Luna's Present
"Look, Harry!” said Ron the following Monday, brandishing a copy of the Daily Prophet and slamming it on the table where Harry had been sitting for the last few hours. “Algeria’s beaten the Canadians. They’re advancing to the quarter-finals!”
Harry sat up straight in his chair. Precious few pieces of news, other than a breakthrough like his favorite team reaching the quarter-finals of the Quidditch World Cup, could have gotten him so interested. He snatched the paper out of Ron’s hands and began scanning the pages like he was famished, taking in the moving pictures of one of the Algerian Chasers throwing the Quaffle past the Canadian Keeper with ease. For the last week, the difference in his health had only steadily improved as he began devouring every scrap of Quidditch-related news he could find. He could now proudly recite the six (of eight) national teams that had qualified out of the round of sixteen, including Algeria, Haiti, Venezuela, Panama, Czech Republic, and Japan.
Ron seemed to take this as a good sign, as he encouraged Harry’s active participation in their nightly Quidditch talks and frequently brought home whatever scraps he could find, from all sorts of newspapers and magazines. In fact, one day he had returned to Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place in the evening positively roaring with laughter; when Harry had asked what happened, he had shoved a copy of The Quibbler under his nose. The headline, in a bold, nearly-unreadable cursive, read: “CHOSEN ONE OR ALGERIAN SEEKER?: Fans Discuss Rumours That Algerian Seeker Omar Merabet Is Secretly The Boy Who Lived In Disguise.” The article claimed that Harry had, shortly after defeating the Dark Lord, been contracted by the Algerian National Team and had since then changed his name and nationality so as not to be discovered.
Apart from the daily Quidditch ramblings they shared on the front stoop of Number Twelve, still within the magical protection and therefore unseen by Muggle passersby, Harry had seen little of Ron over the last week. When he wasn’t at the Auror office, he was down in the basement kitchen, working on some potion Harry couldn’t quite identify, and didn’t care enough to ask about. This seemed to be costing him a great deal of time and energy; as a result, Harry spent most days alone with Crookshanks. Outside, the heat of July continued in full force, much stronger than the last two cold, misty summers, but Harry was rarely conscious of this as he spent so much of his time cooped up inside the dank, dingy house of his godfather.
The stupor-like pattern continued for weeks on end. In the morning Harry would awake in an otherwise empty bed and stumble, as if in a dream, to some other location in the house to spend the rest of the day. Some days, he would pick up a book or magazine and place it on his lap, untouched, so that upon returning Ron would not realize he had done absolutely nothing all day. This façade was, of course, as convincing as it was consistent; that is to say, neither of the two.
Harry still couldn’t shake the feeling that he was a burden to Ron, though he did not yet have the strength to change the situation in any regard. Every day after work, a plate of food would be shoved in front of Harry’s spot at the kitchen table, which he would valiantly attempt to eat, before inevitably giving up and letting Ron finish the leftovers for him. On top of that, what seventeen-year-old needed to be bathed by his best mate? He had been overage for nearly a year; a voice in the back of his brain that sounded uncannily like Mrs Weasley’s kept telling him to get up and act his age. But that couldn’t be right, Mrs Weasley would never say that outright to him.
One Thursday evening, Ron found Harry locked up in the attic where Buckbeak used to stay. Harry had been lying on his stomach with his legs kicking in the air, wiling away the hours by stacking the scraps of ferret bones that had been left in the wake of the hippogriff. He’d heard Ron arrive over an hour ago and immediately descend into the basement, apparently to work on whatever concoction he was brewing. Then, about five minutes ago, he’d heard him climbing the stairs, calling Harry’s name as he searched every room. Harry had, of course, ignored these calls as they distracted him from the fragile house of bones he was in the process of constructing. He was finally taken out of his trance, however, by the good mood Ron was in when he opened the trapdoor and stuck his head in the attic.
The next thing to appear after Ron’s freckle-covered face was a piece of newspaper. “Look, mate!” he said, reaching his arm into the small space and pointing at the headline. Harry could just make out the bold words in the dim light: “ALGERIA 230 – 200 VENEZUELA.” Just below a moving picture of Harry’s favorite Seeker catching the Snitch to end the game, a subtitle: “ALGERIA To Face HAITI In First Semi-Final On Tuesday.”
