Harry lay in bed, looking at his pocket watch. It was five minutes until midnight, five minutes until his birthday. He sighed. He would be turning twenty-nine this year. It was just slightly scary to think about. Here he was, the youngest head of the Auror department in quite some time, with three children and a bloody brilliant wife, only eleven years after the Battle at Hogwarts. It was quite amazing really, he thought to himself. Eleven years ago, he didn’t think that he would be alive to tell Gin that he loved her, much less start a family, a career, and have children.
He glanced back over at the magically illuminated pocket watch. Three minutes. He wondered how many eleven year olds would be getting their Hogwarts letters today. There were a lot more wizards and witches today than there were back when he was that age. Not quite as many as there would be next year. The year that the war had ended had been a rather big baby booming year. It seemed that everyone wanted to have children now that their future would be safe. It actually was a good thing. There had been quite a number of casualties from that war. He would know. He had engraved the name of every witch and wizard, every muggle and squib who had died as a result of the war into a memorial rock that sat not too far from Dumbledore’s tomb. It had taken quite a bit of time as well as handwriting practice at Hermione’s urging, of course. “You don’t want someone to be looking for his or her parent’s name and not be able to read it, do you?” she had asked him as soon as he had announced what he had planned to do. He knew she had been right, but he smiled at the memory of the painful hand cramps that had been a result of the penmanship practice.
He actually wasn’t sure how Hogwarts would handle the huge influx of students. Most wizarding families were having at least two or three children. Some had even more. Harry smiled. He and Ginny had just received word today that their former Gryffindor schoolmate, Lavender, was expecting her fourth child with her husband. He chuckled when he thought of the divination teacher, Professor Trelawney. She had once predicted that he would have twelve children. Twelve! He couldn’t even begin to comprehend that. They were still at three, so apparently he and Gin had a long way to go.
He glanced at his pocket watch again. One minute. For some reason, this had become a routine for his birthday. He had been doing it for as long as he could remember, back to the days when he would be the only one to know it was his birthday. He remembered making wishes at the Dursleys that his long lost family would take him away. Shortly after that, Hagrid had delivered his first Hogwarts letter.
Turning over, he wondered if Teddy would be up to going to Diagon Alley in the morning. Teddy had received his letter a few months before but they had yet to go get all of his school supplies. He smiled at the thought of his godson, who was currently kipping out in the room next to Albus and James. About that arrangement… he knew he needed to separate the boys soon and give them each their own bedroom. Otherwise, there might not be a house, much less a bedroom, left.
James was starting to show his magic a little more. He seemed to have a predisposition for mischief. Things in the house would suddenly vanish for weeks only to turn up on high shelves, and little magical tricks were played every now and then.
As he opened up the worn case of the pocket watch he had received twelve years ago, the minutes and seconds illuminated on his dial. He softly counted down. Five… four… three… two… one… The pocket watch emitted a small beep and the face fell back into darkness. He heard a small whimper coming from his daughter’s room.
He sighed and rolled out of bed, stretching. Lily was only two, and occasionally had trouble sleeping at night. He got up and glanced into Teddy’s room first, relieved to find the boy sleeping. Teddy’s nightmares were the worst of the lot. He slipped out the doorway and looked in on James and Albus. James was sprawled out across the bed, his brown hair messy. The messy hair reminded Harry of his father, and the grayish brown eyes that sleep was hiding reminded him of Sirius. Somehow, James had flipped around in his sleep and was lying with his head at the foot of the bed. In the other corner of the room, Albus was buried underneath the covers, only the top of his jet black hair showing. Harry could see glowing under the covers and smiled. Albus had a tendency, being almost four, to not like sleeping in the dark. Occasionally, after he thought his mum and dad were asleep, he would steal Ginny’s wand out of the bedroom and cast a lumos spell. He was an early riser at this early point in his life, so the wand would be back in place by the time Ginny got up. Harry knew Ginny didn’t care. He stepped out of that room and went up the stairs to the last room, Lily’s room. He could hear her snuffing in the corner, under the covers. He quietly crossed the room and picked up his daughter, covers and all, and set her back down on the bed.
“Care to tell me what’s wrong,” Harry asked his daughter softly. The covers lifted and he saw a flash of deep red hair, much deeper than anyone in the Weasley family had. Lily, his littlest one, had inherited her namesake’s hair. Her hazelnut eyes were red with tears, and she lost no time crawling over into his lap.
