Harry Potter and all characters, etc. belong to J.K. Rowling, not me.

Harry's New Boggart – Chapter 12 – Birthday Party

Harry arrived in the living room of Grimmauld Place with a small pop. He was about to start trashing the place when he heard Mad Eye's voice saying, "Harry? What are you doing here? You should be at the Burrow! We're having a meeting here."

Harry's face went even redder than it already was. "Were you busy at a meeting while Hermione's house was attacked?" He took a deep breath as his eyes got darker. "You can have your damn meeting in a few hours for all the good it will do!" shouted Harry. "For now, GET OUT OF MY HOUSE!" At that moment he distinctly heard several glasses break in the kitchen.

"Mr. Potter," said Minerva McGonagall.

"Ms. McGonagall," replied Harry, trying to stop himself from doing or saying something he'd regret. "Please clear everyone out of my house." Not waiting for an answer, he turned and stormed upstairs, but not before breaking every window on that floor with his magic. He heard the door opening, as well as pops of apparition and calls of locations obviously by those who traveled by floo.

He went into the master bedroom and started beating on the walls with his fists, ignoring the blood that was coming from his knuckles. This went on for about ten minutes until tears started welling up in his eyes as he screamed, "Sirius! I almost lost two more today! Why the bloody hell won't he leave me alone?" He banged his fists on a desk and sat on the floor crying. He took a deep breath. "I can't do it anymore."

"What can't you do?" came the voice of Ginny from outside the door.

"Ginny, why'd you…"

"You can't fight Voldemort anymore? You're gonna let him do this to everyone? You're gonna let him win?"

"You shouldn't be here, Gin. I need to be alone."

"So you can break your knuckles on the walls and wallow in self pity?"

He kept trying to change the topic. "How'd you know I was here?"

"Half the Order came to my house to find out if I'd died! They said you kicked them out and broke all the windows."

"It's MY house and MY windows," he argued, slightly chuckling at the thought of how deranged he must have appeared, "I can break them if I want."

"Just because the Death Eaters put that sign over Hermione's house doesn't make it your fault. They're the ones hurting people, and they're going to keep on hurting people until Tom is destroyed. If they hadn't attacked Hermione, they'd have simply attacked somewhere else."

"You were nearly killed!" Harry shouted. "You should have left!"

"Would you have left?" asked Ginny.

"No, but…"

"It's different with me? How? Why the hell have I been training if I'm supposed to run away whenever there's trouble?"

"I'm sorry," he muttered, "Hermione said you were brilliant. You only got hurt because they all ganged up on you once they realized who you were."

"The same way they'd have ganged up on you if you were there!" she shouted defiantly, "But that doesn't stop you from fighting, and it is not going to stop me! And don't even think about trying to pull off the same thing you did at Dumbledore's funeral unless you want to be running from bat bogies for the rest of your life!"

Harry chuckled at that thought.

Ginny continued, "Instead of having a tantrum here, you could be thankful that neither Hermione, her parents, or I were killed. Tom must really be scared of you to start attacking your friends' families."

Harry looked at her for the first time since she entered. "I don't know what I'd have done if you were killed."

"You'd have gone on and killed Voldemort, avenging my death as well as your parents' deaths." She sighed. "But that didn't happen. As it is, it's your birthday and we still haven't properly celebrated it. Come on back to the Burrow. There are a lot of scared Order members who just realized how powerful you are. They're not coming back here until they know you're calmed down." Harry nodded his head, and she reached out her hand to help him off the floor.

"Ouch," he yelled as their hands met. He pulled back his hand and examined his knuckles.

"I guess we have another chance to study our healing abilities," commented Ginny with a smirk.

A few minutes later, a fully healed Harry apparated to the Burrow with his arms around Ginny. Most of the people who'd been at that Order meeting were there, including Ms. McGonagall, who stepped up. "Are you sufficiently calmed down now, Mr. Potter?"

Harry looked embarrassed. "Er, yes. I'm sorry I was so, er, rude. You can have your meeting now." Ginny quietly slipped away during this discussion.

"Miss Granger told us about the message over her house. It would make anyone upset. For what it's worth, I do hope that the rest of your birthday is happy."

"Thanks."

"You're welcome."

Not long after the Order had left for Grimmauld Place, Mr. and Mrs. Granger came down the stairs. "Hello, Harry," Mr. Granger greeted, offering his hand.

Harry shook it. "Hello, Mr. Granger. I can't tell you how sorry I am about this attack. I'm…"

"Hermione said you'd try to blame yourself for it," interrupted Mrs. Granger. "You are trying to destroy the monster responsible for the attack!"

"Hermione also told us that you're the one who keeps saying that you can't waste days to relax because attacks like this are happening every day," added Mr. Granger. "That's why you sent Hermione and Ginny to our house, even though it's your birthday, and an important one in your world."

"I sent them to your house. I put them in danger. I…"

"If you hadn't sent me there, my parents would've been killed," yelled Hermione. "Stop blaming yourself! No one else does. Try to enjoy today!"

He took a deep breath and said, "All right, I get the point." He gave in, lifting his hands in surrender.

"Good," replied Hermione, as she waved her wand and the room went dark.

The door to the kitchen opened, and Ginny walked out, holding a cake with seventeen candles on it. Mr. and Mrs. Weasley were behind her, along with Ron and the twins. They immediately started singing, "Happy Birthday to You."

Ginny set the cake down on the dining room table. "Make a wish and blow out the candles." Harry silently wished that by this time next year Voldemort would be defeated and everyone in that room would still be alive. He blew out the candles, cheating with wandless magic to make sure they all went out.

"How'd you do that?" asked both Fred and George together.

"Do what?" asked Harry.

"Blow the candles out?" said Fred.

"They weren't supposed to go out," said George.

"Unless a spell was used on them," said Fred.

Harry's ears turned pink. "Er, well, maybe they weren't working."

"Okay, which one of you helped him?" asked George.

"Ginny," accused Fred, "I'll bet it was you."

"Okay guys, you caught me," she lied. "Can I have a piece of cake before I'm sent to Azkaban, though?" She winked at Harry, telling him that she was covering for his use of wandless magic.

After they ate the cake (Ginny naturally cut Harry the first piece, which Ron, ever hungry, complained about), Harry opened his presents. He mostly received useful books on defense from everyone, with the exception of the twins, who gave him a supply of their filibuster fireworks, and Ginny, who gave him a gold necklace with a small heart-shaped locket that had 'H & G' engraved on it. He opened it to see a tiny picture of himself on one side and Ginny on the other side. The pictures were winking and blowing kisses at each other.

Mrs. Weasley eventually interrupted the party by saying, "It's time for bed. Mr. and Mrs. Granger will be in Percy's (sniff) old room until better accommodations are arranged. Good night, and happy birthday, Harry."

Chapter end