“Blimey!” said Harry, taking in the rest of the article ravenously. “That’s great! That’s… mental!” He had never expected this stroke of luck: His favorite team, the underdogs, had managed to reach the semi-finals of the World Cup. However, Harry remembered that Ron had, upon Harry’s insistence, admitted that he preferred Venezuela’s team over Algeria’s, for their expertly successful realization of a particularly complex maneuver in a previous match against Comoro Islands. So why was he pleased? Usually, Harry imagined, Ron would have been bitter or even downright hostile if his favorite team had made it so far, only to be defeated in the quarter-finals.
---
The explanation for Ron’s unusual elation, it turned out, was to be discovered by Harry the following morning. The sun was shining brighter than usual when Harry once again woke up alone in his bed. He yawned and stretched; he’d gotten better sleep than usual that night and couldn’t remember once waking up from his or Ron’s screams.
Down in the kitchen, next to the breakfast he usually didn’t even give half a glance, was a steaming goblet of what looked to be a frothy, clear liquid of a golden hue. By appearance, it reminded Harry of butterbeer, but it had a much more pleasant smell. Harry turned his attention to a piece of parchment folded underneath the tarnished goblet.
"Harry –
"Happy birthday, mate! Try this potion I’ve been working on for the last few weeks, will you? I promise you won’t regret it. I hope you don’t mind that I had some yesterday, I wanted to see if it really worked. I think I’ve prepared it right! See you later!
"Ron
"P.S. If you could change Crookshanks’s cat litter at some point, I’d really appreciate it."
Harry blinked. It suddenly hit him that he had completely forgotten his birthday. He checked his watch: sure enough, it was July thirty-first. He was eighteen.
Snapping back to reality, Harry tipped the goblet toward his mouth and took a deep sip. The effect was instantaneous: It felt as if something inside his brain had been exerting itself for too long, and suddenly relaxed. Or rather, as if someone had stuck a pin inside him to let built-up pressure out. All his worries, his fears, his bad memories, and his nightmares seemed to be slipping away lazily down a river that led out of his consciousness. He leaned back against the wall, closing his eyes and enjoying the sensation. Seconds later, he realized something was slipping out of his eyes and down his face; confusingly, they didn’t feel like tears at all, or if they were, he wasn’t sad to see them go. On a whim, he reached into a cupboard at random and pulled out a glass vial, holding it under his cheek and letting the silvery substances fall in delicately until it was full. This strange sensation was new to him: He had only ever witnessed a few powerful wizards produce memories at will.
Something else caught his eye in the cupboard: It appeared to be an old, withered cookbook, but upon further inspection it was a heavily-worn Potions textbook. Harry wondered idly if Ron had bought it second-hand at Flourish and Blotts. It was open to a page titled, in hideous cursive, Mending Potion.
"The glorious and beneficial Mending Potion is one of the most ancient potions known to wizardkind, having been developed independently in several different locations. The most common iteration, and the one advised in this textbook as well as most others, was first created in the tenth century in Ecuador, and was liberally administered to any member of society, wizarding or otherwise, who had suffered a traumatic event such as a forest fire, flood, or earthquake. With time, it became popularized and made available for less catastrophic, though no less psychologically damaging, events.
"The purpose of the Mending Potion is, naturally, to aid the drinker in their path to recovery. A generous glass (the exact quantity of which is left to the user’s discretion) will generally take sixteen hours to run its full cycle. Common side effects include the irresistible urge to jump for joy or begin dancing (which is not at all discouraged), as well as the involuntary secretion of liquid memories (which the current reader has already experienced, by the looks of him)."
Harry closed the book, taking a mental note to thank Ron when he returned. He drained the goblet, which held, in hindsight, what he would have described accurately as a generous amount, and clapped his hands together, feeling ready to take on any challenge.
Before he could act, though, a tapping noise interrupted him. A small, excitable owl was beating its miniscule beak ferociously on the glass.
“Hey, Pig,” he said, opening the window and grinning as the tiny owl fluttered in. Attached to his leg was a letter addressed to Harry Potter and Ron Weasley. Deciding it was best to wait until Ron returned to read it, Harry left it unopened on the doormat. Then he went for a walk to enjoy the warm July sun. By the time he returned to Grimmauld Place, there were already three more owls waiting impatiently on the stoop. Relieving them of their letters, he saw that all three were addressed to him. What a strange day this was; it was a rare occurrence for him to get so much mail. All the same, he set about tearing them open one by one.
He didn’t have to guess at who had sent the first one. Immediately upon opening it began singing its tune in a hideous, croaking voice:
His eyes are as green as a fresh pickled toad,
His hair is as dark as blackboard,
I’m shy to admit, but he’s really quite fit,
The hero who conquered the Dark Lord.
