Happy Birthday, Dear Harry

Happy Birthday, Dear Harry...

"I don't understand," Remus said to Harry, sitting down beside him on the sofa. "I am very happy to have you and Sirius both staying with me for the summer, and the two of us have been looking forward to celebrating your fifteenth birthday with you next week. We wish we could throw you a proper party, but you know we can't risk drawing that much attention to ourselves. At least we can manage a cake and a few presents to try to make the day special, though. Why is it that every time we bring up the idea, you keep telling us not to do anything? Are you really that disappointed about not being able to invite all your friends?"

"No!" Harry protested. "It's not that at all! You've both just done so much for me already, and I'm not used to having anyone make a fuss about my birthday. I never had a birthday cake in my life 'til I turned eleven, and I've always gotten by just fine."

"Really?" Remus asked curiously. "I'd always been under the impression that Muggles had birthday cakes just the same as wizards do. If there's some sort of traditional Muggle birthday pudding that you'd prefer, though, that won't be a problem--I'm sure we can manage.

"However," he continued, "you happen to be speaking to the one person who can assure you that in fact, you've had a birthday cake every single year of your life." He used his wand to Summon a photo album from a pile that was lying on the coffee table. "I was planning to show all these old pictures to you later, but I think you need to see a few of them right now." He flipped through the book to find the page he wanted, then handed the book to Harry.

"This was your first birthday party," he explained, pointing to the first of a series of photos. "If the decorations seem to have gotten a bit out of control, you can blame James, Sirius, and Peter. Lily and I were responsible for the cake."

Harry saw a group of people gathered around a kitchen table, in the middle of which sat a cake with one large, glowing candle. He recognized both of his parents, as well as younger versions of Sirius and Remus. The wide-eyed baby in James's arms, he assumed, must be himself. It was the first time Harry had ever seen one of his own baby pictures, and he found the experience slightly disconcerting. A profusion of brightly-colored balloons and streamers was somewhat wildly scattered around the room. As he watched, he could see the adults coaxing the baby to blow out the candle, which was finally extinguished by the whole group, followed by applause. Subsequent pictures showed the opening of presents. The last two in the series were of Harry in his highchair, smeared from head to foot with a mixture of frosting and cake crumbs.

"We think that some of the cake actually went into your mouth," commented Sirius, walking into the room with a cup of coffee and sitting down in a nearby chair, "but we've never been able to prove it."

Harry laughed as he studied the pictures. In the first one, his mother and Sirius were standing beside the highchair, contemplating the mess. In the second, Sirius had transformed into his canine form and was busily licking frosting off of the baby's face. The big black dog's tail was wagging enthusiastically, and Harry was giggling and trying to grab its ears.

As Remus closed the book, his expression grew solemn. "That was one of the last really good times that we shared as a group. After your parents were killed, Harry, I...I fell apart. In St. Mungo's, they called it a 'nervous breakdown'. In one night, I'd lost every friend I'd ever had. It took me a while before I was able to adjust to that. When I was finally discharged from hospital, Dumbledore explained to me how and why he'd left you with your aunt and uncle.

"At first, I decided it was best for me to just stay out of your life completely. I was a werewolf; it had never really been safe for me to be allowed near a baby. And besides, what good could I have been to you? I was the one who'd failed to recognize Sirius for what he was. My shortsightedness was responsible for James and Lily's deaths. It was better that you grow up with no unpleasant reminders of the past, better that you never even learned my name.

"But as the time for your second birthday drew near, I found it nearly impossible to keep that resolution. I wanted to see how much you'd grown in all those months, whether you still had Lily's eyes and James's smile. So in the end, I decided to make a quick birthday visit. I knew you were being raised as a Muggle, so I bought you a completely non-magical present: a Muggle teddy bear. I had the clerk in the store tie a red balloon to its paw--red for Griffindor, and because you'd always loved bright colors.

