The Great Story Challenge

The Great Story Challenge is a full story challenge in which you include certain details we give you. It's a finished story of 1000 words or more, and you have all month to write it. This thread will be open between July 1 and 30, so please post before the end of the day on July 30th.

You may build your main plot and other details yourself, but please include all of the following details.

1. Each story must be approx. 1000 words or more and have an original title.
   
   
2. Your main character is Harry, Ron, Hermione or Sirius Black.
   
   
3. The story takes place around Harry's birthday (any birthday)
   
   
4. Voldemort sends Harry a present (either from present time or something from the past that reaches Harry now). Tell us what it is and save him from it.
   
   
5. Hagrid gives Harry a carnivorous creature that looks like a harmless party hat
   
   
6. Rita Skeeter, reformed, is a voice for truth and justice in the media. She is an honored guest. Let her embarrass a character you don't like at the birthday party.
   
   
7. Someone brings a pet jarvy to the party, and it inadvertently saves someone's life.

Happy writing!

Please only post story entries in this thread. All discussion belongs in this thread.

Here is my 1st post to the Fan Fiction forum. I've written it in the context of a theoretical opening chapter to the 7th Harry Potter book, following the set guidelines of course. You did say at least 1000 words, didn't you ? Anyhow, please enjoy.

Durro

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A Somewhat Unhappy Birthday

Although it was just after the middle of summer, late in July, an unearthly fog shrouded much of Britain around the clock. Even at midday, the sun struggled to break through the thick mist and the resulting dim light cast the land into a state of perpetual dusk. Meteorologists across the country were perplexed by the phenomenon which now was stubbornly entering its seventh straight week. They studied their satellite photos, analysed their data and shrugged their shoulders in sad resignation, for none could explain the existence, let alone the continuation, of what clearly should be impossible according to all of their textbooks, as well as their collective common sense.

The fog made international news and swiftly became the butt of many jokes. In the USA, one late night TV show host suggested that the dense mist would increase the British population rate as they couldn’t clearly see each others’ bad teeth. Another quipped that the tolling of the bells in Big Ben were soon to be replaced by the blasts of a foghorn. Some of the many international tourists actually enjoyed the increased spooky atmosphere created by the fog, as they took part in ghost walks along the Royal Mile in Edinburgh or one of several “Jack the Ripper tours” that winded through some of the seedier parts of London.

But for the British people, the novelty of the fog soon wore off and only added to the general sense of doom and gloom that had befallen the country of late. A series of disasters had recently occurred, adding to the morose atmosphere created by the unseasonal weather. Three separate commercial plane crashes and dozens of light plane losses had happened in the preceding several weeks. The resultant loss of life from the crashes created an outpouring of grief and a dramatic reduction in air travel due to the increasing nervousness of the flying public. The fog was blamed for some of the incidents but many suspected the involvement of some shadowy terrorist network. A recent gasworks explosion, the sinking of a oil tanker off the Firth of Forth, two major commuter train derailments and a series of inexplicable and unsolved murders across the nation added to the general depression which had began to sweep the country. Politicians and law enforcement agencies were told to do something by the small minority actually angry and frightened enough to rise above their malaise and complain to the authorities.

From within his office in Number 10 Downing Street, the Prime Minister sadly shook his head at his own inability to act on the recent events. He went through the motions of listening to reports from Scotland Yard about the mysterious deaths, the carnage wreaked upon the transport system and the other disasters with a mounting sense of melancholy. He empathized with the plight of many of his fellow citizens but it was with little real conviction that he directed the authorities to investigate and apprehend the perpetrators, the non-existent terrorists. The PM publicly voiced guarded optimism about a swift resolution to the problems and tried to reassure the population but privately however, the PM was a deeply conflicted man. He simply could not bring himself to reveal to another living soul that the accidents, the killings and even the damned fog were the result of a war raging within the magical world of witches and wizards. People would surely look upon him as a lunatic if he came out and said that the Ministry of Magic kept him updated about the clashes between the followers of You-Know-Who and those in the Ministry and/or the Order of the Phoenix. He would end up in a rubber room with wrap around apparel if he dared to voice the truth that the damned fog was a magical by-product of the secret war being waged unbeknown by most, except those unfortunates occasionally drawn into the conflict and made the unwitting and usually very surprised victims of it, such as the planeload of terrified BA passengers blasted out of the sky by a flying formation of Death Eaters only just last week. No, the Prime Minister kept his private briefings by the assortment of wizards and witches who popped out of his fireplace very much to himself and he silently prayed that the tragic events caused by the magic world would soon be resolved and cease to spill over into everyday existence.