As the letter cleared its raven-like voice to begin singing another rendition, Harry was grateful it was a short one, which allowed him to snap it shut as soon as he finished reading.
"Happy birthday, Harry. Hope you’re doing well. Best of wishes from Romania.
"Gin (and Charlie!)"
Attached was a small picture of Ginny and Charlie, grinning identically from ear to ear at the camera. Behind them was a minimalistic kitchen table adorned with a few steaming coffee mugs and a tall plant as a centerpiece. This must be the flat Charlie shared with some of his mates; he had mentioned it to Harry once or twice before. Harry wondered which one of them had taken the picture.
The next letter, fortunately, was kind enough not to sing, or speak at all for that matter.
"Dear Harry,
"Happy birthday! I hope you’ve been adjusting to life after the war fairly well. You deserve peace and rest and a chance to move on. We all do.
"By the way, I don’t know if Ginny or Luna has told you this already, but Professor Sprout took me on as an understudy in Herbology! I can’t wait to start my work and research in September. If you’re ever in the mood, you’re always welcome to come visit me at Hogwarts. My new office is apparently in the corridor just below the Hospital Wing, you know the one, right above the greenhouses. I’d be glad to have you or the others over any time. I’ll also understand if you don’t want to come back, though – Ginny said she wasn’t ready yet, either. I suppose we all need time.
"Your friend, always,
"Neville Longbottom"
Harry put the letter beside Ginny’s, feeling a slight pang of guilt. He hadn’t written Neville at all since the war, nor contacted him in any way; on top of that, Harry remembered, his birthday was the day before Harry’s and it had completely slipped his mind. Neville beating Harry at a game of memory was never a good sign. Then again, he, Harry, had nearly forgotten his own birthday. He made a mental note to begin writing a response soon.
The third letter, and the last one addressed only for Harry, was in a familiarly scribbly handwriting he had read countless times over the years. It read, quite simply:
"Happy birthday Harry! I baked one of my rock cakes to send along to you, but unfortunately it got disintegrated by the new Blast-Ended Skrewts I’ve been breeding. They’re even bigger and more ferocious, these new brutes, I know you’d love them. Come see for yourself if you get a chance.
"Hagrid"
Like Ginny, Hagrid had also attached a small photograph to his letter, this one depicting an enormous and particularly vicious-looking Blast-Ended Skrewt. Harry thought to himself there was quite possibly no creature in the world that he would be less interested in meeting.
As he folded the letter back into the envelope, the silence of the interior of Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place was broken by a loud bang. Harry dropped Hagrid’s letter and whipped around, not reacting quick enough to keep Ron from pulling him in an embrace that would have given Hagrid’s bone-crushing hugs a run for their money.
“Happy birthday, mate,” he said excitedly, releasing Harry after a few long seconds. “Blimey, you’re eighteen! Even the Muggles will call you overage now.” Catching his breath, he continued, “Did you see my note? Did it work?”
Harry had half a mind to trick Ron into thinking he hadn’t read his note at all, but upon making eye contact with his best friend he decided against this. “Yeah,” he said, “it worked great, Ron, thanks. I feel loads better.” And he meant it.
Ron, however, was no longer paying attention. He had seen the letter addressed to the both of them sitting on the doormat. He picked it up and considered it for a moment. “Blimey, I almost forgot,” he said, pulling two more letters out of one of the pockets of his crimson Auror robes. “These are for you – they didn’t know if we were still living at the Burrow or not, so they gave them to me at work instead.”
Harry took the letters and followed Ron down to the basement kitchen, sitting down to examine the letters. As Ron got up and busied himself with the kitchen, Harry set about opening the other letters. The first letter was from Kingsley Shacklebolt, and the second was from Bill and Fleur, all wishing him a happy birthday. Upon Ron’s request, Harry opened the letter addressed to them both and read it aloud.
"Dear Harry and Ron,
"First of all, happy birthday, Harry! I’m not yet sure how reliable this international mail service is, so I hope it reaches you by the thirty-first of July. Second of all, I’m so sorry for not writing earlier – I’ve just been so, so busy, I’ve barely had any time to spare! I’ve been thinking of you both, all day and all night. I miss you both loads, and I hope I’ll be able to return soon.
"Australia is so, so interesting. The morning I left, I arrived by International Floo Network in their Ministry of Magic. It’s so incredibly different from ours, I can only hope you both get a chance to see it someday! Did you know Australia is particularly famous for its study of aquatic herbs and magical creatures? Also, Runecasting is taken much more seriously here than in the United Kingdom. You can imagine how interested I was when I heard that, because of my job at the Translation Office.
