Of Shadow, Shine, and Shades

Ch.18 The First of Many

Caelum was sitting at the table in the kitchen on the morning of July 31st when a pounding of feet on stairs brought him out his musings. It was fairly early and the Prophet hadn't even been delivered yet but he was yet again reading through the stack of parchment the goblins had handed him over seven months ago. He was trying to figure out how exactly he would bring his plans to fruition. It was good and all to know exactly what he wanted but frustrating as hell when he lacked the means to do so. Lucretia was bearing down on him about introducing Zahra but he still had not found a way to trap the girl in human form. She was a Genie but the curse had been cast by a god and Caelum had serious doubts about unravelling the ancient magic without hurting her in the process.

But all that was pushed out of his mind when Harry pounded into the kitchen. There was a huge smile on his face but the kid froze when his eyes landed on the small pile of presents that had been arranged on the table. It was not much - certainly not as much as Caelum vaguely recalled Dudley receiving in his earliest years - but he believed the amount was suitably sufficient. Harry certainly seemed to think so.

"Presents? For me?" His green eyes were shining and Caelum was once again reminded of just how deprived of common courtesy the child had been during his earlier years. And they had only had a couple of flimsy months together and in another month Harry would be off to Hogwarts. His eyes skirted over the Hogwarts letter stuck on the wall. They had sent their answer with the same owl and he had nearly laughed when he had imagined Dumbledore pulling out his beard over the address: Harry James Potter, Second Largest Bedroom on Third Floor, Unknown, Unknown, Unknown. A fly on the wall of the Headmaster's office would have been privy to much juicy gossip in the past months.

"For you of course." He scratched his neck in faked confusion. "Do you see another birthday boy in here?"

"Thank you!" Caelum received a hug before Harry very carefully began to unwrap his gifts. At some point - between a book on Quidditch and Honeyduke chocolates - Zahra wandered down the stairs and made a beeline for the tea. The Genie was not a morning person, that one was certain. She was quite grumpy and needed at least half an hour to recover from "mortal sleep" as she called it. Apparently she could have gone without sleep, relying on her powers only, but she enjoyed the reprieve it allowed her. And when she'd found out about Occlumency she was adequate in it in three days. Nope, not a human.

"Happy birthday, Harry, Caelum." She thrust a small package at the mage who blinked and stared at the innocent looking gift in hands. He noticed Harry had gone completely still and looked up, noticing the guilty look on his face.

"I... honestly forgot that it was my birthday as well," he confessed, bewildered. He had not expected anything. He had very few truly happy birthday memories from his life and birthdays had sort of lost their meaning for him. It had not helped that Severus neither had put much stock in celebrating the day of one's birth.

"I'm sorry." Harry's mood had done a one-eighty. He looked positively miserable. "I-I didn't think. Why didn't you tell me?" He turned accusingly to Zahra who only glared over the rim of her tea cup in response.

"I thought that as you two are the same person, you would have had the brain cells to figure that one out yourself."

"Enough." He smiled and leaned over, placing a kiss on Zahra's hair. The girl fidgeted slightly but didn't outright flinch as she'd done just weeks ago. He turned to Harry and lifted him into a hug. "Even with the danger of sounding sappy... You two are all I want for my birthday. But," he continued when he saw Harry opening his mouth in protest, "as we were going to go out today, you can find me a present then. I don't need anything fancy." He settled the kid down and noticed his attention was now on his gift.