Being Different Year 6
A Perfect Birthday

Anne woke up and looked out the window, the sun was just beginning to rise outside the window, it looked like it would be a beautiful day.

“Good morning my beautiful goddess,” said Irwin waking up and stretching widely.

They snuggled in closer together and lay under the covers together for a few minutes.

Irwin had got back from his annual camping trip yesterday, so he had come to stay the night last night. This was the first proper nights sleep that Anne had had in a week without having taken dreamless sleep first.

“Happy Birthday my wonderful girl,” said Irwin before giving her another kiss.

“Wow,” muttered Anne, “it is my birthday!”

Between worrying about Neville’s parents, and waking up with a tall handsome young man in her bed she had completely forgotten that today was her birthday.

Anne checked her watch, it said it was a quarter to six.

“Do you want to go practise some wandless magic?” she asked.

Irwin shrugged; he had seen Anne make objects fly around the room fifty times before.

They both got dressed quickly, Anne pulled on a light blue floral print summer dress and did her hair in one long plait down her back before pulling on a pair of tan coloured sandals.

She looked out the window and saw that there were already several people in the park, so she couldn’t practise outside today then.

Glass of water trick it was then, she had only started doing this over the summer holidays, so Irwin had never seen this before.

She poured herself a glass of water and placed it down on the kitchen table.

Irwin sat down at the kitchen table and looked at her confused as she handed him her wand.

Kreacher was bustling around the kitchen making the family breakfast.

She levitated the water out of the glass and formed it into a sphere in mid-air. She split it in to two smaller spheres of water and guided one around the room.

“Ok that’s pretty cool,” nodded Irwin.

Then she reformed the one large sphere of water and made a spiralling motion with one of her fingers the water formed into a tight spiral starting at the bottom and eventually turned into a tiny tornado.

“Woah!” exclaimed Irwin, “and that was just from a glass of water?”

“Hmmm,” she nodded as she placed the water back into the glass.

“You are the coolest girlfriend in the whole wide world,” he exclaimed getting up and giving her another kiss.

Anne blushed slightly and she pulled at the end of her plait.

“Have you tried doing this with fire yet?”

Anne shook her head frantically.

“I am not playing with fire, I am terrified of fire,” she stuttered.

“Oh yeah that’s right,” said Irwin remembering, “that’s why you have battery operated candles instead of real ones.”

“Morning kiddos,” said Sirius as he came into the kitchen.

“Morning Sirius,” said Anne as she sat back down at the table.

“Did you just see our mistress of the elementals at work?” asked Sirius.

“You bet,” nodded Irwin who was still trying to get over how powerful his girlfriend was.

Kreacher served pancakes and sausages for breakfast.

“So what are the birthday girl and boy planning on doing today?” asked Tonks.

“We still need to start watching Pole to Pole,” suggested Irwin.

“We need you two to get out of the house,” Remus pointed out.

“So no Palin then,” muttered Irwin.

“Well then in that case I’m going around to Ron’s,” said Harry as he finished his breakfast and went to go and fetch his jacket.

“Well it’s a nice day,” said Anne, “do you want to go to the park?”

“Sounds great, we could take a picnic,” said Irwin.

“Could you two take Teddy?” asked Tonks.

“We’re going to be busy setting up for tonight.”

“Hey why can’t I take Teddy?” protested Harry, “I’m his godfather!”

“Because last time you took Teddy you tried taking our three month old son for a hamburger and then you and Ron made a harness between your broomsticks and took him flying,” said Remus.

“Remus,” chuckled Sirius, “do you remember when James and I took Harry flying on my bike?”

“Which is why you aren’t allowed to look after teddy alone either,” said Remus, “I want my son to reach six months without falling fifty feet.”

“Fair enough,” muttered Harry pulling on his jacket and fluing over to the Weasley’s.

“Come on Teddy,” said Irwin picking up his little basket and putting him in his pram in the hallway.

Irwin helped Anne lift Teddy’s pram down the stairs outside the house, before Anne took over and pushed the pram to the park across the street.

“Why are people looking at us weirdly?” asked Irwin as they pushed Teddy’s pram through the park.