"As for my parents, I’m disappointed to say that I’ve been struggling to break through to them. I’ve found them all right – they’re living in Sydney, just as I planned, under the pseudonym of –"
Ron looked up from whatever it was he was preparing, which actually smelled quite good. “What the bloody hell is a pseudonym?”
“No idea,” Harry shrugged indifferently and continued.
"– under the pseudonym of Mr and Mrs Wilkins, and still working in a dental firm. I won’t lie, this task has been quite frustrating so far, and most of my efforts have been unsuccessful so far.
"Anyway, I hope you both have a great day, and thanks again, Harry, for letting me borrow the Invisibility Cloak. It’s helped me loads.
"Lots of love,
"Hermione Jean Granger"
Harry and Ron remained silent for a while. He could tell they were feeling the same things: worry for Hermione, disappointment that her parents had not yet faced the truth, and longing for her to be there with them soon. Ron had just set out three plates of stir fry on the kitchen table when the silence was finally broken by the doorbell ringing. Harry started, surprised the ancient house even had a doorbell, but Ron got to his feet and bounded up the stairs three at a time to answer.
After a brief moment of solitude during which Harry could hear two voices conversing animatedly upstairs, Ron descended again accompanied by none other than Luna Lovegood, perhaps the person Harry was least expecting at this hour.
“Er – hi, Luna!” he shouted a little too loudly. “What a pleasant surprise!”
“Yes, I imagine it is,” she said in her usual dreamy tone. “Ron wrote to me and asked if I could come over for your birthday party. Dad still suspects you’re busy with the Quidditch World Cup, though,” she added conspiratorially. Ron grinned at Harry from behind her back.
Together, the three of them dug into Ron’s stir fry, and when they were finished, he brought out the fresh-baked strawberry rhubarb pie he had been working on that afternoon, which was exceptional. Harry couldn’t tell if it was the Mending Potion, the food, or the company that was lifting his spirits more, but as he leaned back and pushed his clean plate away from him, he realized he didn’t want to be anywhere in the world other than that dingy basement with Ron Weasley and Luna Lovegood.
Luna was just explaining the weekend trip she had taken with her father to see Icelandic Gryffin Banes in the wild when Harry opened the cupboard and pulled out an ample stash of butterbeer cases he had seen Sirius restocking over Christmas break in his fifth year at Hogwarts. They toasted to their friendship, and to the war being over, and to Hermione and Ginny and Neville, and a comfortable silence fell once more as each one took a long draught.
“Oh, I’ve just remembered,” said Luna, wiping foam from her upper lip as Harry reached for a second bottle. “I was meaning to ask for a long time… Gin’s got tickets to the Quidditch World Cup final this year – she says she wants to take me. Did you know it’s in Spain? Dad says the Spanish Minister of Magic traded away nearly a hundred singing garden pixies for the opportunity to host it. He has a monopoly on singing garden pixies, you know, he keeps them all at his estate in the mountains, apparently the combined noise of all of them can be quite dangerous…” Harry met Ron’s eyes and concealed his laughter behind a polite-sounding cough. Luna, unfortunately, seemed to see through this, and found her way back to the main point with a slightly cooler tone. “Anyway, we still have two extra tickets, would you two be interested in joining us?”
“Interested?” Ron said in a hushed voice, as if saying it too loud would make it untrue. “Interested?” He was now opening and closing his mouth, at a complete loss for words, wearing a most bewildered expression on his face.
“Er – I’m not sure, Luna,” said Harry, “we’ll have to talk it over –”
“Of course we’re in,” said Ron, finding his voice again. “We’d be glad to join you, Luna.” As soon as Luna had turned her back, Harry watched Ron punch the air in triumph. Deep down, he couldn’t help but feel a rush of excitement himself.
---
The upcoming Quidditch World Cup final on Saturday was all Harry and Ron could think about for the following week. It even, fortunately, helped soften the disappointment of Algeria’s devastating defeat against Haiti, such that by the end of Tuesday evening, they had already moved on to discussing whether it would be Panama or Czech Republic that Haiti would face that weekend. Ultimately, Harry was right – Panama walked away victorious from their semi-final on Thursday – but they had already mutually decided to root for Haiti either way.
On Friday, while Ron was still at work, Harry found himself feeling particularly restless in anticipation for the following day, so he decided to occupy himself by taking a trip to Diagon Alley for supplies for their trip. It was his first major trip out of Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place since he had moved back in. He wondered if he would come across old acquaintances and, if they asked him what he had been up to since the war, what he would reply.
