The Days After Sunday

Chapter 2

Squabbling Balloons and Treacherous Wishes

"I didn't know it was your table, "said Alice; "it's laid for a great many more than three."

-Alice in Wonderland

Harry fell from what seemed like a very large height and landed directly on top of Ron and Hermione (who may have been snogging passionately while simultaneously rummaging through the cupboards for food. All right, maybe not). Hermione yelled in surprise as Harry landed on top of her, and the three collapsed into a thoroughly tangled heap. This resulted in several resonating POPS!, because they had landed on a pile of balloons.

"Gah! Get your knee out of my back," said Ron, with utter politeness

"I can't move," grunted Harry stiffly, trying unsuccessfully to untangle himself. "And someone's elbow is crushing my stomach"

"Ooo, I think my toe's broken."

"Maybe I could move it if you'd get your leg off my chest..."

Apparently lying sprawled in a jumble of appendages is not all that comfortable.

"Ow, I think I'm on top of a fork," lamented Harry." It's sticking in my..."

Harry was stopped in mid complaint by a painful jab in his side.

"Get your arm off my neck, " wheezed Hermione faintly. "Can't breathe...."

Harry tried to free his arm, which was wedged between Ron's leg and apparently Hermione's windpipe, but by the time he'd finally moved it, Hermione had completely passed out.

When she came to again, thanks partially to Ron's awkward attempts of fanning her with his foot, they were still in a tangled mess. While it may be hard to free yourself from a knot of three, it is exceedingly harder to do so when one of the three is immobile.

At last they had managed to extricate themselves from their uncomfortably entangled state, and were now sitting on the Burrow's kitchen floor breathing heavily from the effort. Hermione looked at Harry sternly, while Ron was still surveying the scene with a look of utter confusion.

"What the hell just happened?" asked a perplexed, yet slightly relieved Harry. At least he hadn't landed in the lap of Voldemort, if in fact Voldemort still had a lap after all his unearthly transformations.

"That's precisely what we would like to know," said Hermione sharply, sounding very much like Professor McGonagall, but with an extra ounce of indignation.

At this, it finally dawned on Harry, who could be strikingly slow-witted and unobservant at times, that his friends were quite a bit less than happy to see him.

"Um... What's wrong?"

"You mean aside from the fact that you just fell on top of us, out of the ceiling, without any warning, and I may have a broken toe?" asked Ron derisively. He had taken off his shoe in order to examine a painfully throbbing foot.

"Er..." said Harry.

"You know you weren't supposed to come until later. What were you thinking? Do you have any idea how hard we've been working? Especially Mrs. Weasley. I mean it was all her idea and now you've ruined it. I can't believe you'd be so inconsiderate!" Hermione animatedly berated a perplexed Harry, her bushy hair flying out menacingly.

Harry cowered.

"You now, I don't think he did it on purpose, " said Ron.

Hermione turned her fury on Ron, who had obviously not considered the possibly lethal consequences of his actions.

"Don't even get me started on you. He's your friend too, but you've barely helped at all with this! Maybe if you actually cared about how Harry's feeling..."

"If I cared?! What is that supposed to mean?" said an indignant and grumpy Ron. "And of course I'm helping! I've been helping forever and I'm helping RIGHT NOW blowing up these stupid balloons at one o'clock in the morning just because you're insane and think there won't be enough time to put them all up! And you're the one who just assumes that you know what's going on, because you're always right, aren't you? You're just too self-centered to think that you could ever possibly be wrong!" Ron had become progressively redder since beginning this tirade and he was practically screaming. He had achieved a surprising resemblance to an enraged beet.

Harry noticed the likeness too and stashed the simile "like an enraged beet" away for later poetic use. He had been watching the screaming match with some fascination, but he finally realized that his friends would probably continue like this for hours without ever telling him why he was here, since they had obviously already completely forgotten his existence.

"WILL YOU BOTH JUST SHUT UP," suggested Harry, whose annoyance was had grown steadily with each passing moment. Luckily, his plea was answered as Ron and Hermione turned to him in complete surprise.

"I still HAVE NO IDEA why I'm here! It would be fantastic if you could spare a moment from ripping each other apart and tell me what's going on!" His green eyes blazed with the frustration of being left completely in the dark yet again.

"Oh Harry, " said Hermione, "haven't you looked around?"

Harry (who had not in fact looked around) viewed his surroundings for the first time since arriving. The Burrow's kitchen was bursting with colorful decorations. Balloons of an infinite number of sizes carpeted the floor, while others were scattered about the countertops and still more littered the table. Draped haphazardly over several chairs was a banner whose huge enchanted letters were constantly changing font. However, their message of "HAPPY BIRTHDAY HARRY ", remained the same.

