The decorations hanging about the walls and across the entry ways of number 12 Grimmauld Place were magnificent. A birthday banned declaring "Sweet Sixteen" hung over the kitchen, scarlet and gold streamers flowed along the perimeter of a room that, previously, was as dark and cold as a dungeon. The fireplace crackled with the portraits of all of Sirius's long dead relatives, finally unstuck from the wall. The kitchen table had been set up in the middle of the room with a variety of magical and muggle refreshments. Music permeated the room, adding to the noise of the guests.
All the Weasleys, nearly everyone from the Order, Hermione, and a few choice students (who's memories would have to be modified later), had come to celebrate the sixteenth birthday of their friend and savior, the-boy-who-lived, Harry Potter. The only problem was he was no where to be found.
Well not entirely, Harry knew exactly where he was, Hell. Or at least the closest he's ever come to Hell on Earth. Up on the top level of the house, in the room where Buckbeak usually slept, Harry sat in a corner looking at the photo of his parents wedding. Lily and James waved from either side of a laughing, handsome man Harry had once regarded as a mixture of both brother and father. So it was only fitting, Harry thought, that he was dead like the rest of his family. Come to think of it they all had three things in common, one they had all loved Harry as a son, two they were all dead, and three they had all died because of him. It seemed a disturbingly dark equation to Harry: Love + Harry Death. He really ought to warn the others, he thought viciously, they were in terrible danger.
Staring into the face of his recently deceased godfather tears treacherously ran down his face. Harry blinked and looked up at the ceiling in an effort to force the tears back where they came from. He stared hard at the drab, grey walls, not really seeing the walls. Instead he saw the laughing face of a man surprised by death; instead he saw the heavily lidded eyes of a woman he had come look upon with more hatred than Voldemort.
Harry looked around the depressing room, noticing the oddly clean rectangles of wall where portraits used to hang, wondering why Sirius never took the time to have his portrait painted. He certainly had an overabundance of time in the past year, being cooped up with Kreacher all day. Come to think of it why didn't anybody bother to get painted, at least then he would have been able to talk to them after they'd left him.
Harry wiped his eyes on the sleeve of the Weasley jumper he was wearing and stood up; they would be cutting the cake soon and would notice if he wasn't there. He dusted off his clothes and made for the door. Just as he reached out for the door handle someone on the other side opened it and smacked him in the face with the door.
"Aahh! What the hell!" He shouted at the unknown intruder. He held his hand over the throbbing pain in head and glanced at who his attacker was.
"Oh, sorry Harry, didn't see you there." Hermione apologized. "What are you doing up here all by yourself? You do realize that, as the party is for you, you ought to be down there?" Hermione asked sarcastically.
"I just came up here for some fresh air," Harry lied lamely.
Hermione glanced around the musty, dusty, dirty room with an appraising look on her face, "Well I can see why you came up here then. Really, so much fresh air, I think I'm getting lightheaded." She grabbed his wrist and pulled him out of the room and toward the stairs, "Come on, everyone's waiting for you to cut the cake"
Against his will Harry was dragged down to the party. When Harry arrived at the entrance to the kitchen he found all the lights turned out.
"Incendio" a whispered spell and suddenly sixteen candles shone brightly atop a giant, triple layer, double chocolate fudge cake. Vivid green writing scrawled across the cake proclaimed Harry's sixteenth birthday. All at once people began to sing in tuneless voices.
"Harry, make a wish" the voice echoed inside his head. Make a wish Harry. What was the point, the only things he ever wanted were impossible. He wanted Sirius back, he wanted to follow him through the veil and bring him back. And so that was what he wished for. On Harry's sixteenth birthday he wished for death and blew out all the candles. The room went black, enveloped by nothingness, and Harry fooled himself for a moment by thinking his wish had come true.