Chapter 20
Waking up on a stiff, single bed, Harry fumbled for his glasses. He squinted around at the dingy room, taking a moment to remember he wasn’t in Gotham anymore. As memories flooded back, Harry cringed back, shame and pain welling up inside of him. He saw Tim sitting on his own bed and pushed all those emotions down.
“Happy birthday,” Harry said, jumping over to Tim.
“Harry birthday,” Tim smiled back faintly. After a second, his smile dimmed. “I haven’t gotten you a present.”
Harry tugged on a pair of pants and shirt, tugging a casual brown robe over them as Avada sought warmth around his neck. “We can get something today,” he said, “I think we should start at Gringotts and work our way around.”
Tim stood, raising his head higher. He held out his hand and Harry took it, squeezing lightly. “That sounds great.”
After a quick breakfast of scrambled eggs under the concerned eye of Tom the barmen, Harry pulled Tim to Gringotts. He was determined to make this a good birthday. They didn’t bother to buy anything for next year, choosing to wait for their school lists to arrive. Instead, Harry ignored the tightness in his chest and ache behind his eyes and bought Tim ice-cream. They explored the new books in Flourish and Blots and strange animals in the menagerie. It was energising to be surrounded by magic again or maybe that was the lack of air pollution. Harry tried not to think about Gotham and focused on making Tim smile and huff irritably when he purposely called potion ingredients by the wrong names. Packages arrived for each of them from Neville, Hermione and Ron. There was one more letter addressed only to Harry in simple, brown paper. Munching on a chocolate frog from Ron, Harry opened it and found a tiny origami bat. Behind was a note that read: it’s enchanted. Say Volare.
“Who’s that from?” Tim asked, peering at the note. Harry was pleased to see that some of the colour in his cheeks had returned throughout the day.
“Ester,” Harry grinned before holding out the bat, “Volare!” The bat flapped its small wings and Ala perked up, following the paper with her green eyes. It gradually lost height and Harry had to catch it before it hit the ground. Tom raised his eyebrows, looking both impressed and wary.
“You don’t think it’s suspicious,” Tim pointed at the bat, “how well do you know her?”
Harry considered the question. What did he know about her? He couldn’t say when her birthday was. Come to think of it, he didn’t remember ever telling her when his birthday was.
Harry shrugged, “I have no idea.” Still, he tucked the paper bat carefully into his pocket, ready to add it to then collection in his trunk.
They got lunch at a small café on the edge of Diagon alley that sold a strange mixture of regular human food and some things that barely seemed edible.
“Guppies on banana leaves?” Tim read out, relaxing slightly on the outdoor metal seats.
“What about rice paper soaked in blood? Do you think that’s for vampires?” Harry put down the plastic menu, subtly peering around at the other people sitting around the circular tables. None of them appeared to have fangs.
“What can I get for you?” A waitress appeared out of nowhere and Harry jumped.
“Just the fish and chips,” Tim said.
“It’s his birthday,” Harry told the waitress, making Tim look like he was wanted to disappear under the table.
“Oh, happy birthday dear,” the waitress said, “we’re actually got a special for birthdays and death days.”
“Does it include fireworks?” Harry grinned, “Or a song?”
“It’s his birthday too,” Tim pointed at Harry accusingly, “and Harry here loves birthday songs. You should sing one for him, really loudly.”
“I though you look similar. You must be twins,” the waitress cooed, “it’s a pretty quiet day. Wait here and I can get the other waitresses. They’d love to sing you happy birthday”
“We’re not related,” Tim said with a deadpan expression.
“I’ll have the mystery meat pie,” Harry said, hiding his snicker.
“Coming right up,” the waitress scribble down their orders and dashed back into the kitchen. She returned with three other waitresses, holding a slice of chocolate cake between them with sparkles and happy birthday written in fudge sauce. They surrounded Harry and Tim and started to sing a version of Happy Birthday that was some mix between the muggle version and some kind of Scottish folk song. The whole café broke into applause when the song was over and Tim hid his head in his hands. Harry blew out the candles, grinning widely.
