Thanks to bandgsecurtiyaw for the 2 reviews. There will follow a couple of chapters in quick succession, since they're rather short and light on action. Here is Chapter 3, Chapter 4 will follow soon.
Ronald Weasley sat on the front steps of The Burrow. He had a copy of Quidditch Through the Ages in his hands and was going through the pages. Every now and then he looked up for signs of the black Cadillac his father had purchased just last month. Mrs. Weasley had been furious, but Mr. Weasley claimed it was confiscated evidence from an old ministry case and that he was able to persuade the ministry to sell it to him for a song. Harry should be getting here any time now along with Mad-Eye Moody, Tonks, and of course Dawn.
Ron hoped Harry was in a good mood. He hadn't been able to talk to him all summer and if Hermione was right about Hedwig, then there was no way of knowing what Harry was feeling. He knew Harry had taken Sirius' death quite hard, not that Ron blamed him, and Ron knew he tended to bottle his feelings inside. Dawn was a little better. She would confide in Ginny and Hermione, and talk about her feelings. Must be a girl thing.
Ron looked up from his book for what seemed like the hundredth time and saw the old black Cadillac pulling up the drive. He smiled and waved before dropping his book and going over to greet them.
"Hi, Harry," Ron yelled.
"Hey Ron!" Harry said back.
"Hello, Ron," said Dawn while she avoided looking him in the eye. "Good summer?"
"Not too bad," Ron replied. "Ginny's upstairs in her room. Go on up and see her."
"Oh… Thanks. Bye, Ron." Dawn quickly made her way to the front door, dragging her trunk behind.
"She's still got a crush on you," joked Harry. "She says she's over it, but she's not. Not fully, anyway."
"Bloody girls," was the only response Harry got.
Moody chose this moment to interrupt. "Your mother inside, Ronald?"
"Yes, sir."
"I'd like to speak with her."
"Go right on in. She's in the kitchen." Ron Weasley motioned the Auror to the door. Moody limped off to the front door and Tonks followed, giving the boys a wave.
"Well let's get your stuff upstairs, then." Ron said to Harry as he picked up Hedwig's cage. "Where's Hedwig?"
"Oh, I'm not sure. London, I think."
"Remus is in charge of the Headquarters. He'll make sure she finds us." Ron took a deep breath and asked Harry the thing he had resolved to. "How are you holding up… y'know after all that… that happened… a couple months ago…"
"I'm fine. You can tell Hermione you asked." Ron's face began heating up as Harry hit too close to the mark. "I'm fine. Is Hermione here?"
Ron was relieved Harry didn't want to talk about Sirius. Harry was upset about it, sure, but this wasn't Ron's area of expertise. "Actually, no. She's staying with her parents this summer. Said she felt bad she never sees them. We won't see her until we get on the train."
"Oh, maybe we can convince her to meet at Diagon Alley at least?"
"Maybe," Ron said and shrugged and helped Harry heave his trunk up the stairs and into the house. They got all of Harry's things upstairs and into Ron's room before two hyper teenage girls came running by. Flitting through the hall giggling and squealing, the two young girls ran into Ron's room and started harassing their older brothers.
"C'mon," started Dawn, pulling Harry's arm. "Let's go play a game of Quidditch before dinner." Harry grinned and grabbed his Firebolt and the four of them ran off to the paddock laughing as they went.
The four of them flew for a couple of hours. As was usual they couldn't use real Quidditch balls, in case they escaped, so they took turns standing at the sidelines throwing things in the air to catch. They practiced Quidditch plays Ron had studied over the summer. Harry chided him for reading on his vacation, but Ron said it wasn't reading it was strategy. Harry laughed and called Ron something under his breath that sounded suspiciously like "Hermione."
Fred and George showed up while they were playing and charmed one of the balls to fly, but to stay within range. Dawn sat out after that, not being as big a Quidditch fan as the others. She preferred racing. She had Harry's love of flying and speed, but couldn't get herself worked up over quaffles and bludgers and snitches. Pretty soon Molly called them all in to dinner.