“Probably because they think we’re underage parents,” muttered Anne trying not to look at all the strangers that were staring at them.

It wasn’t helping that Teddy had changed his hair colour to dark red to match Anne’s so all three of them had red hair.

“Well screw that lot,” glared Irwin.

After a while they stopped and spread out a blanket to sit down on. Anne picked Teddy up from his pram and let him down to play in the grass.

Anne had brought her copy of the story of King Arthur which Anne and Irwin were taking it in turns to read from.

At the moment Irwin was reading about Lancelot, whilst Anne made some daisy chains and watched Teddy playing in the grass.

Anne had just finished making some long daisy chains and redone her hair so that she could plait the flowers into it.

“Annie,” said Irwin as he finished the end of the tale of Lancelot, “its four o’clock, we should head back.”

“Come on Teddy,” said Anne putting him back in his pram, “your Mummy and Daddy will have missed you.”

“So, any idea what’s planned for tonight?” asked Irwin as they started to push the pram back to Grimmauld Place.

“No, Remus and Sirius wanted it to be a surprise.”

“Last year’s party was awesome, there were so many people there, we watched tv all night and into the next day.”

“Yeah the tv was fun but there were too many people there for the first bit,” muttered Anne.

She hated her birthday parties, it was the annual even she dreaded the most all year, she didn’t like parties because of all the people but Harry loved them, so she put up with them for him.

“Come on Teddy,” said Anne as they lifted the pram up the stairs to the house, “let’s get this over with.”

“I’m sure it won’t be that bad Annie,” said Irwin trying to assure her.

Anne gave Irwin a significant look.

“Come on Annie,” he chuckled putting his arm around her as they took Teddy inside.

“Hey guys,” beamed Tonks, “how was your day?”

“Good,” said Irwin, “Teddy tried to catch a butterfly in his fist.”

They took off their jackets and Anne started heading towards the sitting room where the presents were usually kept.

“Um what’s going on?” asked Anne confused.

None of the guests had arrived yet but the banner in the sitting room read Happy Birthday Harry and there was only one pile of presents.

“Why don’t you two drop your things off in Anne’s room,” suggested Remus trying hard to keep a smile off his face as he took Teddy out of his pram.

Anne and Irwin shrugged slightly and headed up the five flights of stairs.

“I know I don’t particularly like parties, but to have one for only Harry seems a bit confusing,” said Anne.

“Look Annie I’m just as confused as you are.”

They had reached the fifth floor and went into Anne’s room to drop off their jackets and shoes.

When they went into the room it wasn’t empty, there were already two people sitting on the bed. Anthony and Persephone were both sat on Anne’s bed, Anthony was looking curiously at the switches on one of Anne’s electric candles as if he had never seen a battery before. Also, for some strange reason, the television from downstairs had been plugged in in her bedroom.

“Um hi guys,” stuttered Anne, “what are you doing here?”

“We’re here for your birthday party,” beamed Persephone.

“What?”

Persephone took Anne by the hand and took them through to the small library between Anne and Julian’s bedrooms, there was a birthday banner hung up and large pile of birthday presents.

“We tried putting the presents in your room with the weird muggle box thing,” said Anthony.

“Do you mean the television?” asked Irwin.

“Yeah that thing, but there wasn’t space, so we put the presents in here.”

“Is there anyone else coming to this thing?” asked Anne.

“Well Luna’s on holiday in Norway with her Dad,” said Persephone.

“Oh yeah, they’re trying to replace a crumple horned snorcack.”

“A what?” asked Anthony.

“Never mind,” said Anne beaming.

“So, Harry is having the usual full on shindig downstairs with dozens of people but we’re just going to hang out and watch tele,” said Persephone.

“Wow,” muttered Anne, “this might just be my best birthday ever!”

It was Anne’s perfect birthday party, she got presents, cake and her three best friends, and of course Michael Palin. They could hear the faint thumping of music from five floors below as Harry and his friends partied the night away. Whilst the Gryfreplaceors partied they watched Michael Palin’s Pole to Pole

“Next year we can watch some Flying Circus,” beamed Anne.

“Why do the Muggle’s have such weird names,” muttered Anthony as they left.