11Author's Note: This is a birthday gift for Lorien Legacy, whose Tumblr messages always make me want to get back to writing for Black Bond :)
I hope you have an awesome birthday, and a wonderful year ahead!
Birthday
It is a bright and sunny day. The skies are oh so blue, with not a cloud in sight. He's given Dudley and his friends the slip on the way to school. They pick on him sometimes, and although Harry is fast, they're all bigger than him, and he remembers the last time he'd got his knees skinned because Piers Polkiss, Dudley's friend decided it would be nice to dig his elbow very harshly into Harry and send him falling face-first to the ground, turning his white shirt all dusty and almost breaking his glasses.
He doesn't want any of that today, and not because today's his birthday. His birthday never really matters to him much, after all he's learnt by now that he's never going to get to celebrate it. Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon haven't wished him, of course. Even Dudley hasn't, but that goes without saying. It's the case almost every year. Sometimes, they wish him, most times they don't. He never gets gifts like Dudley, or a pretty cake, or the house decorated with streamers and balloons, or even his favourite dish for dinner. It used to hurt him when he was younger; he'd watch Dudley on his birthday so enviously, knowing his own would never be celebrated like that.
But none of that matters to him today, neither that it's his birthday, nor that it's another year of not getting to celebrate it. After all, Acquila is coming back to school today! She hasn't come in all of last week. It had worried him… she never misses school, and if she is going to miss school – like she did once last year when a pair of prospective foster parents came to visit her – she always makes sure to tell Harry beforehand. But this time, she hadn't told him anything, just failed to turn up to school last Tuesday. He'd been restless and worried, oh so worried because he had the nagging feeling that Acquila wasn't well. He'd thought up such scenarios about her possible illness in his mind that he almost felt like he'd worked up a fever himself; feeling all hot and clammy, weak and listless, a tiredness that didn't seem to belong to him seeping into his very bones, feeling like he'd rather stay in his bed in the cupboard under the stairs all day instead of washing the dishes and pruning the bushes in the yard.
He'd then finally gone up to their teacher, asked her why Acquila was absent from classes, and she'd told him that she wasn't well and Mrs Smith had written to them and told them that Acquila would be coming only on Monday.
It is Monday today! And he can't wait to see her! He'd spent one whole week without her, and it felt like someone had ripped a little hole in his life. He'd had to sit alone at classes, alone at lunch, he'd had no one to play with on the swings, and no one to talk to. He missed her as much as he'd ever missed anything, and he felt like he'd even give Aunt Marge's smelly dogs a bath even at the risk of them nipping at his legs if it meant he would get to see Acquila again.
There's a spring in his step as he walks to school, humming a song that was one of Acquila's favourites under his breath. Everything seems so nice and pleasant today, all because he knows he's going to finally meet Acquila again.
When he nears the school gate, he sees her there, standing with her hair tied up in a long braid, a pretty pink in her cheeks, and her eyes grey as ever, bright in the sunlight.
"Acquila!" he exclaims, almost tripping over his feet in his haste to get to her. "You came!"
"Harry!" She puts his arms around him, tugging him into a hug. He blushes; nobody ever hugs him. She is so soft and warm against him, warmer than the sunlight, so familiar and comforting that it's only now that he realises the extent of how much he's missed her, of how much she means to him, of how strangely incomplete he feels when she isn't around, even though he's known her for less than a year.
"I missed you," he admits to her shyly when they let go of each other.
"I missed you too, Harry. I couldn't wait to get better soon and come back to school to see you," she tells him, her tone so very genuine.
Her words make his heart soar, bringing a flush to his cheeks along with an indescribable joy.
"Come on, let's go to class," he tells her. He can't wait to sit next to her on their shared bench, and then maybe Mrs Smith will let them sit together on the benches in the park after school? Because Acquila will need to catch up on the missed classes?
"Not yet," she tells him, and she's grinning now.
"Why not? We'll get late for class," he protests, confused.
"No, come on." She grabs his hand and he walks alongside her, bewildered.
"Acquila, where are we going? What's going on?"
"Just come on," is all she says.