Harry gasped as he entered the house. The Burrow was the fullest Harry had ever seen it. All the Weasleys were there, save Percy, and Bill had brought along Fleur. Moody and Tonks were still around and had been joined by other members of the order. Remus Lupin, Kingsley Shacklebolt, and even Mundungus Fletcher, although Harry noted Molly kept her eye on him. All of them began singing the Happy Birthday song as Harry walked in (Fred and George adding the obligatory "You belong in a zoo" verse), and when they finished Harry was swallowed up in a large hug. He extricated himself with some difficulty and thanked them for the welcome before making his way toward the table for dinner.
"Molly, you've outdone yourself this time," said Lupin. "These scalloped potatoes are excellent."
"Yes, truly," added Kingsley. Mrs. Weasley blushed in response as everyone sat down to eat.
Harry sat across from Dawn and Ginny, Ron was on his left and Remus on his right, and was politely participating in the conversation.
"So, when did you get your Firebolt back," asked Remus.
"Just after term ended," replied Harry. "Dumbledore gave it to me when he lifted my Quidditch ban. He said 'the punishment must fit the crime.' It's a Muggle expression," he continued when he saw the confused looks from some of the wizards.
Conversation continued along these lines until everybody had finished eating. Harry chuckled when Ron took seconds and thirds of everything.
"What!" Ron demanded. Harry feigned innocence and laughed when Ginny caught his eye. He was really enjoying this. Twenty four hours ago he wouldn't have believed it if he had been told he'd be at a huge birthday party for himself. Harry listened to the various conversations for a while and not hearing anything he wanted to get in on he turned his attention back to Remus.
"How have you been, Lupin?"
"Okay, Harry." Remus seemed to ponder something for a moment and then continued. "There's actually something I want to talk to you about, but I don't think this is the best time."
Harry felt his heart beat louder in his chest. What horrible thing was he going to find out about this year? His throat dried up, but he managed to speak. "What's it about?"
Remus pulled him away from the table, motioning Harry to follow. Harry was struck by how haggard Remus looked. His hair seemed to have become more gray and the bags under his eyes were accentuated by his serious look.
"Well, you know that you and Dawn are Sirius' heirs, right?"
Harry felt even further constriction in his chest. He hadn't thought about that. "No, I didn't." His voice betrayed the pain he felt when he thought of Sirius. "What about you? Can't you take it?" Harry didn't need anything and the last thing he wanted was to be constantly reminded of his godfather.
"Well, yes actually, he did leave me some things." Remus started, "More than he should have actually, but his house and his Gringott's vault are to go to you and your sister."
"Oh." was all that Harry managed to say. They didn't need the gold, and he didn't want the Black House. It held nothing but painful memories for him, and he knew Sirius hadn't liked it, either. He was sure Dawn felt the same way. Remus looked at him sympathetically before continuing.
"There's just a few legal things that need to be taken care of, but we don't need to talk about it now. I'm sorry, I shouldn't have brought it up." Remus led Harry by the shoulder. "Come on, enjoy the rest of your party."
But Harry didn't feel like celebrating anymore. His happiness had melted away with the talk of Sirius. Harry wandered from group to group, but didn't feel much like mingling. He made his way outside and sat quietly on the front stairs.
Harry looked up at the stars. It wasn't a clear night, but there was enough of a break in the clouds to see some of them. He tried to find the Dog Star. The one Sirius was named after, but he didn't know his astronomy well, so gave up after a few tries. It felt strangely fitting that he couldn't find it. Like he was looking for something that didn't exist. Harry turned as he heard the front door open.
"Hey." Dawn had come to find him. "What's up?"
"Nothing," Harry replied. He didn't want to burden Dawn with this right now. She was his little sister and Harry felt the need to protect her from this, too.
"I don't believe you." Dawn countered. "What's on your mind? And you have to tell me because you know I won't stop pestering you until you do."
Harry resigned himself to his fate and said simply, "Sirius."
"Oh." replied Dawn, apparently no more articulate than Harry at times. She knew he was hurting, but she didn't know what to say, or how to make him better. She missed Sirius, too, but Harry seemed to be having a harder time with it. "Well, they want you to open the presents soon. We should go in."
