Cake and Cartoons
It was a hot night. It had been quite hot all Summer so far. It seemed as if when Harry, Ron and the others had come back from Hogwarts they had brought good weather with them because it had hardly rained once in a fortnight.
This was nice if you wanted to play outside or go flying. But it also made it very warm and muggy too.
Ophelia’s bedroom was up in the attic, so there were no windows which made her room even more hot. But yesterday, Remus and Lyall had added a window of sorts into the attic. it was a wooden window, with no glass and they had made it by making a hole in the roof. It was a very simple window, just a small wooden window which opened and closed on a latch which was inside Ophelia’s room in the attic.
It wasn’t a huge window, but it made all the difference. Ophelia sighed contentedly as a cool breeze washed over her as the wind blew through her open window.
She was lying on top of her bed, in a pair of Summer pyjamas which were a loose-fitting pair of lilac shorts and a matching vest top. It was four o’clock in the morning, but Ophelia wasn’t tired. She was usually fine with just a few hours of sleep a night, and she was currently writing to her Mum in her diary before getting up to go swimming.
She had just finished writing, when an owl came flying through the window and dropped a small letter.
‘Hello Ebony,’ said Ophelia petting the familiar owl. This was the Longbottom owl, and the owl that Neville sometimes used to write to her over the holidays.
She gave the owl a pet, and Ebony nipped Ophelia slightly before flying away.
Ophelia opened the envelope and read her letter.
Dear Ophelia,
Happy birthday!
This is just a quick note, as I had to wait for Ebony to get back from delivering a letter for Mum, and it’s eleven o’clock at night.
I know I’m seeing you tomorrow anyway, but I just wanted to be the first to wish you Happy Birthday. Also, I know you’ll probably be awake as you hardly ever sleep.
Not even joking, Fred and George had a theory that you’re a vampire!
To be honest that’s not the most ridiculous thing those two have come up with.
See you tomorrow, Happy Birthday again, love Nev.
Ophelia beamed as she read Neville’s letter by the lantern light, from the enchanted lantern in her ceiling.
Once she had finished reading his letter, she pulled out an old shoe box that she had hidden behind her Mum’s old trunk. Every letter that she got, she kept in this box. Two or three from Ron, a fair few from Harry but about ninety percent of the letters in this box where from Neville.
They had written to each other three times a week when Neville had been at Hogwarts last year, and if Ophelia hadn’t been going to join him at Hogwarts in September, she would have needed a bigger box.
She got dressed in her favourite swimming costume which was a purple one piece, and she pulled on her shorts and t-shirt over the top. She ran downstairs and picked up her dressing gown and torch and pulled on her trainers.
She turned on her torch, and ran down the garden path to the beach full of joy. She loved her morning swim more than anything. She went through the cave, and then scampered down the steep path to the beach before standing on the beach for a minute.
She turned off her torch, and looked out to sea for a moment. The sea was calling for her, water always did somehow. Remus always called her his little water baby, when he wasn’t calling her princess.
She took off her shoes, shorts and shirt and let the sea tickle her toes as the tide washed over her feet and made her giggle.
Then she ran and dived into the sea with a flying leap, fully immersing herself in the water, wading luxuriously for a minute in the sea water before swimming all the way out to sea, and back to the beach twice like she did every morning.
By the time that she had finished swimming an hour and half later, she felt refreshed and ready for the day. She pulled or her purple dressing gown that her Grandpa had given her for Christmas, which was enchanted to warm her up, and by the time she got back up to the house, she was completely warm and dry.
She came into the house half skipping and was about to put her torch and trainers by the back door when the kitchen light came on.
‘Happy Birthday!’ yelled Harry and Stefan switching the light on.
‘For God’s sake!’ screamed Ophelia.
‘Why do you have to do that? You scared the ruddy daylights out of me!’
‘Well last year we tried ice cold water over your door,’ said Harry.
Ophelia glared at Harry. Her last birthday, Ron and harry had boobytrapped her room with a bucket of ice water. Daddy had been furious!
‘We just wanted to wish you Happy Birthday,’ shrugged Stefan.
‘Yeah we wanted to be the first,’ said Harry.
‘Well too bad,’ said Ophelia, ‘because Neville already sent me a note, nearly two hours ago.’
‘Owl post,’ sighed Harry, ‘why didn’t you think of that you’re the Ravenclaw?’
‘Because we live in the same house,’ said Stefan obviously.
‘Next year, we’ll send a note with Legolas at exactly midnight,’ said Stefan.
‘Beat that Neville!’ laughed Harry.
‘Boys,’ muttered Ophelia going upstairs to take a shower.
After a quick shower, she got dressed in a pair of shorts, and a light purple floral tank top. It was just so warm that she couldn’t really wear much else. She pulled her long hair into a ponytail, and tied it off with a ribbon so it was out of the way, and went downstairs for breakfast.
