Boy Who Lived Turns 10! Looking Back on a Decade of Freedom. 10 Years! See What Harry Potter's Up to Now! Geneva Protests: Caprice or Coup? (see page 15!)

Harry took one look at the papers from the post owl and groaned, burying his head in his hands.

"What's the matter?" Remus said, coming in a few moments later. He looked awake for usual this morning; the potions were having a good effect on him.

Harry pushed the papers toward him and he laughed.

"You're Lily's kid, alright," Remus said. "James would've been thrilled to be a kid sensation."

"It's all Loki, anyways," Harry said, getting up to open one of the cupboards. The waffles, still steaming softly, had a smiley face and a 10 drawn on in chocolate chips, and he grinned, taking them down. "It's not me they want really."

"That's a healthy way to look at it," Remus agreed. He nabbed one of the waffles off the pile. "Though I do think some are interested - kids who look up to you, or adults who think of you as the start of a more peaceful time, for us at least."

"Well they shouldn't," Harry grumbled, and Remus ruffled his hair.

"Finish your breakfast; I think Moody'll be in soon."

Harry nodded and dug in quick; Moody had been coming over every few days to work on the wards around the cottage, and he could be… distracting.

Remus moved quickly in and out of the bedroom, getting his stuff in order for work. He'd gotten a promotion recently to a more specialized research unit; something to do with Abraxans.

"-should back in time for the party," he was saying as Harry took his dishes to the sink. "Around three. Loki said he'd-"

A sharp knock sounded at the door and Remus stiffened, raising his wand.

"What's the password?" he said.

"Lingonberry jam," a gruff voice said. "And mine?"

"Marsupial Skrewt Mobiliarbus Cribbage," Remus said, rolling his eyes.

Moody lowered his wand and came in, strange blue eye rotating all about. He was holding a big box under his arm, and he walked about the cottage, apparently examining the wards.

"Excellent, excellent," he said.

He moved into the room as Remus let himself out the door, waving Harry goodbye.

Moody walked over to the table.

"Congratulations on making it to ten."

"Thanks," Harry said awkwardly. The auror sounded like he meant it.

"Brought you a cake," Moody said, holding out the box.

Harry took it uncertainly, putting it on the dining room table. He opened the box, surprised to see that there was in fact a nice buttercream cake inside, frosted with the words "Happy Birthday Harry." He wondered if Moody had made it or if it had come from a bakery - it looked pretty professional.

"Well, th-"

The cake exploded.

"CONSTANT VIGILANCE!" Moody said happily, as Harry ducked under a chair just in time to narrowly miss the shower of icing.

When it was over Harry rose, looking at the cake all over the kitchen. His eyes narrowed.

Moody coughed.

"Good job on that," he said. "Not perfect; you shouldn't have opened the box, but good reflexes."

A piece of cake landed in Harry's hair. He crossed his arms.

"I did bring another cake, if you wanted…" Moody suggested a moment later.

"...I'm okay."

A few minutes later, Loki walked into a gleaming kitchen. Moody and Harry had sat down to birthday cake in the end; the Auror had persuaded him by taking a piece himself, and was regaling him with somewhat gruesome stories of all the people who'd been killed in the war by cursed packages.

"Now the McKinnons; that was a subtle curse. You wouldn't have known it-"

"Is that birthday cake?" Loki said, looking amused.

"Do you want some?" Harry asked, standing up quickly. The cake was actually quite good, but between the stories and watching Moody clean all that cake off the walls, he'd rather lost his appetite.

"Too much to do," Loki said airily, levitating the rest to the cabinet. He turned to Moody. "How are the wards?"

"A work in progress," Moody said, looking grumpy. Harry didn't understand the details, but he'd heard Moody call Loki's wards "the work of a deranged genius with a toolbox full of forks," and Loki refer to Moody's work as "ghastly runic cargo-culting," but it seemed like they were working together on something. No one would be attacking the cottage or the school anytime soon, that much was certain.

"Many happy returns," Loki said, as Harry got up. "Ready?"

Harry sighed. "Yeah."