Harry nodded and followed his sister through the front door. Mrs. Weasley had set out a beautiful cake and was the first to notice Dawn come back with Harry.
"He's here everybody," she said and the room got quieter. "Come on, Harry, you're the guest of honor." She grabbed him and set him in front of the cake while Arthur took a few pictures. He blew out his sixteen candles and followed the tradition of cutting the first slice. Dawn, who had set next to him, took up the knife and doled out the rest of the cake faithfully while turning Harry to his presents.
Harry opened his presents dutifully. He first showed everyone Dawn's gift, which garnered much praise and attention. He opened Hermione's next. It was a rather large box which contained another homework planner, two books on Dark Arts and one book on Quidditch. Ron snatched that one out of his hands and started going over the various plays. Mrs. Weasley had made some of her mouthwatering peanut-butter fudge. Harry sampled a bite and was delighted to find she had mixed Fizzing Whizzbees into the batch which gave his tongue a tickling sensation as they dissolved. Dawn eyed the tin jealously until Harry offered her a piece. He didn't expect there would be much left after Dawn was through. Mr. Weasley had found some Muggle things he gave to Harry, although Harry suspected Mr. Weasley wanted to play with them himself. He promised to show Mr. Weasley how to work such things as a flashlight, a retractable ballpoint pen, and a laser pointer after the party. Bill and Fleur had got Harry a wonderful new outfit. There was a pair of black pants in his size, much better than the baggy blue jeans that were hand-me-downs from Dudley, and a couple of different button-down shirts. One was green and matched his eyes, while the other changed color to suit his mood. Harry thanked them, hoping the color blue matched whatever else he owned.
The next present Harry took was a small box that Ron said was from Charlie in Romania. Harry opened it and saw the largest ring he had ever seen in his life. It was made of sterling silver, with a large blue turquoise on the left, a red coral on the right and what looked like a real dragon tooth in between. Ron told him it was an old tooth from the same Hungarian Horntail Harry had gone up against in the Triwizard tournament. Harry slid the ring over his left middle finger and was happy to see it was charmed to fit any finger he chose to wear it on. Dawn asked if she could see it up close and Harry slipped the ring off and handed it to her.
Ron started telling Harry about the magical features Charlie had added to the ring. "Charlie charmed it so that it will fit any finger you want it to. It won't come off unless you take it off, and you're the only one who can wear it."
Harry looked impressed and looked back to the ring. Dawn had it on her ring finger. "Guess that spell doesn't work so well," he said to Ron. Ron looked at the ring strangely and said something about Charlie's shoddy spell work before turning back to Harry. Dawn passed the ring to Ginny.
Harry was opening his gift from Kingsley (a Dark Arts Defense Kit that was like those issued to Aurors) when he heard Ginny cry out in pain. Ron jumped up, knocking Dawn over in the process, and ran to protect his sister, when he saw she was staring at her finger and was holding the dragon tooth ring in the other hand.
"It burned me!" Ginny gasped in surprise. Harry looked closer, and sure enough there was a band of reddened skin where the ring had set. It looked like it was starting to blister. Mrs. Weasley ran off to get an ointment and Ron gaped at Ginny's blistering red skin.
"Huh. That's weird," he said. He stopped staring at Ginny's finger only when Dawn Potter blocked his way. "Oh, sorry, Dawnie. I didn't mean to knock you over." He received nothing but a cool, angry glare in return.
Harry leaned over to Ron, and in a whisper loud enough for everyone to hear said "I think she's officially over you, mate." Ron looked incredulous at Harry's bravado and Harry earned himself a punch in the arm courtesy of Dawn. Ron backed away from her at that, not wanting to get caught in one himself. Mrs. Weasley returned and rubbed the salve onto Ginny's burned finger. The blisters disappeared immediately and she seemed to be much more comfortable. With that over Harry turned to the rest of his presents and the rest of the night went by swiftly. After the party wound down and people began to leave Harry excused himself and got ready for bed. Ron joined him after a little bit and Harry fell asleep quickly, too exhausted to be woken by any dreams.