‘Morning Princess,’ said Remus giving her a huge hug.
‘Thanks Daddy,’ said Ophelia hugging him back.
‘Happy Birthday Cariad,’ said Hope bringing over a plate of blueberry pancakes which were Ophelia’s favourite.
‘Thank Granny,’ beamed Ophelia, taking a bite from breakfast, and closing her eyes to savour the taste of the delicious breakfast.
‘Perfect as always Granny,’ laughed Ophelia.
‘Thank God for that,’ said Hope handing out the other plates of breakfast. If they hadn’t been perfect she was going to have restarted.
‘Go on Zulu Warrior,’ smirked Stefan passing Ophelia a glass of water.
‘Really?’ asked Ophelia raising her eyebrows at her Uncle Stefan. Get It Down You Zulu Warrior seemed much too childish for a grown up girl of eleven.
‘If I still do it then so do you,’ said Lyall, ‘now drink, it’s only water.’
Ophelia sighed and drank the glass of water in one go, as the others chanted and cheered.
‘Well done sweetheart,’ laughed Remus.
‘Do you think maybe be next year we could switch it with firewhisky?’ asked Harry in a stage whisper.
‘I think she might notice,’ chuckled Stefan.
‘I hate both of you,’ said Ophelia coolly.
‘Nobody hates anybody,’ said Hope, ‘and there will be no underage drinking under my roof.’
‘Yes Granny,’ they all chanted.
‘I can’t believe our little girls eleven,’ said Lyall beaming proudly.
‘You’ll be getting that Hogwarts letter before you know it!’
‘Do you really think so?’ asked Ophelia.
‘I know so Cariad,’ said Lyall kissing her on the forehead.
Remus and Lyall had to have a lot of correspondence with the school arranging for the special requirements. There was Ophelia’s selective mutism, but that was easily fixed with a notebook and piece of paper, but there was also the fact that Ophelia was a half werewolf.
They had come up with a cover story with Dumbledore, that Ophelia was affected by a blood curse, which made her very ill sometimes. But of course, she would always be ill during the full moon which she would spend in the Hospital Wing with Madam Pomfrey.
But Hogwarts was doing everything they could to make sure Ophelia could attend. Both the Lupin’s and the McKinnon’s had gone to Hogwarts for centuries, and Dumbledore didn’t like to leave any students out.
As they finished off breakfast, there was a loud firm knock on the front door.
‘I think you’d better go answer that Ophelia dear,’ said Hope.
‘Ok,’ said Ophelia skipping off to answer the front door.
At the front door was a swarm of smiling faces, all beaming like mad. It was nine o’clock in the morning, but everyone had arrived early. Percy, Fred, George, Ron and Ginny Weasley Luna, Neville, Cedric Diggory and Felicity Fawcett had all come to celebrate with her. They were all wearing shorts and t-shirts because of the heat and some of them had hats on, and were carrying baskets. They were also each carrying a brightly wrapped present.
Fred pulled his harmonica out of his pocket and played the opening note. Ophelia cringed, she knew what was about to happen.
‘Happy birthday to you!’ they sang loudly, ‘happy birthday to you! Happy birthday dear Ophelia! Happy Birthday to you!’
Then Fred and George started singing a seemingly endless chorus of For She’s a Jolly Good Fellow, which made Ophelia want to sink into the ground with embarrassment.
‘Fred George Ginny!’ said Percy, ‘that’s enough!’
‘You’re no fun,’ grumbled Ginny folding her arms.
‘Thank you,’ Ophelia mouthed at Percy.
Percy winked at her, and they all came into the house. They all put their presents with Ophelia’s large pile of presents in the sitting room.
Cedric and Felicity were holding hands as usual and had even coordinated their outfits today but that might have been a coincidence. Cedric was wearing a red and white t-shirt which was an England Quidditch shirt with a pair of shorts, Felicity was wearing a red and white striped sundress.
Cedric and Felicity had always been best friends since they were little, and so it hadn’t surprised anyone when Cedric had asked Felicity on a date to Hogsmeade last year. Felicity had of course accepted, and they had been going out ever since.
‘Happy Birthday Ophelia,’ said Neville who had been at the back of the group.
He was carrying her present under one arm, and a bunch of wildflowers in his other. Ophelia loved flowers, so whenever he saw Ophelia, he would help her pick the wildflowers and tell her all their names. He had gotten up early to pick her some flowers before coming to the Lupin’s this morning.
He passed her the bunch of flowers, and Ophelia’s face lit up. Neville knew that purple was her favourite colour, and he had picked mostly purple flowers, and few very light pink flowers.