"You're having a party for me? It's a bit late. I mean, my birthday was last month, but why didn't you tell me? "

"Well, it was supposed to be a surprise you see. We thought it would be too obvious if we had it right on your birthday," said Ron.

Harry, realizing he was asking stupid questions again, decided to let them explain them rest.

"Didn't you get our note?" asked Hermione. "I mean you obviously had the Portkey."

"Ah... well yeah, " Harry said. He was in fact miraculously still clutching the slip of paper that came with the broken toy truck. He opened the thoroughly rumpled note and read:

Dear Harry,

How are you dear? I'm writing to invite you to spend the rest of your holiday at the Burrow with us. Arthur thought it would be best to contact you instead of your aunt and uncle, although the trip does have to be all right with them.

You should come on Friday at two in the afternoon and no earlier because we are on vacation right now, and won't be getting back until then. We got you a Portkey (the toy truck) to get here. It should work well, but you should probably owl us and make sure it's from us. You know, just to be safe. I want to remind you again to come at PRECISELY 14:00. It will be lovely to see you again, and Ron says hello.

Love,

Molly Weasley

"You were on vacation?"

"No" said Ron. "We just had to make something up, even though Mum felt awful about lying, so that, well, you wouldn't come at the wrong time."

"Yeah, sorry about that," said Harry, feeling almost guilty. " I hadn't actually read it before. Didn't really have time."

Before he could explain why though, Molly Weasley herself came bustling down the stairs, looking rather annoyed and sleepy in hair curlers and an avocado mask.

"I understand that you want everything to be ready for tomorrow, but really it's getting much too late!" Mrs. Weasley rounded the table and spied Harry sitting immersed in balloons on the floor.

"Harry! Is that you? What are you doing here?" she said squinting at him.

"Oh it doesn't matter anymore! ALL of you need to go to bed right now."

And so with that abrupt maternal declaration, by someone who has been unpleasantly awakened by popping balloons in the middle of a very agreeable dream about one Gilderoy Lockhart (pre-insanity of course), Mrs. Weasley bustled the three teenagers off to bed.

~~

Harry got up early, awoken by a piercing ray of light slipping through the curtains from the garden outside. Small bits of dust twirled in the air, making the intangible ray almost visible, an effect only achieved at this certain time of day.

Ron still lay sprawled on an extra mattress on the floor. He had basically tripped on it the night before, tumbled forward, and started snoring before he could get up again. Harry himself had barely felt tired. It was hard to know what tiredness felt like after you've spent months without being truly awake. He didn't have any of his things with him so he'd borrowed a pair of Ron's maroon pajamas (undoubtedly purchased by Mrs. Weasley) then climbed into bed.

Harry was unable to fall back to sleep, even after blocking the sunlight with his pillow. He sat up abruptly and hit his head on the bedroom's sloping ceiling.

"Oh shit!" he exclaimed loudly.

Ron slept on.

Ron was on his stomach; head turned to the side with his mouth slightly open. With one arm flung over a pillow, his left hand dangling off the side of the mattress, it looked like a very uncomfortable position. This didn't matter much to Ron though, seeing as how he was completely unconscious. He still wore clothes form the night before, a threadbare tee shirt flipped back at the hem, exposing a small patch of smooth rosy skin. His feet stuck out past the crumpled sheets, revealing trousers charmingly bunched at the ankles.

But of course Harry barely registered any of this. He just saw "Ron's still asleep", a thought closely followed by "Wonder if I should kick him?"

Deciding this was a fantastic idea, Harry kicked Ron in the side. He grunted then resumed deep breathing, apparently unfazable.

Harry was in a charitable (aka groggy) mood, so he left Ron on the floor, and pattered down five flights of stairs to the kitchen.

~~

Ginny was the only person in the kitchen She had gotten up early, unable to sleep, and thinking it might be interesting to watch the sun rise. But although she'd been looking straight out the window at the time, she had missed it. All those old and ill-worn thoughts were managing to cloud her vision yet again.

So, lost in thought as she was, Ginny was terribly startled when a loud POP! sounded directly behind her. She whipped around immediately and dropped the teacup she'd been holding in horrified surprise. The blood rushed pounding to her ears blocking out the noise as the porcelain shattered, while a silent scream caught painfully in her throat.

Tom Riddle was standing in the kitchen.

Her kitchen. Tall and lithe and dark-haired as a nightmare materialized. She stood up in an instant, but the suddenness of her movement caused her vision to blur. She couldn't see, couldn't run, just had to clutch the chair waiting for her dizziness to fade.

And when it had subsided, she saw yet another impossible person. Harry Potter with a very worried look on his face.