He decides to just go where she's leading him, the feel of her hand in his making him so happy. He loves that she's his friend, his best friend – not that he has any other friends she outranks; but that doesn't matter because she's enough for him.
He notices that she's leading him to the park nearby, the one they usually go to after school.
"Why are we—" he stops in his tracks when he nears the benches where they sit sometimes. There, on the bench, is a cake. It isn't a big cake, it's a very small one. It isn't as pretty as the ones Dudley gets on his birthday every year, but in Harry's eyes, it's the most beautiful birthday cake he's ever seen.
"You—you made this," he whispers, more of a statement than a question. And for a moment, in his mind's eye, he can feel Acquila measuring the flour, mixing up the batter, writing Happy Birthday Harry in blue icing, her tongue peeking out from between her lips and she tries to fit the birthday on the little cake.
"Mrs Smith helped me," admits Acquila shyly. "I know it's not perfect, and the icing's a little wonky, and I think it is a little too sweet—"
The rest of her words are lost as Harry pulls her into a hug. It's rather new for him. He's never done this before – initiated a hug like this, been so openly affectionate with someone, even if it's only Acquila.
But he finds her arms curling around him, her voice a sweet, happy chuckle in his ears, her breath tickling his neck, and then her voice in his ear saying Happy Birthday, Harry!
"I thought you wouldn't remember," he tells her when he's let go of her; his voice quivering slightly – which only makes him blush, embarrassed. "I told you so long ago…I thought you won't remember—"
"Of course I remember, Harry!" she exclaims, as if astonished he even thought that she'd have forgotten. "It's your birthday! How could I forget it? I—well, I made something for you. I couldn't get you a gift… I—I don't have money for it—" Acquila's cheeks turn pinker as she admits that. "But I made you a card—I can't draw well and it isn't too—"
"I love it!" he tells her happily.
"You haven't even seen it yet!" she laughs as she takes it out of her bag and gives it to him. She's drawn the two of them – both dark haired, sitting on the set of swings, a wide grin on Harry's face, even though his eyes are a little mismatched and one arm thinner than the other. To his eyes, it's the most beautiful thing he's ever seen.
"Thank you," he tells her, tracing his fingers over the two figures on the card. There's a very noticeable tremble in his voice now, and he tries to speedily blink back the tears in his eyes and swallow the lump in his throat. "Thank you, Acquila."
"Harry," she whispers, seeming to notice how touched he is. "Harry—I—" she trails off, but he feels like he knows what she wants to say – that she didn't mean to make him cry, that she wishes she could have got him the toy train they'd seen in a shop near the school which she knew he wished he had, that she wishes the Dursleys treated him better, that she wishes he had his parents around to give him the perfect birthday that he deserves.
But she says nothing, only tugs him into another hug. He rests his face in the crook of her neck, timing his breaths with hers to soften the intensity of the emotions he feels – joy and exhilaration and—he cannot even find a word for what he's feeling now. He's touched, oh so touched, so very moved by what she's done for him, something nobody's ever bothered to do for him before – bake him a cake and draw him a card.
As they sit down on the bench, and he cuts the cake with a plastic knife she'd brought along, there isn't the chorus of people singing Happy Birthday like there are on Dudley's birthday, there's no huge pile of gifts, and no candles to blow, and no birthday wish to make. But he doesn't even want to make a birthday wish. When Acquila feeds him a piece of the too-sweet cake, and then wipes the crumbs from his lips with her thumb, he feels like he has everything he could ever want. It is the best birthday he has ever had!
Author's Note: I know it's been ages since we've updated Black Bond II. But some circumstances in real life (upcoming wedding for my co-author and my granny's death for me) ensured that we didn't get to write much for quite a few months. Well, we have just the Second Task left to write, and we're hoping to get that done once my co-author's done with her exams on the 16th. So I swear we'll try our very best to have the chapter out by the end of this month, as well as respond the the PMs and reviews in the coming days now that I've logged in to FFN and seen the number of PMs in the inbox. Sorry for what will certainly be very late replies. I'll try to respond sooner now on :)
On a different note, it's rather odd writing Harry Potter in the present tense. I've only done that for my ASOIAF stories. Anyway, I hope this was an enjoyable read. Thank you for reading! :)