for them all to get in. The attendants stamped their hands with red smiley faces. The nine filed through the turnstiles into the park.
They all promised Mrs. Weasley they would meet back at the entrance to the park at six o'clock ("sounds like time for supper anyway"), and then they were free to wander – or rather, argue about which way to wander. Fred and George immediately set off to who-knew-where (nobody was brave enough to ask what they were going to do). Mr. Weasley dragged his wife off to the games to try to win a goldfish. Ron wanted to ditch his little sister and Draco, but he didn't want to leave Ginny alone with him, so the five remaining were left to figure out what to do.
Hermione was the only one who had ever been to an amusement park before. "Whatever you do, don't leave without riding a roller coaster!" she advised. Ginny looked nervous, but Ron and Harry looked eagerly above their heads. "That one's called the Steel Dragon," Hermione told them.
"Whoa…" Ron seemed impressed.
Draco was trying to seem nonchalant, but he really wanted to get on the huge Steel Dragon looming above him. "Come on," he said decisively, grabbing Ginny in one hand and a cone of cotton candy in the other. The vendor, fortunately, wasn't looking. The trio followed them to the long line.
"I wish we were allowed to use magic here," Harry whispered to Ron, looking at the head of the line far, far away. With the sticky cotton candy to occupy them, though, the time passed quickly and soon they were climbing onto the platform, and then into the hot metal cars. The attendant looked uneasily at Ginny, who seemed not to be looking forward to the ride, and even less so when she saw the meager restraints. She got in, though, mostly because Draco had hold of her hand again and was dragging her on. She was starting to really not appreciate him, on a personal level. Being a self-righteous spoiled brat was one thing, but making people ride on big metal death-traps was another entirely. Draco was nearly bouncing out of his seat with excitement, and Ron and Harry were trying not to tremble.
"Come on, Harry, you've beated You-Know-Who how many times, and you're afraid of this?" he muttered to himself.
Hermione was distracted by her amusement at the others' reactions. "Get ready, it's going to start moving," she warned them. Ginny gave a slight squeal and wondered if she could make them stop and let her off.
The cars mounted the first hill with a lot of clacking metally noises, and then the world dropped out from underneath and the whole lot of them screamed. Draco thought he was going to die, and Ginny suddenly was having a lot of fun. Harry and Ron and Hermione whooped and shouted and they all held their hands up to the sky.
Another hill, a corkscrew, a hill, a loop, three big hills and a tunnel, then there was a smaller hill to slow the train down and it lurched to a stop on the platform again.
The five of them stumbled off and down the steps to the main boardwalk.
"Let's do it again!" sang Ginny.
"I think… later," Draco groaned, but he was grinning.
"Look, everybody, Draco's happy and nobody's even been injured or insulted!" murmured Ron to Hermione and Harry.
Draco had apparently heard as well. He turned around, started to say something rude, then thought better of it and stalked off ahead of them.
Harry watched him walk away, feeling something too much like pity to be connected to Draco. Nevertheless, he turned to his friend and said, "Ron, maybe you should cut him some slack. You know already that there's something more going on with him than we suspected, something weird."
Ron's reaction was rather like Draco's. Finally, he said, "What, you're on his side now? After all the times he's made fun of you, of me, of Hermione?" Harry tried to respond, but Ron barged on, "Fine, you're the birthday boy," and clamped his mouth shut sulkily. He turned away from Harry and stared up at the Steel Dragon.
Harry shook his head speechlessly and looked to Hermione. She was biting her lip in confusion, not knowing how to fix this either. Ginny went to her brother and tried to bring him to reason.
Harry sunk onto a bench, feeling like this was his worst birthday ever. Worse even than the birthday when Aunt Marge came to visit! His archnemesis was living in the same room as he was and his best friend wasn't speaking to him. What was next, dementors invading the park?
"Look, Ron," said Harry suddenly, "I just don't want to fight on my birthday. That's all. Can we just all pretend to get along, at least?"
Ron turned to Harry, his eyes looking unusually damp. "Pretending? That's all you were doing?"
"Yes… no… I just, I just don't want to deal with everybody hating each other today. Just pretend he's Percy or something, can you? Ignore him. You know how hard it is to have fun when Draco's mad and glaring at you around corners all the time."
Ron rubbed his eyes. "I guess. For your birthday. Tomorrow, I hate him again, right?" He paused. "Where did he go, anyway?"
"I don't know where he is." Harry tried to force himself to want to find Draco, reminding himself that Draco hadn't tried to curse him in months.
Hermione looked nervous. "Should we go find him?"
Ron didn't think that sounded like fun. "C'mon, Hermione, it's not like he's going to get attacked if we're not with him. It's a theme park!"
"Still, he hasn't got a watch. He can't go off by himself the whole time, he won't know when to meet us up. And more than that, I am worried about leaving Draco Malfoy to run around by himself in a place crowded with Muggles."
"She's got a point," agreed Harry.
"Come on, Ron," said Ginny plaintively. "You don't want him to go around turning other people into ferrets, do you?"
"All right," he said, rolling his eyes. "Where d'you expect he'd be?"
Ginny pointed down the walkway. "He went off somewhere that way."
The four set off toward the centre of the park, pushing past wound-up children and frazzled parents. There was no sign of Draco anywhere.
"Maybe he's on a ride," suggested Hermione.
Harry's eyes searched frantically over all the rides. "What looks like something Draco would be on?" he asked. They conferred.
A merry-go-round… he wouldn't be caught dead on it. A haunted house, too cheesy – unless he was trying to scare kids in there. A couple of little roller coasters; too small scale. Draco liked to do things big and flashy. There were heaps of games but they didn't think Draco had any Muggle money, and they knew he wasn't stupid enough to try to spend wizard money there. A kiddie area, filled with cartoon characters – no. Just no way.