The PM was not the only muggle (non-magic person) in Britain with some knowledge of the war currently raging within the wizarding world. At number 4 Privet Drive, Little Whinging, the occupants were very well aware indeed, given that their nephew Harry was directly involved in the battle. The Dursleys had reluctantly taken in the infant Harry some 16 years earlier following his parents’ deaths at the hands of the world greatest dark wizard, Lord Voldemort and had, more or less, provided Harry a safe home to grow up in. It could not be said that the home environment was either loving or comfortable, but it did at least provide Harry with shelter, food and a basic muggle education prior to Harry’s enrolment at the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, where Harry learned many and varied things about magic and its uses.

However, the main thing that the Dursleys’ home provided for Harry was a safe haven, protected by strong magical charms and Aunt Petunia’s blood ties to Harry’s mother. Harry was guaranteed protection from attack, as long as he returned to the Dursleys whenever he was outside of Hogwarts, such as during the summer break. Harry’s great friend, mentor and teacher, Albus Dumbledore had insisted (before his untimely death) that Harry return and remain there until his 17th birthday, at which time Harry would come of age and the protection charm would cease to exist. Dumbledore had recently reminded Aunt Petunia about this and despite their serious misgivings, the Dursleys were more afraid of the wrath of Dumbledore and the other wizards that had previously visited Harry and they allowed their nephew to stay - until tonight that is.

It was the eve of Harry’s birthday and the Dursleys - Vernon, Petunia and the imposing figure of the schoolboy boxing champion Dudley - were gathered in the lounge of their little home. It was five minutes to midnight and by definition, 5 minutes to Harry’s seventeenth birthday. The Dursleys, however, were not gathered in preparation to celebrate any birthday. In fact, the only celebrating that they would be doing was when Harry left them at last, and took his mysterious and quite frightening magical associations with him. Over the years, the Dursleys had endured much to their dislike because of Harry and were anxious to see him leave for the final time. The Dursleys were waiting on a visit from Arthur Weasley, who had earlier promised to come and collect Harry and take him with him once Harry became “of age” and the magical protection of the Dursley home expired.

Harry was upstairs in his bedroom, packing the last of his belongings into his trunk. Worn copies of wizarding texts, enchanted photographs whose subjects moved as if in a movie and unruly piles of clothes were cast into the trunk by the flick of Harry’s wand. Harry had gotten proficient in packing, albeit not very neatly, as is the case for most teenage boys.

“We’re leaving at last Hedwig” said a grinning Harry to his owl, who was perched in her cage, unblinkingly watching Harry’s every move. Harry was exhilarated at the prospect of leaving his Aunt and Uncle’s household after 16 years of mistreatment and constant tension. Truth be told, his stomach churned at the prospect of the unknown which lay ahead, but for now, Harry was just pleased to leave this existence behind and immerse himself in the wonderful world of magic at last. Harry’s heart leapt at the sound of a gentle tapping at the Dursley’s front door just after the stroke of midnight. He grabbed Hedwig’s cage, pointed his wand at the trunk and intoned locomotor trunk and eagerly set off down the stairs, cage in hand and trunk magically floating behind.

“I’ll get it” mumbled Vernon and with a considerable effort, pried his large frame from out of his armchair and stomped off towards the front door. He opened it and to his surprise, nobody was there. At least nobody human, for the source of the tapping was a scrawny brown owl standing below on the welcome mat. The mat’s invitation was a misnomer of course, as very few people indeed were made to feel welcome at the Dursleys’ house. Particularly not an owl with an envelope clasped within its little scarred beak, as Vernon had previously nearly had a nervous breakdown when his home was completely invaded by postal owls several years earlier.

“A ruddy owl !” exclaimed Vernon, as he steadied his bulky frame with an outstretched arm holding the doorknob and he bent down with quite an effort to snatch the envelope from the clearly frightened bird. He kicked out at the bird, which narrowly avoided the blow and hurriedly flew off into the misty night.