“No one’s ever sang me happy birthday before,” Harry divided the cake in half, thanking the waitresses.
“You’re not missing out,” Tim complained but Harry noticed that a spark had returned to his eyes. Their meals came quickly and Harry found that that mystery meat was some kind of bird when he found a clawed talon in his pie. Tim was not sympathetic.
The sun was just beginning to set above them when Harry decided it was time to head back to the Leaky Cauldron. They would need to see if Tom would allow them to stay for another night.
“We could hire someone to pretend to be our parents,” Tim said, holding a bag of shopping that held the books Harry had chosen for his birthday. He had found a few on culture and history but couldn’t resist a hard backed cover with the title: Scatomancy: how to unlock the future with what others leave behind and another picture book called The Cyclops with Two Eyes. Tom had bought him half a bound of beetle eyes in retaliation and some figs for Mortimer.
They entered the Leaky Cauldron and were looking for Tom when Harry heard a familiar voice.
“Harry? Tim?” Sitting at a table and trying to stuff several brightly coloured bags into their pockets, were Ron, Fred and George. Ron ran forwards and stopped just short of Tim.
“Mate, you barely said anything in your letters. How have you been? Are your parents here?”
“Are yours?” Tim deflected, looking over Ron’s shoulder.
“Ah,” Ron bent his head, looking guiltily at Fred and George, “they don’t actually know we’re here. Fred stole some floo powder.”
“It was George’s/Fred’s idea,” Fred and George said together, pointing at the other twin. Harry noticed that the bags all had Gambol and Japes’s orange logo of a firework crossed with a fanged frisbee.
“I see you’re not having much luck hiding those,” Tim said.
“Can’t exactly use magic to shrink them,” George shrugged.
“We would have snuck out after mum went so sleep but all the good stores are closed by then.” Fred added.
“You can use magic. You just can’t use your wands,” Tim summoned up his magic. “What’s the spell to shrink things?”
“It’s Reducio,” Fred said slowly, mimicking the wand motion with his finger, “but…”
“Reducio,” Tim copied the movement and the bags shrunk to half their original size. “Oh, I was hoping for a bit smaller than that. Let me…Reducio.” The bags were now tiny enough to fit in Fred’s pocket.
“You can do wandless magic?” George turned the bags over in his hand, “This is wicked. Can I have your autograph?” Fred and George clambered forwards like Tim was some sort of celebrity. Grumbling, Ron pulled them off of Tim.
“Give him some space.” He turned to Harry, “You never said where your parents were? Did they found out about, you know?” Ron vaguely mimicked casting a spell, “there’s room in my bedroom if you need a place to crash.”
“I don’t know,” Harry wavered. “It wouldn’t be too much trouble?” Tom would almost certainly start asking more questions if they stayed but he couldn’t just impose on another family.
“I’ve been begging you to come over in all my letters,” Ron rolled his eyes fondly, “I can’t imagine you can get any sleep in Gotham, what with the killer alligators and stuff.”
“Killer Croc,” Tim corrected as Fred and George looked between the three of them like they had a hundred questions.
“That’s it,” Fred said, “we’re kidnapping you. There’s enough floo powder left for two more people.”
“Won’t your parents know you snuck out though,” Harry bit his lip, “if we turn up?”
“We’ll just say look who turned up in the night and they’ll be all pleased to see you,” George dismissed easily. Come on. Let’s hope mum’s still fussing over dinner.”
“Please,” Ron insisted, “we can celebrate your birthday. I see you got my chocolate frogs.”
“Alright,” Harry conceded. He hadn’t realised how much he missed his friends. Seeing Ron here, he couldn’t have asked for a better birthday present.
Ron punched the air and hustled Harry and Ron over to a fireplace. “Have you ever used floo powder before?”
“No,” Harry shook his head, “but how hard can it be?”