“Daddy, I had a bad dream,” Lily whispered, sniffling again. Harry made himself comfortable.
“What was your dream about, Lily flower?” Harry asked, holding his daughter tightly.
“I dreamed…” she paused for a minute. “I dreamed about a bad man with red eyes. He was trying to hurt you, Daddy.”
Harry mentally cursed at himself. He knew Lily had been playing in his study earlier, but hadn’t even thought about what he left out. He was supposed to be reviewing a chapter of a history book, the one of Voldemort and himself. He knew there were a few pictures in it, even one of the final battle in it. No wonder Lily had had a nightmare. He knew he had several of his own about that man, at a much older age than Lily was. He stroked her long, red hair, thinking of how to explain this to an almost two year old. Harry took a deep breath.
“Lily, before you were born there was a bad man. He didn’t like a lot of people. He especially didn’t like me. He didn’t want anyone but a few people to play on the playground with him. He tried to make the playground only his, but we wouldn’t let him. That playground was meant to be shared. We sent him away to the playground, and he can’t ever come back again. He won’t ever be able to hurt you or me or anyone ever again.” Harry could feel his daughter relaxing quite considerably at his word. He laid her down on the bed and made sure the bed sides were in place before he tucked her in.
“Goodnight, Lily flower,” Harry murmured as he left the room. She was asleep before he was even fully out. Harry walked down the stairs to the kitchen. He wouldn’t have been able to get to sleep after this. He didn’t bother turning on the lights in the kitchen, but instead got down a mug and began making hot chocolate. No matter how warm it was outside, hot chocolate always made him feel better.
Just as he was about to pour the hot chocolate into the mug, he heard a rustling noise behind him. He turned around sharply, wand pointed at the sound of the noise. Before he could mutter a spell, his youngest son’s head appeared in the kitchen. Harry sighed. While James might be the biggest prankster, Al could find almost anything.
He knew when it was time for Hogwarts he would give James the Marauder’s map. Unfortunately for James though, Harry had figured out how to make a copy of the Marauder’s map, and would be giving that to Teddy tomorrow. Albus, on the other hand, would have no trouble finding all the passages for himself, and probably then some. He would give his cherished invisibility cloak to Al.
Turning back to his son in the kitchen, he gasped as the rest of the cloak fell off his son. He had known for some time that Albus had strong magic, and was showing signs of not necessarily needing a wand all of the time. There had been several occurrences where James would have tricks from George’s shop and use them on Al, only to watch them deflected harmlessly as Al put up a shield charm wandlesslly.
This was something different. In his hand, Albus had conjured a small glowing ball of light. Harry knew that particular spell was an advanced piece of magic, and nearly impossible to do wandlessly. He couldn’t help but to feel proud of his son. However, there still remained the fact that a certain magical almost four year old was out of bed past midnight.
“What are you doing up, Al,” Harry asked his son. Albus sniffed the air before answering.
“I heard you come into our room, and I couldn’t sleep after that.”
Harry smiled at the sniff his small son had given. With his three kids and beautiful wife, he had been doing a lot more smiling recently than he had probably done in his life before. He quickly doubled the amount of hot chocolate in the pot before grabbing down another mug and pouring out the hot chocolate.
Albus opened up the fridge and got the bottle of whipped cream out. He climbed up into the chair and reached across the table to top both of their drinks. As he liberally added the whipped cream to Harry’s glass, Albus looked up. Harry caught his breath as he was reminded again how remarkably his son looked like himself. He knew this was how his father must have felt, seeing him. It was a special sort of feeling. The pair, father and son, sat at the kitchen table, bathed in the glow from the small light floating next to Al. Al looked at Harry again.
“Happy Birthday, Daddy,” Albus said softly. And as Harry got up to hug his son, he was reminded how lucky he was to have a family like his. He remembered all of his birthday wishes from the past, hoping for a family. At this moment, he knew all his birthday wishes from the past were fulfilled.
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Birthday Wishes by lily meet ginny
Story Notes:
Thank you to my beta, TheCursedQuill. She's really been great in helping me perfect this story.
Chapter Endnotes: Please read and review. This is my first fan fiction.