“What’s this?” asked a suspicious Vernon, returning to the lounge and puzzling over the envelope wrapped in a blood red coloured ribbon. He was over halfway back towards the lounge before he caught sight of Harry’s frozen form on the stairway from out of the corner of his eye.

“It’s a ….. howler”, said a stunned Harry, with a tone of dread that Vernon has never heard Harry use. And for Harry to be worried, something must be fearfully wrong in Vernon’s opinion for what Harry considered normal would cause most people to shudder in fear. Vernon quickly threw the envelope onto the coffee table in the lounge as though it was a poisonous snake and stood back as the envelope began to smoulder and unfurl of its own accord.

Hedwig’s cage and the trunk clattered on the stairs as Harry hurriedly rushed towards the lounge, his wand drawn at the ready for whatever might eventuate. He desperately hoped that he was wrong, but the twinges of pain in his scar that first started when the howler arrived gave him a sinking feeling that this was not going to be good. The envelope completed its opening and the dark smoke emanating from it slowly took the form of a skull with a ghostly snake writhing around its cranium and through its empty eye sockets. Harry clutched his hand to his scar, which was now burning with a fierce intensity, as the now familiar and dreadfully cold, high pitched voice emanating from the howler filled the room.

“Happy Birthday Harry….your protection charm has expired…..it’s a fair fight now and the gloves have come off…..I hope you'll like the present I sent you.”

Lord Voldemort’s voice resonated around the room and a deep chill ran through Harry and the Dursleys.

“Get out. Get out right now” Harry gasped out the order, as Voldemort’s cruel laughter filled the room and the howler spontaneously combusted in a shower of red sparks and flames.

“You…you can’t order me around in my own ruddy home” sputtered an angry Vernon over the crackles of the flames which had started to take hold on the table. Petunia had grabbed a cushion off the couch and was desperately trying to pat the flames down.

“There’s the door. Leave now and never come back with your freakish friends and your ruddy magic”. Vernon pointed a chubby finger at the door. At that moment though, the front door loudly exploded inwards in a shower of splinters and spurts of flame. Vernon’s jaw dropped in complete shock as a man dressed in dark wizarding robes and with shoulder length platinum blonde hair boldly strode through the smoking opening.

“Expelliarmus!” roared Lucius Malfoy, pointing his wand at Harry as he crossed the wrecked threshold with a triumphant look upon his cruel face. Harry’s wand leaped across the room, clattering behind the couch and Harry was forcibly thrown against the lounge room wall by the sheer power of the curse, the breath clearly knocked out of him.

“Crucio!” sneered the advancing Malfoy, and Harry’s entire world was filled with stabbing knives and unbearable jolts of electricity throughout his entire body. His mind screamed for release from the agony but his throat was locked in paralysis.

“Get out of my home!” bellowed Vernon, as Petunia and Dudley dove behind the couch and hid from the terrible scene before them. Vernon’s face glowed red and his chest heaved as his terrible temper unwisely took hold. This was the last straw. He could take no more, and he advanced on the blond haired wizard who had invaded his home and was gleefully torturing Harry.

“Your type is not welcome and I demand that you leave now!” he roared, poking Malfoy sharply in the chest with his chubby index finger.

Malfoy regarded Vernon with contempt and turned his wand away from Harry, who was given a temporary reprieve from the torture. Vernon backed away uneasily, quickly regretting his bravado.

Malfoy hissed “Avada Kedavra” and the stunned Vernon dropped to the ground, dead, having been hit full on by the green coloured killing curse.

“Nooooooooo” wailed the cowering Petunia, as Lucius turned back toward the crumpled form of Harry.

“Happy Birthday Potter”, chuckled Malfoy. “Since your protection charm has now expired, it was a simple matter for Lord Voldemort to send a howler and for me to follow the postal owl to your home. I’m your birthday present from the Dark Lord and I’m here to take you back with me. But not before we have some more fun, shall we? Crucio !” and Harry’s vision turned black around the edges again while his body contorted and twitched uncontrollably as it was wracked by the curse’s agony.

“Are we having fun yet?” mocked Malfoy, as he once again released Harry from the pain. “I can keep this up all night if you wish, but mark my word Potter, this is nothing compared to what the Dark Lord will do to you when he finally has you in his hands again.”

