Harry and Tom stood at the door, greeting each guest as they arrived with smiles and "adorable" handshakes, (In the words of Sirius, who was trying very hard not to squeal). Many commented on the matching outfits, and with every mention of the near identical attire, Harry found himself grinning less and less.
But it was nice to see so many familiar faces, members from the order had been flitting around the manor for the past few years, but none of them had ever really been introduced to the children, clearly James and Lily had decided they were old enough to broaden their horizons. Which accounted for the large amount of children that turned up at their door step, some of which Harry recognized from Hogwarts.
These were Hannah Abbot, Susan Bones, Cedric Diggory, and Terry Boot. Oh, and Neville of course, but that was a given. Most of the order Harry recognized showed up as well, Mad Eye Moody giving them both a one over with his eye, and grunting a short "Happy Birthday" under his breath, and Kingsley Shacklebolt rushing after him, shooting an apologetic look at Lily, who was supervising.
It was thrilling to 'meet' each order member. Then Snape arrived. Lily had given him a welcoming smile as she greeted him, and then surprisingly, James walked over to him, and shook his hand.
"Thanks for coming." James said, giving him a meaningful look. Even Snape himself looked surprised. Was this what would have happened in Harry's time? If James had lived, could he and Snape have made up? Lily looked near to tears, with a smile on her face as she walked over to the two, beginning a conversation, she had clearly been wanting to have for years.
This was a very heart-warming moment, but then Harry saw them. He'd know them anywhere. Those freckles, the ginger hair, the admittedly scruffy clothes. It was the Weasleys, walking in a chaotic precession, conversing with each other passionately, Harry could see the twins laughing with Percy about something stupid he'd said, he could see a spotty teenager Bill, with rebelliously long hair just past his shoulders, he could see Charlie looking down, sniggering over some unseen thing, he saw Mr. Weasley attempting to carry a fidgeting, excited-looking Ginny, and finally, he could see a tiny Ronald Weasley, his best friend, holding his mother's hand, being trailed along sullenly.
Harry could hardly stop his eyes from watering slightly, he had missed his friend so much in the past few years, and he currently had the emotional strength of a four-year-old, so even not crying should have been a larger achievement. Luckily no-one was watching, and he quickly wiped the moisture away.
"Hello there dear, my name is Molly, your mother invited us along, could we please just come through?" She asked, after a few seconds of Harry standing motionless, realising that ten pairs of eyes were currently trained on him, he pulled his most genuine grin, and it came easily.
"Yes Mrs- Molly" He said, catching himself before he fell back onto his old habit.
"Oh, just Molly will do, dear" She smiled at him, "this is my son, Ron, that's Charlie, that's Bill over there, those two are Fred and George, next to Percy, and this is my daughter Ginny." She introduced them, gesturing at each mentioned child.
"Hello Molly, my name is Tom, and this is-"
"Harry, my name is Harry." Harry interrupted, he'd be damned if Tom started introducing the both of them like that.
"Well it's lovely to meet you boys, I'm just going to find your mum and dad." Mrs. Weasley smiled as she walked through the large arching doorway, joining the conversation between the hosts. As she walked through, the eldest two Weasley boys walked over to a corner near the food table, likely to escape the many young children that were running around, playing with enchanted, indestructible balloons. Ginny was released to join the moving chaos of girls and boys, while Arthur struck up a chat with Shacklebolt and Moody, who looked to be having a hushed argument until Arthur joined them.
This left four ginger boys grinning down at Harry. Well, no, it left three grinning, taller boys, and one short, sullen looking Ron.
"So who's birthday is it then?" Asked one of the twins, looking between Tom and Harry. Before Tom could open his mouth, Harry answered "Both, we're twins" as he tried to keep a straight face. It was very difficult to hide a grimace at the word "Twins".
"Cool, so are we! But you probably guessed that!" Exclaimed the other one, who Harry could have sworn was Fred. "It'd be difficult not to," he pressed on, "Even though I am better looking!" he smiled smugly at George.
"Not this again." Moaned the gangly-looking Percy, "Please just shut up, or I'll shave the both of you. Again." As weird of an insult as it was, the twins looked at each other in some sort of fear before running off, apparently to talk to Cedric Diggory. Percy quickly followed them over, seeing a chance to talk to someone closer to his own age that wasn't related to him.
"Hi." Harry said dumbly to the sulking Ron. "How are you?" Harry inwardly cringed, Ron clearly didn't want to be here, and he really wasn't good at small talk, usually people just talked at him until they left, he almost never had to try very hard. It felt unnatural to be speaking to Ron as anything less than a brother.