"When I rang your aunt and uncle's bell, your uncle Vernon came to the door. I introduced myself and asked if I could drop in to see you, only for a few minutes. Your uncle, though, seemed to know exactly who I was, because he told me in no uncertain terms that none of 'my kind' would ever be allowed in his house."

Harry indignantly opened his mouth, but Remus shushed him. "It's all right, Harry, really. I don't know what I'd been thinking. There aren't many wizard families that would have let a werewolf into a house where two small children were living; I certainly shouldn't have expected Muggles to understand that I was only dangerous during a full moon. The only thing I regret is that I wasn't able to convince your uncle that I hadn't enchanted the bear in any way. Even if I couldn't give it to you myself, I wanted you to have your present, but he refused to take it.

"In the end, I just went home. I put the bear in the old highchair that Sirius and I had kept for you to use when you came to visit, and I baked a cake and put two candles on top. I blew them out with a wish for your continued happiness and safety, and I've been doing the same thing at my kitchen table every July 31^st since then. Only the number of candles changes.

"I've altered that routine only twice. The first time was the year you turned eleven. I knew that Hagrid was going to see you, to bring you your Hogwarts letter, and I baked an extra cake and sent it along with him. I wanted to welcome you back to the wizarding world, but I told Hagrid not to mention my name. There was no reason for you to know who the cake was from.

"Then last summer, I explained to Sirius how I'd been observing your birthday all these years, and invited him to join me on the night. He tried to persuade me to send a cake to you again, as I'd done three years before, and I also heard from Hagrid, asking the same thing. Apparently, some sort of diet program was in progress at the Dursleys', and Sirius and Hagrid both wanted to make certain you'd have a proper cake in spite of it. I agreed to make cakes for both of them to send, but I told them I still wanted my name left out of it."

"We both told him he was being an idiot about that," Sirius broke in, "but he wouldn't listen. He told us he wouldn't give us the cakes unless we promised not to tell you where they came from."

"Harry and Hagrid had become good friends by then," Remus countered. "You were Harry's godfather. What was I to him? Only a former teacher, nothing more, and I had also nearly killed him just a month prior." He turned back to Harry. "So you received cakes that year as gifts from Hagrid and Sirius. I baked another for myself, though, and on the night of your birthday, Padfoot and I sat down together and blew out fourteen candles. This year, we hoped--"

Remus broke off suddenly, having noticed wetness on Harry's face. "Harry, are you crying?" He looked more closely. "Harry, I don't want you to waste one second brooding over the silliness of an old werewolf..."

Harry was shaking his head. Then, suddenly, he startled Remus by bursting out, "You didn't understand! Uncle Vernon--when he said 'your kind' weren't wanted, he didn't mean werewolves! If he'd known you were a werewolf, he'd have tried anything he could think of to arrange for you to babysit me the next full moon." Remus's mouth dropped open as Harry continued bitterly, "He meant wizards. Any wizards. All wizards. And if he'd let you come inside, you'd have seen there was no cake, no party, no presents.

"Sure, Muggles have birthday cakes. I learned all about cakes, and parties, and presents, every year on Dudley's birthday. The year he turned six, one of his friends' mothers even cut a piece of the cake for me before Aunt Petunia could hustle me out of the room, and she had to let me eat it. Most of the time, though, I just got to watch.

"I'd have really liked that teddy bear, I think. Dudley's stuffed animals always looked soft and friendly, but I wasn't allowed to touch them. I didn't have toys of my own. Sometimes, if I was lucky, they'd give me one of Dudley's old ones after he'd worn it out. Nothing much ever happened on my birthdays. The best one ever, until that year I turned eleven, was the year I was seven and my present was a stick of chewing gum. Peppermint--I've never forgotten."

He turned to Remus, tears streaming down his face now. "And all those years, I thought no one cared. That's why I don't need a birthday party from you and Sirius--every day when I'm staying here with you feels like a birthday already. And now you tell me that all those years, when I thought I was alone, someone was out here, thinking of me, caring about me--"

"Loving you, Harry," Remus amended, as he wrapped his arms around Harry and pulled him close. "Always, loving you."