Behind the couch, Dudley and Petunia quivered in fear and anger. They looked furtively around for an escape route, but they knew that they would not get far before being cut down by the sheer evil power of the wizard before them. Petunia clutched her son by the shoulder and stared into Dudley’s eyes with a look of desperation, causing something inside Dudley to stir. The fog of war cleared from Dudley’s mind and an idea almost too startling to comprehend started to form. Keeping an eye on the scene before him, Dudley edged along between the wall and the back of the couch, fingers clawing for what he knew was there. At last, his hands gratefully gripped Harry’s discarded wand and he stood up boldly. Dudley remembered the hateful word and took in a deep breath, pointing Harry’s wand at the unaware Malfoy, whose concentration was still fully elsewhere.

“Crucio” Dudley screamed and he felt all of his pent up hatred and anger course through his trembling body and out the wand as a red jet of light struck Malfoy and caused him to fall to the ground, howling in pain. Still slumped against the wall, Harry’s eyes opened wide in shock as Dudley leapt over the couch and advanced on the prostrated form of Malfoy, kicking Lucius’s dropped wand out of easy reach in the process. Malfoy quickly regained his senses and rose to his feet, his confused eyes darting around to find his lost wand. The last thing that Malfoy saw out of his peripheral vision was Dudley’s enormous right fist flying through the air and connecting with his jaw. Dudley had put every ounce of anger he could muster behind the knockout blow, and with a sickening crunch, Malfoy went down for the count like the proverbial sack of potatoes.

It was hard to say who was the most stunned – Petunia, Harry or Dudley himself. Lucius never had the chance to be surprised as he was rendered unconscious for the better part of an hour and would later wake up with a broken jaw and heavily bruised left eye.

“Oh my God” said Harry, as he took in the significance of the moment. He shakily rose to his feet, needing to hold the arm of the couch to do so. “I never knew….” he trailed off.

“We thought that this might happen one day” said Petunia flatly in a monotone voice. Harry’s head spun sharply and he stared at amazement at this revelation from his Aunt.

“Dumbledore told us that Dudley could be magical, but we never wanted Dudders to know it. My sister was a witch and it was always possible that it would come through to Dudley. Blood ties you see. We hoped that it wouldn’t be the case and that he would be…well, normal”, said Petunia, breaking down in tears and hugging Dudley fiercely.

“I heard what that guy said and how it made Harry hurt” replied Dudley. “I just wanted to hurt him back for Dad”. At the mention of Vernon, both Petunia and Dudley broke down and knelt together, arms wrapped around each other, by Vernon’s limp form.

"Even though Dudley is untrained in wizardry, I guess that his raw emotion made the curse at least partially effective" Harry said quietly, almost to himself, still trying to come to terms with this revelation.

Harry gently walked over and took his wand out of Dudley’s yielding hand. A brief look of new understanding passed between them and Harry gave a subtle nod of thanks to his cousin. Leaving the Dursleys to their grief for the moment, Harry walked over and sat down heavily on a chair near the immobile form of Lucius Malfoy, wand at the ready just in case he stirred. Harry tried to clear his mind about what to do next.

The scene was soon interrupted though by the cries of Arabella Figg, the Squib who lived across the road, who entered through the ruined door with Arthur Weasley and Mad Eye Moody in tow, wands drawn at the ready.

“See, I told you it was Malfoy” shrieked a clearly distressed Figg pointing at the body on the floor.
“Settle down Arabella” said a surprisingly calm Moody. “He’s clearly not going anywhere. We were already flying on the way to get you Harry, but got delayed by this damned fog. We found Arabella in a right old state across the road, swearing that she thought that Lucius Malfoy had just gone into the house, but it seems that we arrived too late for the fun. Got him with a stunner did you lad?” asked Moody.

“Well, actually…” started a shaken Harry, who was interrupted by Arthur Weasley.

“Never mind for now Harry, we have to get you out of here, it’s not safe.” ordered Arthur. “Alastor, you take care of this piece of filth. I’m going to fly back to the Burrow with Harry. Clean up as best you can before the muggle police come.”

Arthur turned to the Dursleys and said “I’m sorry that it came to this. You should know that we won’t be bothering you anymore and that you should be safe from now on. Harry is coming with me and probably won’t return” and with that rather curt statement, a clearly worried Arthur gathered together Harry’s things and loaded up his and Harry’s brooms for the flight to the Burrow.