"Well, what else is around here? All the big roller coasters are on the other side. Do you think he looped around?" asked Hermione, kicking at the pavement nervously.
Suddenly, they heard a familiar voice. Draco's derisive snicker drifted over to them from a crowd of people by a patch of trimmed trees. Looking worriedly at each other, they hurried over to see whether he was giving them away.
"You call that magic?" Draco queried of a short, offended-looking man dressed in cheap blue robes, obviously a Muggle. Clutched close to his chest, the man had a white pigeon, which fluttered nervously as Draco confidently held his hand out to it.
SNAP! The pigeon quite unexpectedly turned into a white-furred ferret. The crowd gasped and clapped appreciatively, thinking this was part of the show. The Muggle showsman seemed very confused, and mumbled something about his employers changing the routine without notifying him. Draco bowed, smirking.
"What does he think he's doing?" Hermione said. "What an idiot." Ron shook his head in bewilderment.
Harry's attention was drawn to a young woman in the crowd. She was the only person not expressing surprise at the trick – in fact, she looked rather annoyed. She had her hand twisted up in her long, curly black hair, and her dark eyes gazed piercingly at Draco. The glare was oddly familiar. Harry realised after a minute that it was the same waiting look Snape gave Gryffindors on the rare occasions when he couldn't yet figure out what to blame them for.
"Oh no," muttered Ron, "I knew something like this was going to happen." He wanted to go yell at Draco, but he figured that if Draco got called on it by the Ministry, it was better to not be involved.
Hermione pushed through the still applauding crowd, eliciting several rude comments, and stalked to Draco. "Turn it back," she hissed into his ear.
Draco shrugged and turned back to the ferret. Holding his arm out again, he muttered something no one could hear. The ferret returned to its original pigeonic state, albeit a bit more confused.
Hermione grabbed hold of Draco's sleeve, frowning. She dragged him away from the crowd, who were still cheering, and to an empty bench. Harry, Ginny, and a very annoyed-looking Ron gathered around.
Draco said, "Hey, that's mine!" as Hermione pulled his wand out of his sleeve and stuffed it into her pocket.
"No more magic here," she said. "You can have it back later."
"Come on," he entreated, "didn't you see their faces? That was good."
"That was illegal," said Ron, "and I certainly hope you get expelled for it."
Draco frowned. "I was just having a little fun."
"Please, Draco, no more fun. I mean, fun, but not fun that gets us jailed on my birthday. Let's just ride roller coasters or something."
He seemed to perk up at that. "Yeah! I wanna ride that tall one," he said, taking charge. He seemed to regard them as substitute Crabbes and Goyles.
The rest of the day went smoothly, although they had to take turns kicking Draco in the shins for bossing them around and he ended up fairly bruised. They were all very happy when they met up at the front of the park at six o'clock.
The Weasley parents had six fish and several stuffed animals. Fred and George were dirty and, judging from the way they were keeping watch, had gotten on the wrong side of at least on security guard. Ron and Harry and Draco were tired from walking so much, and Hermione and Ginny had been giggling over something they wouldn't tell about for the last hour.
The party moved out of the park and back to the Leaky Cauldron, where they had a feast so decadent that not even Ginny could resist, despite all the cotton candy she'd eaten and her persistent complaints that she felt quite ill from the sugar. Then, feeling sleepy, they all went back to the Burrow.
"I think I'm going to bed soon," yawned Harry. It was only eight o'clock but he was about to fall over.
"Oh no you don't!" said Fred.
"We've got something for you to do first," added George, holding up a bulging bag.
Harry looked intrigued.
They all gathered around the table to watch Harry open his birthday gifts. They included, among other things, lots and lots of candy – Bertie Botts' Every Flavor Beans, Pepper Imps, Chocolate Frogs, and some toffees from Fred and George which looked quite suspcious. He set those aside and made a mental note to get Neville to try them first.
At last, Harry, surrounded by wrapping paper and wearing a huge grin, thanked everyone and started piling his arms with bags of candy, his new Gobstones set, broomstick-care supplies, and books on Quidditch and "interesting creatures" (Hagrid still seemed to hope that Harry would take after him). His godfather Sirius had sent him an new embroidered invisibility cloak from India, where he had been while hiding out from the Ministry of Magic.
Harry was just about to start climbing the stairs with all his birthday presents when Draco spoke behind him.
"You forgot one," he drawled, pulling something out of his pocket.
Sixteen eyes turned to him in surprise. Why had Draco gotten Harry a birthday present? Everybody knew he didn't like him.
"Well, take it, Potter!" he snapped, not entirely unkindly.
Harry dumped his armful of gifts on the table, and slowly took Draco's package. All eyes were on the two as Harry unwrapped the box, and pulled out…
An action figure.
Of himself.
Harry looked confused. Draco smirked at him. "Potter, Potter. You need to learn the importance of knowing your own popularity. I'll bet you didn't even know there were action figures of you."
No one else seemed to have been aware, either. Ginny giggled, and took the enchanted figure away to play with it. It struggled briefly and then took to trying to climb her braided hair.
Harry and Ron both shook their heads in bewilderment. George and Fred were doubled over with laughter. Mr. and Mrs. Weasley seemed slightly embarrassed, and Draco snickered at the miniature Harry, who was sitting on Ginny's shoulder, looking sleepy.
The miniature Harry yawned, and the real Harry yawned in response. That started a chain that set everyone thinking about bed.
Harry smiled uncertainly and thanked Draco, and they all headed upstairs.
Each one was asleep the second their head hit the pillow.