"Fine." Came the short reply. Wow, What was going on? Before he could voice his thoughts, however, Tom, who he had forgotten was there, spoke up.
"What's wrong, didn't you want to come?" He asked politely, there was no hurt in his eyes, just curiosity. That look reminded Harry of the Voldemort he once knew.
"No." Came another short response. Harry thought about all the times him and Ron had been properly fighting, (Which only happened twice to be fair) and tried a different tactic.
"Would you like some food? We have all sorts, like Chicken drumsticks, and sandwiches, and later there'll be cake too." Harry tried, immediately Ron's face lit up, as he walked towards the food table, Harry and Tom in tow, yes, Ron's love of food was an eternal thing that would never change, and while he was still young it could be used to easily cheer him up. Tom looked at Harry in wonder, amazed at how easily Harry had turned the boy's mood around.
Watching Ron pile food onto his paper plate, Harry tried to strike up a conversation, careful to try to not remind the young boy of his previous bad mood.
"My favourite is the treacle tart, what's yours?" He asked politely, trying to hold back any emotions of frustration that threatened to surface, he knew he couldn't be angry at Ron for being so aggressive, but it hurt him slightly.
"I love the chicken drumsticks, it's my favourite, but my brothers always steal my food, or they'll ask for the drumsticks. I'm the youngest, except for Ginny, but she doesn't count, so I get whatever's left." He ended with a sulky voice.
"Well you can have as much as you want here, no-one will take it from you, promise." Harry whispered conspiratorially, "I'll make sure." Harry shot Ron a cheeky grin, that delighted the ginger boy.
"I'm Ron," He stuck a pudgy hand out to take Harry's, " will you be my friend?"
"Yes, definitely!" Harry said, vibrating with excitement. Tom watched on in curiosity, slightly too far away to have heard the whispering.
"Will you be my friend too?" Tom asked in an odd voice. He didn't sound particularly rejected, in fact he didn't appear to like Ron at all, which was rather odd.
"Uh, ok." Came Ron's reluctant but still happy reply. Apparently the prospect of having a new friend that would protect his food outweighed the downside allowing another friend into the circle. It was clear to Harry from his voice that he didn't really want to be Tom's friend, but he was doing it to be polite, or his mother had told him to make plenty of friends. This was apparently clear to Tom as well, though he didn't say so.
The rest of the party was spent with Harry and Tom meeting and making friends with most of the other children at the party, it was very tedious for Harry, who was technically 21 at this point, but he got through it only with the comradery of Ron, munching away the whole time. He did want to give everyone a chance, since his circle had been rather limited at school, but Harry hadn't grown up with that many friends, he could manage a few, but he'd probably be useless at ten or more people generally.
At the end of the party, Molly had seemed thrilled that the youngest Weasley boy had made not one, but two friends, "He's been having difficulty socializing you know, " she had whispered to Lily, "I'm really pleased he got on so well with your boys, especially young Harry, he seems completely charmed with him." At which point Harry had received a pleased look from Lily, which Harry very artfully pretended to not notice, still listening to Ron babble at him.
"I was worried about Harry socializing as well, he's, well, mature." She tried to explain, "Anyway I'll, uh, see you at the next order meeting?" She looked incredibly nervous now, maybe she realised Harry was listening, and didn't want to damage his self-esteem? Probably.
After the room was totally empty, Tom turned to Harry, "That was fun, wasn't it?" he questioned.
"Yes it was." Harry was still in state of giddy euphoria from spending time with his best friend, and wasn't really registering what Tom was saying.
"What did you think of Ron?" Tom asked him, suspicion leaking into his voice.
"I really liked him," Replied Harry, sobering up as he realised the serious tone of the other boy, this seemed important to him. "Why? Didn't you? You wanted to be his friend too."
"Yes, I liked him too." It was a very obvious lie, but Harry didn't have time to question it before Sirius swooped in and lifted Harry under his armpits, James mirroring the action on Tom.
"Now, boys, It's only three o'clock, so you still have a few hours before bed, which means…. More Quidditch!" Sirius announced theatrically, walking towards the Garden, James following, before Lily and Remus could stop him.
They went to bed that night exhausted, grinning, and clutching trinkets and books, dragons sitting in tiny cat beds on bedside tables. The dragons must have been a huge compromise between Lily and James over whether they could get a pet or not.
"Harry?" Came a small tired whisper.
"Yes?"
"I had a really good day today. Happy Birthday, Harry."
"Happy Birthday. Tom."