Harry had time to mutter a quick goodbye to the grieving Dursleys before he was swept out the door and ordered in no uncertain terms to closely follow next to Arthur’s broom. It was too dark and foggy to make out much, and the rushing of the wind prevented much conversation. The flight through the foggy sky passed uneventfully though and finally the duo landed safely at The Burrow, the family home of the Weasleys, well past midnight.

END OF PART ONE

PART TWO

Most of the family was asleep, except for a extremely worried Molly Weasley who had been nervously sitting at the kitchen table awaiting their arrival and staring at the family clock. The clock was enchanted to give the disposition of the entire Weasley family. Where it used to indicate “at work”, “at school” or the like, its hands with all of the Weasley clan’s names on them were all quite ominously pointing towards “mortal peril” and had been for the better part of a year, since the wizarding war erupted anew. She welcomed Harry’s arrival with a sigh of relief and tears in her eyes. Harry was nearly smothered by the fierce hug afforded to him by Molly when he walked through the door. She tightened her grip even more when Arthur briefly told her what had happened in Privet Drive and it was only with some reluctance that she finally let go of Harry. Arthur suggested that Harry had been through a lot that evening and that he should belatedly go to bed. A very weary Harry agreed and set off for some sleep. As Harry climbed the stairs towards Ron’s room, Molly called out “Harry dear, happy birthday. Try to get some rest won’t you, as we do have quite a lovely day planned for you to celebrate.”

Harry nodded in tired submission and quietly entered Ron’s room to find the occupant snoring away obliviously. Harry smiled a genuine smile for the first time in weeks, and fell exhausted into the spare bed, falling asleep in seconds.

Late the following morning, Harry was woken by the laughter and good natured ribbing of his friends who, despite Molly Weasley’s stern threats to leave Harry alone to sleep-in or else, could not contain themselves and wanted to wish Harry a happy birthday on his special day. The Weasley twins, Fred and George bounced on the end of Harry’s bed chanting get up get up get up and Hermione rushed through the open doorway to give Harry a hug. Harry reached for his glasses by the bedside and sat up to see his friends through his sleep filled eyes. Beaming radiant smiles back at him were the twins, Ron, Hermione, and now sitting on the edge of the bed, Ginny.

“Come on you lot” said Fred after several minutes of good natured jesting at Harry’s expense. “Let’s let sleeping beauty wake up and get himself organised”

“Yeah Potter, get dressed and we’ll see you in the backyard for a game of Quidditch” George added.

and with that, the red headed twins apparated out of the room with a loud pop.

Hermione caught the look between Harry and Ginny and discretely ushered Ron out of the room, leaving the recent lovers alone again.

“Ginny, I….” began Harry. Ginny put a finger to Harry’s lips, hushing him instantly.

“Now’s not the time” said Ginny sadly, “but we do need to talk soon. I’ve done a lot of thinking over the summer. See you downstairs when you’re ready.” Ginny leaned over and gave Harry a quick kiss on the lips and with that, Ginny swept out of the room leaving Harry alone. A little later on, a suitably dressed and refreshed Harry wandered downstairs to find party preparations in full swing.

“Morning Harry dear,” waved Mrs Weasley, who was the queen bee in the hive of activity in the kitchen. Dishes and utensils flew around the kitchen at the flick of her wand and a sumptuous feast was obviously soon in the offering. Harry knew better than to interrupt Mrs Weasley’s concentration when she was cooking and headed towards the rear of the house where he heard the shouts of delight coming from a game of backyard Quidditch.

Fred, Ron, and two Gryffindors in Harry’s year, Neville and Seamus were on one team. George, Hermione, Ginny and (don’t call her Nymphadora) Tonks were on the opposing side. Much to the consternation of the predominantly boys team, George and the girls were winning handsomely. Laughter frequently rang out as the combatants flew on their brooms at high speed around the yard. As Harry watched smiling, Neville reached out tentatively for the quaffle and inadvertently fell off his broom, landing with an audible thump on the ground.

Harry saw that Luna Lovegood was sitting under an old oak tree nearby, making a daisy turn different colours of the rainbow with waves of her wand and seemingly oblivious to the game going on around her. Inexplicably draped across her shoulders was a rather large, and presumably dead ferret. However, Harry was used to “Loony” Lovegood wearing a range of bizarre outfits and thought little more of her strange fur wrap.