The other thing was that Harry couldn't be at the cottage when Moody was working. That, combined with the fact that Loki was still receiving death threats with alarming regularity, meant one thing.

The cottage dissolved, replaced by the white walk to Malfoy Manor.

"Worst birthday," Harry said, staring up at the cold white mansion.

"I know you hate them, but you can't deny their convenience," Loki said.

"Are you sure I can't go to the Ministry?" Harry offered, watching an albino peacock strut across the finely clipped lawn.

"Too hard to ward," Loki said. "What with so many untrustworthy people already underfoot. And I'm busy with the-"

"Wizengamot, I know," Harry said rolling his eyes. He'd have thought after an election there'd be a bit of a break, but Loki was working harder than ever to get some laws passed about the military.

"It's a big enough house - just find yourself a book or something and ignore them," Loki suggested.

"If I could, I would," Harry said grumpily.

If one couldn't run around outside, the Malfoy library wasn't a terrible place to spend a day. Harry had received enough paperbacks, tomes, and textbooks over his past birthdays and Christmases to have inherited at least a healthy respect for reading, if not the same love that his guardians seemed to possess. An afternoon in the library wasn't the worst thing he could think of to do, especially in the Malfoy library, which was packed to the brim with arcane and interesting magic tomes, not to mention books on Quidditch.

Dobby (who Harry was growing quite fond of) had let them in without telling Draco, so Harry found a niche and curled up with Quidditch Moves that Won Matches. (He didn't have a broom — it was much too extravagant — but that didn't stop him from obsessing over the details and picturing how he would accomplish them). He had stacked the next contenders into a pile by his alcove and was just settling into what would hopefully be a pleasantly Malfoy-free morning when he heard footsteps in the library.

"-go outside. It's not like they're going to come after me," a young voice was saying indignantly.

"No, Master, you mustn't," Dobby was saying, trailing behind.

Harry got up, hackles rising.

"I know, I know," he said. "I don't know what all the fuss is about, anyways. Father is practically the most important person in the Ministry, and he doesn't have to hide indoors all day."

He quietly folded up the book he was holding and tiptoed around the corner, looking for another shelf as the younger Malfoy's voice approached.

"Lord Malfoy-"

"Is a fully qualified wizard; I know."

There was a muffled thump, like a bookshelf had been kicked. Then he heard Malfoy's voice just around the corner.

"What are these books doing out? Potions Catastrophes and Why You Ought to Do Your Research?" A book fell to the floor with a thud, and Harry heard Dobby scurrying around putting things back.

"Quidditch Through the Ages? That's mine," Malfoy sounded rather scandalized now, and Harry kept creeping forward, looking for a way out, but he'd stumbled into a dead end. Dobby's light footsteps were getting further and further away, but there was a soft padding noise that indicated that Draco was almost at his corner. Harry'd seen Loki turn selectively invisible before when an annoying dignitary came down the hallway at the ministry- perhaps… if he tried…

The footsteps were meandering closer.

Come on, Harry thought furiously. Accidental magic!

Draco turned the corner.

Accidental magic powers utterly failed to manifest.

"Potter?" he said incredulously. "What're you doing here?"

"Reading," Harry said, jerking a thumb in the direction of the books around him.

"Don't act obtuse, Potter; why are you here?" Draco said.

Harry shrugged.

"Assassination attempt, same as you," he said.

"Can't that servant man keep an eye on you?" Draco said. "The one at the speech?"

"He's working," Harry ground out, annoyed. "And he's not a servant." How on earth did Remus manage to stay so calm in these confrontations?

Draco smirked.

"So you had nowhere else to go."

"Looks like it," Harry said, making to walk past him. "Look, I'm going to go upstairs."

Draco stepped out of the side, gesturing exaggeratedly in the direction of the door.

"Potter," he said, just before Harry disappeared back into the stacks.

"Yeah?" Harry said.

"That's my book."

Harry turned around, handed him the book, and walked out.

Feeling rather irritated, he walked down the hallways slowly, throwing doors open as he went. There were a lot of grand dining halls and polished marble busts - Harry found himself face to face with a haughty statue that could've only been the elder Malfoy's father - snobbish paintings, and sweeping staircases.