It was 4 months later that Harry found himself faking reading. Turned out, when it came to books Remus was just as excitable as Sirius. Every time Harry slowly spelled a word out phonetically, and got it right, Harry could swear he heard a small, stifled, dog-like squeal. Harry tried really hard to pretend it was difficult, but he knew he had picked up on it too quickly, the usual time taken learning to read was about 6 – 15 months. Harry already had a bit of a reputation for being a child prodigy, so he just had to stretch it out for another month or so.
Tom was struggling to keep up with Harry, but was still making leaps and bounds beyond other children, every time he was shown up by Harry he was supposedly inspired to try harder the next time. It was slightly surprising that Voldemort was letting Harry show him up, but then again it was more realistic for a toddler, Voldemort was clearly just better at pretending.
Since the birthday party Harry had been trying to be more polite with Tom, but every time he was actively nice it left him with a dirty feeling, like greasy skin. He basically still just tolerated him, and Tom had noticed, but still made the most of it by grabbing Harry's hand at every opportunity. He knew he should have nipped that in the bud. He'd stop it if it got out of control, but it may be difficult, Lily had been encouraging it, she found it very cute, and seemed to be pleased that they were getting on so well.
On the plus side, quidditch had been wonderful, he was flying, and because of his moment of stupidity 4 months ago, he was free to fly as he wanted, without pretending, without limits, (Well except the 15 meters one on the broom). He was so happy that he had let that slip through the grate.
Harry was really starting to get tired of sharing a room with Tom, he had started speaking to Harry late at night, when all Harry wanted to do was to sleep. He talked about things he liked and things he didn't, and his day, and told terrible, atrocious, awful stories. He had made very pointed remarks about it around his parents, but they just seemed to laugh it off, telling Tom not to stay up so late. Harry was trying to work up the courage to ask his parents for his own bedroom. He might even be able to decorate it himself, ok, no, he might get to pick the colour of the wallpaper, but still! The pastel blue in his current room was a bit garish to be honest,(Oh god, he was emulating Percy,) he'd prefer a navy colour, red, or something less bright.
He wasn't going to ask for a while, his parents probably wouldn't take it well, and then he'd have to deal with all sorts of emotional sharing, which sounded like perfect torture. Besides, Tom would be upset, and Harry really didn't want to have to deal with that. Actually, Tom had been acting strange lately, the first incident had been about a week ago.
Harry had finished getting dressed, and started wandering down the stairs to breakfast. Tom hadn't been there when Harry had woken up, so he assumed he had just gone down without him. That was odd, usually he woke Harry up the moment he was out of bed, he hoped he hadn't overslept, in the past he'd used an old fashioned alarm clock, or one of his dorm mates would wake him up. Before that he was woken up by aunt Petunia banging on his cupboard door, or dust falling onto his bed from the heavy steps of his uncle or cousin.
He had entered the full kitchen to see two pairs of eyes falling on him, and one faced down.
"Oh good, you're awake, I was just about to come up." Lily smiled, putting a bowl of Cheerios on the table. Tom was sitting at the table already, "Where the wild things are" open on his lap, as he absently scooped cornflakes into his mouth, taking a few seconds before chewing. He was completely entranced. He mouthed the words ever so slightly once he'd finished his mouthful, picking up the second spoonful, letting it hang in the air. Finally he glanced at Harry, as he sat on the chair opposite him.
"Oh, morning Harry," he blushed, "Sorry I didn't wake you up." He snapped the book shut and started shoveling cornflakes at a rate Ron himself would be proud of, before grabbing the book and running upstairs, presumably to get dressed. James noticed his puzzled look, and leaned over his paper,
"I think Tom wanted to practice his reading." He explained in a whispering tone. "Don't mention it to him though, It might upset him." After a nod, James ruffled his hair and returned to his paper.
Something similar had happened a few days after, when Harry had come down to breakfast to no Tom at all, he had searched for him, and found him outside on his broom, practicing going quite fast. He wasn't the best at it, but he was decent at sharp turns.
It seemed Tom was on a mission of improvement, and over the next month Tom had been out of bed before Harry, reading or flying, and keeping Harry up all night babbling about the usual things. In the meantime, Harry had been taking the advantage of the lack of a shadow constantly following him, and had been sneaking into the library. The first time he had seen the two story room, he had felt a little bit sick. He was sure Hermione would have murdered Harry if she knew he owned all of these books without sharing them, even if he didn't know.
It was certainly no Hogwarts library, but it was very large, and Harry could swear that there were plenty of muggle books jammed in here and there. Luckily for him, it was not a regularly used room. In fact, everything was covered in a thick layer of dust, and whenever Harry went in there he was sure to scuttle to his room to change before anyone caught him.
At the moment, all research meant was finding any books on the subject, which was proving very difficult, since the books seemed to be organised in no particular order.
Well. At least he had started searching for a way home.