✔️ 𝐋𝐎𝐒𝐓&𝐅𝐎𝐔𝐍𝐃 → 𝑓. 𝑤𝑒𝑎𝑠𝑙𝑒𝑦

66 | B I R T H D A Y

•••
and if the sky comes falling down,
for you there's nothing in this world
I wouldn't do.
•••

"Harry Potter, where do you think you're going without me, huh?" As his sister spoke, Harry jerked and twirled around, he was halfway through the yard, with his backpack over his shoulders. "I told you not to run away like that, remember? You promised to stay for the wedding."

"I can't stay here, it's too dangerous", he said, rubbing his neck. "If he'll find me, he'll kill them all, he'll take you with him, I can't respond that."

"They won't find you", Lynnea replied. "Voldemort haven't found me for weeks now, the Burrow is highly protected by the Ministry. You're the Chosen One, have you forgotten? We're safe here. Don't sneak away like that in the middle of the night."

"Lynn, please understand -"

"No", she cut him off. "You'll return to the house with me now, go to sleep and will still be there, when I wake up tomorrow."

He just stood there, they stared at each other and Lynnea could feel the fight going on inside his head. He frowned, but finally sighed and said: "Fine ..." He walked over to his sister and she turned around, heading back inside with him.

"And by the way ... Happy Birthday", Lynnea muttered, as she opened the door and stepped into the dark kitchen.

She stayed awake the rest of the night, listening to every small crack and arch of the old house, fearing that Harry would try to run away again. Not until Fred walked into her room, laying down next to her at four in the morning, she found sleep.

Her dreams were strange, not the usual strange stuff, but really peculiar.

Lynnea was walking through the Forbidden Forest, her wand lowered, and she didn't feel like she got a plan, where to go. But suddenly Harry appeared in front of her, his eyes bloodshot. With a shaking hand he raised his wand. Instead of raising her own, Lynnea let it fall to the ground, and spread her arms wide open, whispering: "Do it."

A tear ran down his cheek, before he opened his mouth. "Wouldn't be long, we'll be reunited in a few minutes, okay?"

She nodded, her own tears now blurring her view. "I love you, Harry."

"Love you, too, Lynnie", he said quietly. A jet of green light broke out of the tip of his wand, a loud whirr -

Lynnea sat up in her bed, screaming. Her face was covered in sweat, mixing with the tears on her cheeks.

"Whassup?" Fred, too, shot up in a sitting position, looking dazzled and not fully awake yet. He stared at Lynnea out of sleepy eyes.

"N-nothing", she muttered. "Just a bad dream." But her fingers slowly stroked the scar on her neck, the petite line down her spine, that had appeared on her skin during the last school year. It was burning numbly, throbbing under the girl's touch. Lynnea wasn't used to that. Actually it was the other scar that was feeling like set on fire from time to time; the one she got from Fenrir Greyback, who gladly wasn't transformed at the moment he had burried his fang-like blackish teeth into the curve between her neck and shoulder. But the wound was healing creepingly. Mrs Weasley was still changing the bandages every two days.

"Do you want to tell me?", Fred asked, yawning.

"No", Lynnea said. "It wasn't that bad." Fred watched her with a raised eyebrow, but then shrugged, planting his lips onto hers and she immediately felt lighter.

"Well then, Happy Birthday, love", he whispered against her lips and she felt his hands wandering under her shirt, as his kiss went more passionate and she couldn't refuse but grin.

"What happened?!"

Fred and Lynnea bursted away from each other, and she turned crimson, as she looked to the door and into her brother's eyes growing wider with every passing second.

"Have you ever heard of knocking?", Lynnea snapped, before she groaned in annoyance.

"You - you screamed", Harry stuttered, turning as red as his twin already was. "I thought - I - well, forget I was here, okay?" He banged the door behind him and Fred started laughing.

"Oh, shut up, Weasley", Lynnea muttered under her breath, letting herself fall back into the pillows, and burried her face in her hands.

"Happy Birthday, buttface", Fred chuckled and jumped out of bed. She threw a pillow at him.

"Fuck you, dickhead!", she yelled and he slipped out of the room with an mischievous grin on his face. Lynnea rolled her eyes, grinning as well and shoved the strange feeling that the dream left on her aside for a while. She was off age now. She was allowed to do magic! Cheerfully humming to herself she decided that stupid dreams had to wait for a while now, for she was busy imagining which curse she'd shoot at Fred first.

•••

"Happy Birthday, Lynnea!", she was greeted by Remus and Tonks down in the kitchen. Harry was wrapped in a tight hug by Mrs Weasley, and as she let go, Lynnea was pulled into her arms, as she wished her a happy birthday as well.

"Harry got my brother's watch, but it's not that common for witches to get one for their seventeenth birthdays", Mrs Weasley said. "So Arthur and I thought, as you're almost a Weasley, as Harry is, you get this one."

She gave Lynnea a small package and she took it with a grateful smile and started unwrapping it. It was a necklace; fine and golden, simple and beautiful.

"It was my mother's", Mrs Weasley explained. "She gave it to my brother Gideon's wife, when they married. As Gideon was Fred's godfather and you're his girlfriend, I thought - well, it could be a nice idea."

She blushed slightly, but Lynnea was beaming brightly at her. "It's wonderful, thank you, Mrs Weasley!", she said, hugging Fred's mother again.

Remus smiled. "You get my present later", her godfather said, the corner of his mouth twitching.

"You know, I'm pretty impatient", she said with a played stern look, crossing her arms in front of her chest.

"That's why you get my present right now", said Harry, and handed Lynnea a quadratic box. Inside was a leathery book. She clapped it open, and Harry said in a low voice: "I know you just own the one picture, Sirius and Remus gave you, so I thought you might like to have this. I looked at it few weeks ago and noticed, that something was different. While you weren't on the pictures for all the years, you now have appeared on every single photo that usually showed only me as well."

Lynnea turned page for page, staring at the photos with watering eyes; photos of her mum and dad, Harry and Lynnea, of Sirius and Remus.

"Harry, I can't take that, it's yours", she whispered with a cracking voice.

"Now it's yours", he replied, smiling. "Where I go I can't take it with me, and I want you to have it."

She looked at him in disbelief, unable to say something more, so she did the only thing that was on her mind right now: she wrapped her arms around him, trying to put all the unspoken things in this hug, all the years she missed him, without even knowing him existing, and the beg, that she wished him to stay with her, that he won't go without her, wherever he would go ...