~~

When Harry got to the kitchen he saw that Ginny was the only Weasley already awake. She sat sideways in a wooden chair, staring blankly out the window into the garden. She held a cup of tea in one hand, no longer steaming and still untouched. It looked to Harry like maybe he shouldn't disturb her, seemingly so deeply lost in thought.

But then he managed to step on a balloon.

CRASH!

Ginny dropped her teacup on the tile floor, causing pieces to fly out and burst still more balloons. She jumped up suddenly with a stricken look on her face.

"Sorry Ginny. Are you ok?"

"What?" said Ginny in a broken voice, rubbing her eyes. "I thought...Sorry Harry I thought, um, you weren't coming until later?" she managed to piece the words together, ending in a question, then sitting back in her chair as if her legs had given way.

"Oh right, " said Harry realizing why Ginny had been so surprised. "It was actually a mistake, I got here last night."

"Oh sure," said Ginny, seemingly uninterested in exactly how he had gotten there. "You know we should probably pick these up." She gestured to the broken teacup bits on the floor.

She knelt down and started searching, so Harry walked over to join her. They worked in awkward silence for a few moments before Ginny said, "So that's why you're wearing the pajamas I suppose."

"Yeah, they're Ron's"

"I know. They look much better on you than him though."

Harry flushed inexplicably at this mumbling, "Thanks."

"I mean, the maroon just clashes so horribly with his room, you know, and his hair," Ginny explained cheerily.

Thinking of Ron's neon orange room, plastered with Chudley Cannons memorabilia, and his hair of a similar hue, Harry wholeheartedly agreed.

By now, they'd almost finished picking up the pieces, with just one more fragment lying below the table. They reached for it at the same time, bring them so close together that the end of Ginny's braid brushed across Harry's arm. He was enveloped in the faint scent of apple blossoms. He felt slightly dizzy with it, almost intoxicated. He turned his head toward her and found she was already looking at him.

She opened her mouth to say something, but Harry cut her off.

"You're still dating Dean Thomas."

"Yes, of course," said Ginny, giving Harry a strange look.

She picked up the last piece then turned away from him, standing up.

"Thanks for your help. I should probably go wake Hermione now," she said, glancing at the clock. "She wanted to get up by seven."

Ginny placed her handful of broken china on the table.

"Oh, and happy birthday Harry," she said before turning up the stairs.

~~

After breakfast the Weasley's had insisted on doing the decorations without Harry, so he was sent back to Ron's room until later. Harry could hear shouting, laughter, and the occasional pop! drifting in from outside. Harry had spent the time trying to think of a word to rhyme with 'blossom'. Sadly, after five hours of diligent thought, all he'd come up with was 'possum'.

While Harry worked on the creative process, his friends were having a difficult time of their own. Apparently, the hundreds of balloons, which Ron and Hermione had been inflating before Harry arrived, very much so resented getting popped with so little regard for their feelings. So, when Mr. Weasley brought them out to the garden and gave them the power of floatation, it was the end of the battle and the beginning a war.

"Watchout!" Mr. Weasley had screamed as a swarm of balloons flew streaming toward Ron and Hermione's heads, striking out against their murderers. They'd managed to dodge the first assault, although Fred (who'd come to the party along with George, and other former members of the Gryffindor Quidditch team. In fact, the entire Weasley family was there, except for Percy that is) was knocked unconscious by a few wayward balloons. To end the assault, the over-aged wizards, had thrown bursting spells at their inflated attackers, while the under-aged offensive ran about with cutlery. In response, the balloons attacked every person in sight.

After a bit of this, it became apparent that lashing out against the balloons was bad idea. For, as their number dwindled, they became more and more malicious. At last, Mr. Weasley managed to negotiate a fragile truce, entailing usually calm balloons, who would launch full-scale military attacks against any individual that looked at them funny.

At last, Ron came up to tell Harry, he could come down. On the way, Harry became very nervous about how he would feign surprise. He walked into the garden, and took one step back in mock surprise, stepping on Ron's foot in the process.

"Oh, ah, wow, " said Harry unconvincingly. Seeing that his superior acting skills were floundering in the difficult area of dialogue, he raised both eyebrows as high as they would go and opened his mouth in a small 'o' attempting to adopt an expression of amazement.

"He looks more like a fish then I remember," whispered George.

"Really? I've always thought he looked rather fish like," responded Fred.

Then Harry's wide eyes turned to the beautiful decorations and he was smacked in the face by a salmon colored balloon the size of a Quaffle.

This was the painful beginning to a magnificent afternoon. Well, except for the fact that Mrs. Weasley treated Harry like he could have a nervous breakdown at any moment. For example:

"Arthur!" she said in mortification when he had patted Harry on the back in congratulation. "Harry's in a very fragile state right now..."

or

"Don't say the 'S' word!" she hissed every time someone, even fifty feet away from Harry (and this includes the neighbors), said something to the affect of "Doesn't this flobberworm have an unreasonably serious expression on its face?"