There were a lot of bedrooms too, ones in silver and black, green, gray, and even a dark red guestroom. Draco's room was easy to spot - it was enormous, with a great four-poster bed and green and silver hangings, a bookshelf with (Harry was delighted to find) a ragged teddy bear on top, and several fancy and expensive toys (including, to his envy, a top-of-the-line broomstick), all neatly placed on stands or in corners. There were also numerous books in cases, which made Harry wonder why Malfoy had bothered going to the library in the first place. He shut the door behind him and continued.

Further down, halfway down another wing, he encountered a cold-looking study with a desk and a bookcase. The desk was very fine mahogany, and clear of all papers, though it had one very small photograph of Narcissa, Lucius, and Draco. Across from the desk was a picture of an old man with a snake in his lap, who appeared to be nodding off.

The thought occurred to him that he really shouldn't be here, followed by the realization that he didn't really care. He looked up and down the books on the shelves, most of them with rather dry-sounding titles. He pulled out a thin-looking one with just an empty spine. There was something strange about it - a glimmer of something dark, but familiar, like he'd seen it before, a sense that reminded Harry, oddly, of Loki.

It was a little black book, unmarked on the cover. A journal or diary, perhaps. The inside cover confirmed this, with the words Diary of T.M. Riddle in thin writing. Odd. Harry had been expecting Narcissa Malfoy or even Draco Malfoy. (He'd seen Lucius a few times and couldn't imagine the man ever having something like a diary).

He wondered what it was doing in Lucius's office. If it was a present or something, it was rather overdue. It looked ancient.

He flipped through it, disappointed to find it completely blank, and turned to look at the other books.

Nature's Nobility, The Dominance of Wizard, Pureblood Grace…

"All those booksss," a voice said behind him, and Harry nearly dropped what he was holding. "Sso dusssty. Why not ssample a nice moussssse inssstead?"

Harry looked around wildly, trying to identify the speaker.

"Up here, hatchling," the voice said, and he found himself looking back into the painting. The old Malfoy ancestor was still snoozing, but the snake was uncoiling in his arms, looking out at him.

"Hello," Harry said uncertainly.

"A Sspeaker," the snake said, flicking its tongue in a satisfied-sounding way. "Haven't had one of thossse in this housse in a while."

Harry wasn't sure what that meant, except perhaps that the talking snake in the picture seemed to think he was a Malfoy.

"Sorry for disturbing you," he said. "I was just, er, getting out of the hall."

"Not at all," the snake said. "You remind me of the other one. Are you his, hm, ssson?"

"I don't know who you're talking about," Harry said.

The snake twitched its tail, curling around the old man's painted neck. "Luciusss's massster. He usssed to, mm, come from time to time. Tell me, did he sssucceed?"

"Succeed at what?" Harry asked, tensing. Was that a creak on the stairs?

"He wanted to wrap hissss way around the world," the snake said, while Harry crept closer to the door. He paused.

"You mean Voldemort," Harry said, with a sudden, horrified realization. He knew that Lucius had served the Dark Lord before he was born until Loki had turned him good, but it didn't seem to come up all too often.

The snake's tongue flickered in and out. "Mm, perhapssss," he said.

"Er," Harry said quietly, increasingly sure that what he was hearing were footsteps.

"He wasss a good, hm, human," the snake said, sounding admiring. "Allmossst a ssnake himsself…"

"I think someone's coming. I'd better go."

"Yesss," the snake said thoughtfully. "There are footstepssss in the hall."

Harry opened the door and turned quickly, taking a few purposeful steps to the end of the hall and nearly running into Draco Malfoy.

"Ahhh-"

"Watch where you're going!" Draco said. well noticed He sneered. "I thought glasses were supposed to make your vision better, Potter."

"What's your excuse then?" Harry said.

Draco sniffed. "This is my house." He paused. "What are you holding?"

Harry glanced down and almost groaned. In his haste to escape, he'd forgotten to put back the books.

"Here," he said, spilling them into a surprised Draco's arms. "I forgot I was carrying them."