“Um, Hi Luna” said Harry cheerfully.

“Up Yours” came the sharp reply.

“Errrrr, what did you say?” replied a clearly stunned Harry.

“Oh, Hi Harry” said Luna in a somewhat dreamy fashion. “It wasn’t me who said that. It’s my Jarvy” she said, pointing her wand up to the ferret, which had now lifted its head and started eying Harry off suspiciously.

“Your what?” asked a perplexed Harry. The magical world just kept getting stranger and stranger he thought.

“A Jarvy. They can speak a bit, but this one tends to just insult people. As if I didn’t have enough friends as it is….” Luna replied in her disturbingly frank manner.

“Looooooser” piped up the Jarvy, with unfortunate timing.

“Errrrr, well that’s nice Luna” Harry said, not really meaning it. “I guess I’ll see you at the party”

and with a shrug of his shoulders, Harry headed over towards the group of wizards standing near the large table that the Weasleys has set up just outside from the kitchen. It was lavished with edible goodies and decorations. Fred and George had obviously supplied some goods from their wildly successful joke shop, as the punch bowl periodically belched out ominous, multicoloured mushroom clouds and somewhat regretably, soon after Arthur had rather absentmindedly reached for a sweet from a bowl he had a sudden explosive nosebleed. The quidditch game was called to a temporary halt so that George and Fred could administer the antidote to their patented and very popular NoseBleed Nougat. They had to use their wands to scourgify! the bloodstains off Arthur’s shirtfront before their mother caught them red handed. Molly’s wrath was well documented and the twins avoided it at all costs, but not always successfully.

Hagrid was there, handing out party hats to the other guests, who included Remus Lupin, Mad-Eye Moody, Kingsley Shacklebolt, Mundungus Fletcher and much to Harry’s surprise, Rita Skeeter. Harry walked over and was warmly welcomed by most of the adult wizards. However, Moody had been set off by the nougat fiasco and was busy lecturing a captive Remus and Rita on basic security techniques. Harry angled away towards Hagrid to avoid the worst of Moody’s lecture and Mung too, wisely melted into the background, eying off the silverware with a lick of his lips.

“Constant vigilance!” roared Moody. “Can’t you see that that could have been a poisonous toffee sent by You-Know-Who himself?”

“Easy Alastor” soothed Lupin. “It was nothing but a harmless prank by Fred or George”.

“There is nothing harmless about it at all, when we could be under attack at anytime, just like Potter was last night” exclaimed a worked up Moody, whose magical eye had begun spinning wildly in a 360 degree search for non-existent enemies.

“Careful with that thing Alastor” said Rita, dripping with sarcasm. “You’re likely to put someone’s eye out….other than your own of course”.

“You’ll lose more than an eye if I had my way” growled Moody.

“I’d like to be a fly on the wall at your place sometime Moody”, purred Rita. “I imagine that it would be most entertaining, what with you cursing any living thing that got within 100 feet of your place. Ding dong, good evening sir, it’s the Mormons come to bless your house….zappppp …..aarrrrrggghhhhhh !!! I can just see it now” she smirked.

“Fly on the wall ? Ha!, that’s a good one coming from an unregistered animagus whose transformation is into a bloody bug!” replied Moody, his face turning redder with each retort.

“Better an unregistered animagus than an officially registered and well documented pain in the butt, Alastor sweetie” purred Rita, her eyes flashing wickedly at the verbal sparring.

“A pain in the butt I may be missy, but the day will come when I am proven right and you will be surely sorry that you didn’t listen to my advice” snarled Moody.

“Darling, even a broken watch is correct twice a day, so just you keep up with the excessive paranoia, won’t you?” Rita said acidly.

Lupin coughed to disguise his chuckle and the usually stoic Shacklebolt broke out into a sly grin. Behind Moody, Harry snorted a mouthful of his recently acquired butterbeer out of his nose and went into a coughing fit, getting a bone jarring whack on the back from Hagrid for his trouble.

Lupin was fairly sure that he could see small wisps of steam coming from Moody’s ears, and in a timely intervention, pointed out to everyone that the birthday cake was about to arrive. From the kitchen, Molly magically floated the cake across the yard and onto the centre of the table.