His first question was answered almost immediately after entering the Leaky Cauldron: Cho Chang, Ernie Macmillan, and Susan Bones were sitting in a booth sharing some butterbeers. He had nearly succeeded in traversing the entire bar without being seen when Ernie hailed him over with a characteristic pompous wave of his hand.
After patiently waiting through Susan’s stories from the Auror office, Cho’s continued hopes of playing for the Tutshill Tornados, and Ernie’s new career of what he so eloquently described as “freelancing,” Harry managed to break away and enter Diagon Alley.
It was, as Harry had simultaneously feared and expected, still recovering from the war. Many of the stores remained abandoned, a dull gray scar reminding every passerby of what had come before. Turning a corner, Mr Ollivander’s shop remained empty and boarded up; just across the street, it appeared that three new wand shops had sprouted up in its wake, in direct and unabashed competition. Gringotts, standing tall and noble at the end of the street, was still blocked off due to reconstruction. Dragon claws, Harry remembered, left deep cuts.
In the end, however, most of the reopened shops, as Harry was pleased to see, were thriving; in some cases, positively bustling with young witches and wizards preparing for the upcoming school year. The Apothecary, Madam Malkin’s, and Flourish and Blotts were packed full with the usual jostling families. Gazing at Flourish and Blotts, he remembered another time he had been there, just before his second year at Hogwarts, when he had met the arrogant, self-obsessed Gilderoy Lockhart, who went on to become Harry, Ron, and Hermione’s Defense Against the Dark Arts professor that year. Harry wondered who was filling that post this year, but decided against asking.
Harry passed by the vibrant Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes building, in full rush hour mode that term was to begin in less than a month, promising to visit it later when the crowd had died down somewhat. Instead, he directed himself to the picked-over and now nearly-empty Quidditch Supplies Shop. Minutes later, he left with four fewer galleons and a pair of dark blue T-shirts proudly boasting the logo of the Federation Haitienne du Quidditch, a red-and-blue shield surrounded by golden broomsticks on either side. The display of new, upgraded Omnioculars had been tempting, but as he still had the ones he had bought four years ago, he decided it was not worth the fifteen galleons each.
Bounty in hand, he began to make his way back up the alley by the way he came. On his left, the shining, golden sign reading “MAGICAL MENAGERIE” attracted his attention. But despite the difficulties of not owning an owl, his continuing grief for Hedwig’s death prevented him from entering.
At last he arrived at Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes, which was beginning to empty out before its closing at four o’clock. The bell rang as he opened the door.
He found George advertising one of the diverse uses of a Venetian Vibrating Wand on the upper floor.
“Hullo, Harry!” he roared, handing the product off to a potential buyer when he saw his visitor. “What brings you here?”
“I was just doing some shopping and I thought I’d come by to see how the shop is doing,” said Harry politely. “It looks great, really, George, I’m so glad you’ve reopened.”
“Yeah, well, couldn’t have managed it without your advice, could I, Harry?” he said, putting his arm around Harry’s shoulder. “Actually, I think most of the customers are rather charmed by old One-eared Weasley. What have you got there?” he said suddenly, snatching at Harry’s bundle of T-shirts and unrolling one to display the Haitian team’s logo. “Merlin’s beard! Going to the World Cup, are we?”
“Yeah, Ginny and Luna have got tickets, they invited Ron and me along,” said Harry emphatically.
“Cool,” said George, grinning broadly. “We were actually thinking of setting up a tent outside the stadium to sell merchandise, but it turns out rules about importing foreign goods – especially Weasley products – tend to be stringent and restrictive at best…”
But Harry had already stopped paying attention. He had just seen a tall, sulky young man with white-blond hair walk past. Was that… Draco Malfoy? It looked like him. While it wasn’t unheard of for him to visit Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes, it was certainly uncharacteristic. Harry was intrigued now. Unfortunately for him, there was no time to investigate, as a group of talkative fourteen-year-olds had just occupied the space between Harry and the stairs Malfoy had already started to descend. Once down, he headed out the exit without a backward glance and George suddenly said, “Well, it’s nearly closing time, I suppose we should start wrapping this all up. Please feel free to stay if you like, we could have a butterbeer at the Leaky Cauldron…”
“Oh,” said Harry, “er – no, thanks, George, I’d better get going. See you later.”
George traipsed off to shoo some fourteen-year-olds toward the exit. As Harry made his way to the Apothecary to pick up some more potion ingredients for Ron, the looming gray clouds threatened an oncoming summer thunderstorm.