"You stole them by accident?" Draco said, sounding scandalized. "Does your godfather know you're a kleptomaniac?"

"I'm not a kleptomaniac," Harry said hotly.

"Whatever, Potter," Draco said, turning to go.

"Wait," Harry said.

Draco turned back around, raising his eyebrows.

"Have you heard of someone being able to talk to snakes?" he asked tentatively.

"Parseltongue?" Draco said, "Of course I do. Why?"

"Nothing," Harry said. "It's fine."

"Wait," Draco said. "I told you I knew, didn't I, H- Potter? Talking to snakes is a magical gift."

"Really?" Harry said.

Draco seemed weirdly… enthusiastic.

"It was seen in only the most powerful and ancient bloodlines," he said. "The wizards and witches who had it were incredible."

"Like who?" Harry asked, skeptically.

Draco counted on his fingers.

"Lady Bloodborne, Herpo the Foul, Morath, the Dark Lord…"

"Sounds like a great lot," Harry said.

"Yes, Potter - you don't understand. Herpo the Foul invented the disarming spell," Draco said. "And Lady Bloodborne created modern magical healing."

"They sound like Dark Lords," Harry said skeptically.

"You sound like a muggleborn," Draco shot back. "What do you think your godfather is, Potter?"

"Loki is nothing like Voldemort," Harry growled.

"Why do you care, anyways?" Draco said scornfully. "I wouldn't expect you to appreciate it anyways. The only people who can be parselmouths are descendants of Slytherin, and my father said your parents were in Gryffindor, and halfbloods beside."

"You're right," Harry said. "I don't care. I should've known if it was something you liked it would be about a bunch of evil pureblood gits."

Draco opened his mouth to say something, then whirled and walked away without a word.

Harry walked downstairs, annoyed and vaguely worried. He went to the wide French windows, debated going out to the lawn, and, deciding he'd already transgressed enough for the day, made a beeline for the library.

He glanced at the titles on the shelf. Tales of Beedle the Bard, Charming Catastrophes, there was even a whole set of The Adventures of Henry Brewer, a series Harry couldn't look at without wincing.

He picked up another Quidditch book instead, but ended up doubling back around the aisles, looking for something about Parseltongue. These books were thicker and denser, with phrases like The ontology of Bloodborne's proposal was untested, non-determined, and perhaps even indeterminable in the sphere of wizarding doctrine preceding, and it remains contentious how many muggle lives were ever sacrificed in the service of her medical discoveries. While historical critics fulminate about deaths in the tens of thousands, in all likelihood the numbers were as few as fifty, or possibly even fewer (see D. Maxime, Noble Sacrifices, 63)...

The impression Harry was getting was not good. He rested his head in his hands.

Harry was still regretting his life choices an hour later when Loki came to pick him up, bearing ice cream cones.

"How did it go?" Harry asked as they walked down the sunlit drive.

"Excellent," Loki said. "Several key decisions were reached."

"If you say so," Harry said. He held the ice cream cone between his fingers, cool enough to chill his hands. "What about the assassins?"

"In the plan," Loki said. "There needs to be a crackdown b- soon."

"That's good."

"Hm," Loki said.

The evening sun was dappled on the Malfoys' shaded drive.

"I'm a parselmouth," Harry said abruptly.

"Are you really?" Loki said, licking the melting ice cream off his cone. "How eccentric."

They walked down the gravel path, squinting into the bright sun. The clouds were pillowy white in the summer evening sky.

"Do you think it means I'm going to turn evil?" Harry asked, looking up at his godfather.

"Hardly," Loki said. "It's not like you can speak Mongoose, or French."

"Mm, okay," Harry said, taking a bite of ice cream. It was good.

When they got back to the cottage, lights floated around the yard. A couple of tables had been produced, and there was a glowing chocolate cake on top with Remus's lettering. The werewolf sat, holding the hand of a taller man who stared out into the sky. Harry squinted.

"The nurses thought it was okay for him to come out for a bit," Remus said. "I thought it might be nice."

Harry grinned, taking his seat next to his two godfathers.

"At long last," Remus said with a wry smile. "Happy birthday, Harry."