TBAY--well, to be honest, blatant fanfic. So sue me.

[lupinesque]

The Even Worse than the Worst Birthday

Harry woke with a start, his left earlobe throbbing.  "It only does 
that on one day of the year," he thought.  He rolled over, put his 
glasses on upside down, and squinted at the luminous face of his 
alarm clock.  His stomach would have given a funny jolt, but tired of 
being responsible for all of Harry's emotional reactions, it had left 
for a week in Majorca.  It was ten minutes after midnight: his 
birthday.

He got up and stretched.  Suddenly he heard a swoosh as if a thousand 
Nike-footed Michael Jordans were outside his window and he dived 
under the bed just in time to avoid being decapitated by dozens of 
outstretched wings.  Owls were landing everywhere--on the bed, on the 
desk, inside the wardrobe.  One was trying to pry up the loose 
floorboard where he usually hid his Jelly Slugs from Dudley, and 
another, which appeared to be carrying leaflets and wearing a sweater 
emblazoned with "Post-Owls Unite for Freedom!", was picking at the 
lock of Hedwig's cage with its beak.  Harry swatted ineffectually at 
the latter and informed the former, "There's nothing in there but 
Charms homework."  Then he surveyed the scene.

Most of the owls, which now stood staring at him with their 
unblinking eyes, had letters or packages tied to their legs.  He 
began untying them.  "Ron Weasley . . . Hermione Granger . . . 
Parvati Patil . . . Daedalus Diggle . . . Vincent Crabbe?"  It seemed 
as if everyone he knew had sent him something for his birthday.  
Harry tore open wrapping after wrapping, peered at one card after 
another, growing more and more frantic.  Surely, in all these piles 
of gifts, there had to be . . .

But no.  What he really wanted for his birthday wasn't there.  Not 
one package contained the telltale heft of a hardbound book; not one 
card bore the three magical initials that would mean he could return 
for his longed-for fifth year of school.

"Come on, Jo," he whispered miserably into his pillow.  "Let me go 
back to Hogwarts.  I'm twenty-two years old!"

Amy Z