Harry's Horrible Birthday

Written for the Happy Birthday, Harry Potter challenge

This story was also written for, and is dedicated to, AlexSnape-36. Have a great birthday, Kaila.

Harry was used to having horrible birthdays. It had been like that for as far back as he could remember. He got lucky one year, when his aunt and uncle were kind enough to give him a pair of Vernon's old socks for a gift. How thoughtful. Now if he ever needed a way to attract flies, he could just hang the stinking socks in the window and watch the bugs come swarming in. At least it would be a form of entertainment, he supposed. Because life with his aunt and uncle was unimaginably dull.

He hoped that, once he started going to Hogwarts, things would change and life would get better. And for the most part it did. But it also brought with it a new series of challenges and experiences, as well as new friends who wanted to celebrate his birthday with him.

Today was Harry's eighteenth birthday, and he decided that, after being away from school for over a year since the war had ended, he'd come back to visit his old friends and see how they were doing now that the school had been rebuilt and life had gone back to normal.

The younger students he'd befriended during his time at Hogwarts were still here, and they flocked to his side, hailing him as a hero and welcoming him back with open arms. He received many well wishes on his birthday, and even a few spur of the moment gifts his friends were able to magically whip up at the last second so they had something to give him.

It was nice, and he smiled and thanked them for their gifts and well wishes. But the gift that really took him by surprise was the birthday card he'd received in the mail today from his cousin Dudley. He hadn't seen or heard from him since before the war had ended, and needless to say he was more than a little surprised when he saw the card from his cousin arrive in the mail, wishing him a happy birthday and hoping all was well.

He brought the card with him as he snuck off the bathrooms, wanting to escape from all the noise and attention for a while. It was nice having so many friends welcome him back, but the attention and praise was a bit much, and Harry needed to get away for just a couple minutes before rejoining the throng outside.

He ducked into the bathrooms haunted by Moaning Myrtle, knowing full well that no one would want to follow him into her haunted domain. And there she was, still just the same as she was all those years ago when he first met her, floating above the toilet and moaning about something as usual.

She stopped moaning and whining the minute he walked in, looking up to see who had entered her bathroom. A smile spread across her face when she saw who it was. She'd always had a crush on him, loving him and watching him from afar as she peeked her head out of various faucets and toilets to spy on him during his time at Hogwarts.

Harry sat down on the toilet next to Myrtle, her smile growing wider as he began a conversation with her.

"Oh, so it's your birthday, is it?" she said, glancing at the card in his hand. "I wouldn't know what those are like, seeing as how I haven't had one in so long I can't remember."

"Yeah, it's from my cousin Dudley," Harry explained. "I wasn't expecting anything like this. I haven't heard from him in well over a year."

"That's nice," Myrtle said, sounding rather detached and uninterested. "Who else has sent you cards and presents for your birthday?"

"Ginny," Harry said, his face lighting up the instant he mentioned her name.

Myrtle saw the look on his face and frowned. She was jealous of this girl she'd seen him hanging out with during his school days. Oh, the things she'd seen while spying on him! Ron probably wouldn't be happy if he knew that famous Harry Potter had shagged his sister in the bathroom.

"She's brilliant," Harry continued. "She invited me over to her place this morning, just the two of us so we could be alone. And when I got there, there was a cake, and she was completely naked with frosting all over her - "

Moaning Myrtle let out an earsplitting screech, cutting Harry off in mid-sentence as she dove into one of the nearby toilets. Seconds later, a hand shot out of the toilet, and the next thing Harry knew he was being sucked down the toilet by Moaning Myrtle as she rocketed off through the pipes.

"You should have been with me!" she howled, hauling him along behind her. "Me, Harry Potter, not her! What can she offer you anyway? Can she show you the world in a toilet like I can? We could travel the world together, seeing places like Paris and Rome, and never have to leave the bathroom."

This wasn't exactly how Harry planned on spending his birthday, getting sucked down a toilet by a jealous ghost who had a crush on him. They came up in the lake, with Harry sporting bits of soggy toilet paper and algae that stuck to his hair and clothes.

Moaning Myrtle put her arms around him and grinned. She ignored the wet scraps of toilet paper hanging from his glasses and kissed him. It was the worst sensation he ever felt, the cold freezing his lips and sucking the breath from his lungs like a dementor.

Just when he thought things couldn't get away worse, Harry felt a slimy arm wrap around his waist, lifting him out of the water and up into the air where he came face to face with the giant squid.

Harry screamed and tried to free himself from the clutches of this overgrown piece of calamari, but it appeared as though she had a crush on him too, and was now wrapping her tentacles around him in a loving embrace while Moaning Myrtle looked on in horror.

Myrtle started fighting over Harry with the giant squid, which drew a crowd of students to the edge of the lake as they came to see what was going on. There were excited shouts coming from the shore, and in the midst of everything going on Harry could have sworn he heard someone call out, "Look! It's that girl from the toilet! She's fighting the giant squid over Harry Potter!"

The giant squid clung to her beloved Harry Potter while Myrtle screamed and cussed, summoning wave after wave from the lake and sending it crashing down on the squid. Apparently Myrtle still had some magic left in her, and when her attack didn't force the squid to drop her darling Potter, she unleashed her wrath upon the gaint squid by summoning the contents of every toilet in the school.

Harry looked up, his hair dripping wet as he spluttered and gasped, and saw a massive tidal wave looming overhead.

"Give him to me!" Myrtle screeched. "I said hand him over now!"

Harry had never seen her like this before. Her pale eyes were blazing with ghastly green flames, a silver aura shimmering around her lifeless body as she hovered several feet above the surface of the lake.

When the giant squid refused to hand over the Chosen One, Myrtle let loose with her tidal wave of filth from the toilets in Hogwarts' bathrooms. It was the last thing Harry saw before the wave struck him with such force that he was knocked from the grip of the giant squid and washed ashore like a piece of driftwood.

Meanwhile, Scabior and Sanderson were sitting on a hill watching the scene unfold before them.

"That really can't be sanitary," said Sanderson, watching as the unfortunate boy was swept away by the tide of waste water from the bathrooms.

"It serves 'im right though, doesn't it?" said Scabior. "After all those years of 'im giving everyone a load of crap with those books of 'is, it's nice to see someone sling some crap 'is way for a change."