And every time Mrs. Weasley's worried voice reprimanded someone, Harry was reminded of exactly why she was doing it. His thoughts would return to a certain gaping hole that even the distractions of the party couldn't fill. Sometimes, he didn't even notice the whispered conversations and sadly compassionate glances he got every few moments, for he was still trudging through the fog that had descended at the end of fifth year.

These thoughts were so distracting, Harry barely realized the start of a game of charades: Wizard Style. The rules stayed the same, but the choices were much more original, popping out of a bottomless feathered sun hat instead of a creativity-impaired Muggle. The game only caught Harry's attention when, after two hours of playing (Harry's team was winning), there was a loud WHUMP as half the guests fell to the ground.

Hagrid had been in the middle of acting out a very difficult word (mouse). He crouched on all fours, moving along the grass quickly, head down. The closest guess was 'glacier'.

Finally, he went as far as to scamper (as only Hagrid can) up to the table and steal bits and pieces of food off peoples plates. Unfortunately he managed to knock an entire bench of people over in the process.

At one point Ron went very pink and refused to go. When finally goaded into it by his teammates; he commenced brushing five-foot long imaginary hair. When that didn't work he tried blowing kisses while fluttering his eyelashes vigorously. Ginny collapsed in a fit of giggles, then ran off to get a camera (black mail, blackmail! Er...I mean preserving the memories). She returned, capturing forever the image of Ronald Weasley- veela.

A few turns later, Harry chose 'house elf', doing a very good impression if he does say so himself. Hermione, however, was much less than pleased.

"It is derogatory statements like this," she said waving the slip of paper so vigorously that Ron had to duck to avoid getting slapped in the nose, "that are keeping the house elves down! They are admirable Sustenance Professionals and Order Technicians who deserve to be taken seriously! They are NOT some creature for a party game!" Hermione continued in this vent for sometime, with Mrs. Weasley trying to shush her all the while.

"You're upsetting Harry," she warned urgently, glancing nervously at Harry, who was chuckling merrily with Ron over House Elves being admirable SPOTs.

"Dobby does always seem a bit spotty, doesn't he?"

Finally a combined effort from Mrs. Weasley, Ginny, and Hagrid had managed to calm her down, although Hermione continued to mumble almost inaudibly throughout the rest of the game. Harry managed to catch a word or two every few minutes including, but not limited to, "damned acronyms" and "grapes".

It was dusk by the time they'd finished charades, and Harry was in a slightly better mood. Mrs. Weasley had disappeared momentarily, and when she returned, she was carrying the biggest cake Harry had ever seen. Its many layers, each a different vibrant color, towered over him and swayed precariously in the evening breeze.

Even the balloons didn't dare go near it.

"There's one layer for each year, " said Mrs. Weasley triumphantly. Then she turned to Harry worriedly. "You do like it don't you?"

"Oh yeah, it's amazing, " Harry managed, still gawking at the enormous cake.

Mrs. Weasley was about to cut the first generous slice, when Hagrid interrupted.

"Molly, could yeh wait er minute." Every hungry pair of eyes turned toward him with absolute hostility. "It's just I got this present fer Harry," he said rummaging through his pockets, "in here sumwhere..."

After several minutes, and one ferocious growl from Mr. Weasley's stomach, Hagrid produced a distinct looking long spiraled candle and stuck it in the top of Harry's cake. Several gasps came from the surrounding guests.

"Hagrid, are you sure that's wise?" asked Lupin.

"Gods Harry, you're lucky," said George in awe.

Harry looked around in confusion, unnerved by the hushed astonishment of the party.

Hermione realized his confusion and explained scoldingly, "I know you were raised by Muggles Harry, but you really should read more. It's a Lantern Wax Candle. It grants the person who blows it out one wish, but, " she continued turning to Hagrid, "doesn't it only work on the person's real birthday?"

"Yeah, well, the person I bought it from, he enchanted it on the right day. Said it'd work if ye did that."

"Yes, it should, but wishes...well they can be dangerous Hagrid," said Mrs. Weasley.

Hagrid's face fell at this, but Mr. Weasley cut in, "You know Molly, it will be safe as long as Harry's responsible about it. Just think about the consequences, right Harry?"

"Oh sure, of course."

The others finally managed to persuade Mrs. Weasley, who grudgingly allowed them to light the candle.

Harry climbed up on top of his chair (for the flame really was that high) with every intention of making a reasonable wish. But standing in that lofty position, looking down at the faces of his friends, the people he cared about most in the world, he still felt something missing. There was only one thing Harry could think to wish for, as he took a deep breath and blew out the flickering candle flame.