Today was a day that The Boy Who Lived had generally assumed he would never live long enough to see. After all, he had always assumed that he would not long outlive Voldemort. In fact, he thought that by thinking this he was being unreasonably optimistic, as even Albus Dumbledore had assumed that he and Voldemort would have to die together. And so after he had become The Boy Who Lived Again, he had remarked the passing of year after year with a kind of distant amusement - how funny, he often thought, that, after years and years of living as if each day was his last, he was still around to have birthdays.

And now at last that fateful moment had arrived - Harry Potter felt old.

Yesterday had been his thirty-seventh birthday. Ginny and the children had marked the auspicious occasion with Muggle pizza and a cake with far too many candles. Little Lily insisted that she had counted them correctly despite the fact that (as Albus had gleefully pointed out) that there were only thirty-five - even at eight years-old, maths was clearly not her strongest suit. It had been a quiet family affair, filled with comfort and little joys. A perfect way to spend a birthday of no particular numerical significance.

Except that it hadn't been of no particular numerical significance, he reflected as he sat at his desk in his Ministry offices and stared rather moodily out at the summer rainstorm that was pelting the glazed windows. It had marked twenty years since his first birthday after defeating Voldemort - twenty years since he should have died. And that made him feel very old indeed.

To make matters worse, he increasingly had to reckon with the betrayal of his aging body. It seemed like only yesterday he had easily zipped around Wizarding Britain to fight dark wizards and fell creatures and then gone home for dinner with nary a singed hair on his body. But now that he'd been stuck behind the Head Auror's desk for over a decade, nostalgia had clouded his assessment of his own abilities. When a squad had been in need of an extra hand weeding out a coven of old harpies up in the Orkneys earlier in the week, Harry had jumped at the chance to get back out into the field. They had hardly landed on the island when they'd been set upon, and one of the witches had fired a nasty cutting curse his way. He'd evaded it, naturally, by falling off a cliff and landing in the ocean. He wasn't sure what had been more painful - the two cracked ribs or the blow to his ego. Both of them were definitely still bruised.

Ginny must have noticed something off with him this morning, as she had asked him if he was alright as he was on his way out the door. Looking back on the moment, he realized it was entirely typical of their relationship now. In the old days, Ginny would have pushed him until he admitted to being in pain, knowing full well that his childhood had taught him to lie about his own needs. But now she accepted his mumbled reassurance without question as she shuffled the children off to their grandparents so she could get to work at the training grounds.

All these maudlin thoughts made him welcome the distraction that Ron provided as he trotted, whistling, into Harry's office with more enthusiasm than his old friend found natural.

"So, the rumors were true, then?" Ron remarked as he clapped Harry on the back and took note of the latter's wince. "Gryffindor's greatest seeker of all time was felled by an old shrew?"

"Yes, but I'd better not see anything about it in the Quibbler," Harry grumbled.

Ron had, to the surprise of many, married Luna Lovegood about a year after he and Hermione had called it quits. (Which was about a month after the shock of nearly dying in battle wore off. Both of them later claimed the whole thing had been an adrenaline-fueled delusion and they were much better off as friends.) After kicking about in about a dozen different jobs, Ron had finally found success in revitalizing his father-in-law's notorious magazine. Thanks to Ron's instinctive grasp of public opinion and his surprisingly methodical mind (at least in matters of strategy), The Quibbler was now considered the premier source of wizarding news - much to the chagrin of The Prophet.

"Oh, you know I'd never do anything like that to you, Harry. Old Rita Skeeter, on the other hand…" Ron was abruptly interrupted by a wad of paper to the head. "Hey, it's not my fault The Prophet's circulation is down - oh, wait, yes, it is. In all seriousness, Harry, Luna sent me to check up on you. She says you haven't been yourself lately, and you know how Luna is always right about these things."

Indeed, Luna was always right about these things. It was infuriating, as no one in their extended group could keep anything private. They didn't even have to be in Luna's presence for her to ferret these things out - once, Hermione had twisted her ankle while trying to get on the subway in New York City, and within hours Luna had sent her a Howler (the kindest, softest, most guilt-inducing Howler ever written) telling her to be more careful. After twenty years, Harry was starting to believe that maybe wrackspurts might be real, after all.

"I'm fine, Ron. Just getting old."

"Yeah, aren't we all. Speaking of old, doesn't Albus start at Hogwarts this year?"

"Yes, Ginny is going to take him to get his robes next week. I thought Hermione was going to join them, since she missed James' first trip, but I haven't heard anything from her. It is the Department of Magical Creatures' busy season, though."

"Boy, you really are behind the times, Harry," laughed Ron. "The Ministry isn't keeping 'Mione busy - it's the Wizengamot. Didn't you hear? They're going to seat her by the end of the month. Youngest witch in history. But she has to resign her position at the Ministry to do it. Something about a conflict of interest."

Harry shook his head. Just when he thought Hermione's brilliance and ambition couldn't surprise him anymore, she would go and pull a stunt like this. "Merlin! No wonder we haven't heard from her. No, I hadn't heard, and I'm going to give her hell about it. But I guess we shouldn't wait on her to make plans. She'll be at the platform in September, at least - she never misses sending the kids off."

"That reminds me - someone else should be on the platform this year that no one has seen in a while. Word is that Malfoy's son will start at Hogwarts this year, too."

"Really? I thought the Malfoys were gone for good - the Manor's been boarded up for almost twenty years."

"And it was good riddance, too," Ron muttered. "Oh, don't give me grief, Harry. One good act at the very end doesn't make up for years of being a bloody tyrant."

Harry shook his head and laughed affectionately at his friend's defensiveness. Marrying Luna had done wonders for Ron's self-esteem and good nature, but when it came to former Slytherins Ron still couldn't see straight through his own prejudices. "We all did stupid things when we were children, Ron. Some of us still do stupid things."

"Yeah, but none of them included taking the Dark Mark. Or trying to kill Dumbledore. Or, you know, marrying a pompous pureblood princess like Astoria Greengrass. I mean, talk about stupidity!"

"Not sure Malfoy had much of a choice in any of those things," Harry pointed out with a grin. Malfoy's wedding had become infamous in the Wizarding World as the swan song of pureblood society - not only because the affair was so sparsely attended, but because the everyone in the photos had looked bored, grim, or bewildered. (And in Draco's case, all three at the same time.) "But you're right, it's going to be tough for the old ferret to show his face back in Britain."

"Knew you were still a Gryffindor at heart, mate." With a wave of his wand, Ron disposed of half a dozen candy wrappers that Harry hadn't even notice he had pilfered from the candy dish and shuffled all Harry's neat piles of papers into one massive mess. He darted out the door before Harry could retaliate, and as he listened to his friend's whistling fade down the hall, he reflected ruefully that perhaps growing old didn't always mean growing up.