“Take your seats please” she sung out, and all of the guests made their way over to the table for the party.

The cake was large and oval, in the shape of a Quidditch pitch. Enchanted players made out of icing flew around the arena, chasing a tiny chocolate quaffle and bludgers. One of the players, an obvious facsimile of Harry, had the number 17 on his back (for his 17th birthday Molly explained) and flew around repeatedly catching and letting go the tiny gold snitch. The icing around the edges was in the form of a little crowd of thousands which, like the crowds from some of the Olympic opening ceremonies, repeatedly held up little sign boards which when joined together spelled out Happy Birthday Harry. The three goal posts at each end of the edible quidditch pitch served as the candles and periodically shot up multicoloured flames like mini flame throwers.

Hagrid moved his rather large frame around the table, handing out a mishmash of gaudily coloured and very unattractive party hats to the guests from a telescoped column of hats he carried around in his enormous hands. Not wishing to offend his friend by refusing one of the awful hats, Harry reluctantly accepted his and placed it on his head, only to almost immediately feel the quite disturbing sensation that something that was surely gnawing on his scalp. Harry quickly whipped off his hat and received a bite on his fingers from the hat, which now seemed to have sharp little fangs.

“What the ?” Harry cried out in alarm, as he shook the hat off his bleeding hand onto the table. The hat quickly turned into a small, evil looking lizard, which immediately dove into the birthday cake and became the new 4th goal post at one end of the quidditch pitch. Whilst the incredulous guests looked on, the goal post quickly snapped at an enchanted icing figure which flew too close and bit it clean in half before resuming its original position as an innocent looking goalpost.

“Oh dear, I’d wondered where’d I’d put that thing” Hagrid apologised, as he snatched the goalpost out of the cake and placed it in his pocket. “It’s a Transylvanian chameleon, it is” explained Hagrid. “Little blighters can disguise themselves as almost anything, but they can get a bit snappy. Carnivorous ye see. I must’ve left him near the party hats before I left home and he hid inside them. Wouldn’t hurt a fly, really tho”

“******** !” said the ferret around Luna’s neck, which caused George, who was sitting next to it, to laugh and accidentally snort back one of his candies, causing him to choke. George grasped his throat, leant back on his chair and fell to the ground, his face turning redder by the second.

“Oh Fred, stop acting the fool and get up” demanded Molly Weasley, who was tending to Harry’s wound.

“I’m Fred” said the other Weasley twin, “and I don’t think that he’s fooling around”.

“Actually, I think he’s choking to death” said Luna in her usual frank manner, “Bye Fred, it was nice knowing you,” she said with tears welling up in her huge, already sad eyes.

As a now worried Molly frantically reached inside her cooking apron for her wand, Luna leaned over the now bluish George to grasp his hand and give it a reassuring pat as he lay dying. However, she accidentally caused the Jarvy to slip off from around her neck and several kilograms of trash talking ferret landed squarely on George’s upper abdomen, just below his ribs, and the resulting upward pressure drove the air from his lungs and forced the offending lolly out of his blocked windpipe. It shot out of George’s mouth onto the grass and was quickly eaten by the Jarvy which had scurried under Luna's chair. George finally gasped in a lungful of air, the colour quickly returning to his face. The subsequent hugs and tears of his distraught mother quickly turned his face red again, but at least this time it was not going to be a near-fatal condition, unless one really can die of embarrassment.

“Ahem, well, a toast” said Arthur, trying to get the festivities back on track when the commotion subsided. “To Harry – we wish him, well, a somewhat happy birthday and here’s hoping for many more to come”.

“Here, here” chorused the group, except for Luna who bluntly pronounced “Unless Voldemort kills him first”, much to the collective horror of the party goers.

“Well, thanks for the vote of confidence Luna, but I have some thoughts on that” Harry chuckled. “And now that I’m finally of age, here’s what I plan to do about Voldemort.”

The whole group expectantly drew up to the table and focussed intently on Harry, who said “Well firstly, I’m going to……”

And as the Jarvy enthusiastically scavenged around the table for more food scraps, insulting anyone too mean to drop him a tidbit, Harrry started to outline his very clever plan.

THE END

Durro

P.S. It was too large to post as one story.