’They’re mostly Lathyrus odoratus, or sweet peas,’ Neville explained, ‘but those one’s are Betonica Oficianalis or Betony. The little pink one’s are Rosa Rubiginosa which are known as Sweet Briar, or Briar Roses they’re wild baby roses.’
‘I thought you might like them,’ he said blushing heavily. Ron and Harry were always making fun of him for being obsessed with plants, and their proper names.
Ophelia took the flowers and kissed him lightly on the cheek.
‘Thank you,’ she whispered.
‘It’s ok,’ said Neville slightly flustered rubbing his cheek. None of the others had seen Ophelia kiss him on the cheek, but he had quite liked it.
‘Come on guys,’ said Stefan, ‘let’s go have a birthday party!’
Last year Ophelia had gone to see The Little Mermaid with Harry, Ron, Neville, Ginny and Luna, but this year they were all going to the beach. Hope had packed picnic hampers, and they had all brought their things with them to have a wonderful day at the beach.
‘Now Stefan, Percy,’ said Lyall, ‘it’s your job to make sure that nobody gets drowned.’
‘We can all swim Grandpa,’ said Harry.
‘Just bring them all back in one piece,’ sighed Hope.
‘Yes Aunty Hope,’ laughed Stefan as they walked down to the beach in a procession.
They were going to open presents, and have cake that afternoon, but they were going to spend a good few hours at the beach first.
When they got down to the beach, Fred, George Harry, Ron and Ginny went diving straight into the water and were soon playing water tag and splashing each other.
Cedric was helping Felicity set up the deckchairs and picnic blankets. Felicity was wearing a very floppy sunhat on top of her long dark wavy hair, her mother kept on telling her she was fair skinned, and hadn’t let her out of the house this morning until she was coated in sun cream and Felicity also had to take a parasol to keep the sun off her.
‘Your skins not even that fair Flick,’ sighed Cedric setting up the umbrella.
‘I know Ced,’ said Felicity, ‘but you know what Mum’s like. If we hadn’t agreed with her, she wouldn’t have let us go out until we had, and we’d still be there now.’
‘Your Mum can be a real witch sometimes,’ muttered Cedric under his breath.
‘We’re all witches,’ said Luna confused.
‘I think Cedric meant to put a b in there somewhere,’ said Felicity trying to laugh.
Stefan and Percy were supposed to be supervising but were lying on towels covered in suncream and reading their books and chatting. They had tried telling Hope and Remus and Lyall that nobody needed any supervising, but in the end, it seemed faster to go along with it.
‘So birthday girl,’ said Ginny running out of the sea having cooled off, ‘what do you want to do today?’
Ophelia had been thinking this over as she Luna and Neville had put on their sun cream. The Weasley’s hadn’t been allowed an inch out the door without extra strong sun protection potion.
Sandcastle Ophelia eventually wrote down in her notebook having thought about for a moment.
‘Tell you what,’ said Cedric, ‘why don’t we build the biggest and best sandcastle Devon’s ever seen.’
‘Sounds like fun,’ said Ginny.
‘An underwater palace for mermaids!’ exclaimed Luna.
‘Like the one’s in the lake at school,’ said Felicity, ‘according to Hagrid at least.’
‘This sounds like a pretty big castle,’ said Neville dubiously.
‘We should get started then,’ said Cedric.
Cedric organised everyone into groups, Harry, Ron, Fred and George didn’t want to help as it sounded too boring, and Stefan and Percy were discussing a new legislation about goblins. But Luna, Ginny, Neville, Ophelia Felicity and Cedric all wanted to help.
To start with there was two groups, the one filling the buckets with wet sand, and the other collecting sea shell for decorations. Once Cedric, Neville and Luna had enough towers to make a giant castle, and Felicity, Ophelia and Ginny had enough shells the real work began.
Luna and Ophelia were quite creative and were good at placing the seashells in the right places creatively. Neville was very good at carving the windows and details into the wet sand with a penknife.
Cedric and Ginny were digging the moat and channel for the castle, and Felicity was looking around the beach for other decorations.
Just as Cedric and Ginny were finishing the moat, Felicity came walking over with a large bucket of seaweed. She had seaweed all the way down her dress, and she had taken off her sunhat and Felicity knew her Mum would be angry tonight, but at the moment she just didn’t care.
‘It’s meant to be a mermaids castle right?’ asked Felicity beaming.
Ophelia nodded as she placed another seashell.
‘Well it looks too perfect at the moment,’ said Felicity, ‘you need to add some underwater elements, hence the seaweed.’
‘Too perfect?’ mouthed Cedric, wondering how a mermaid’s castle could be too perfect.
Luna helped Felicity arrange the seaweed, and it look beautiful, almost ethereal and other worldly. Stefan got out his camera and took a photograph of them all with their masterpiece.
Not a moment too soon as well because the second he took the photo there was a loud rumbling, and a flash of light which had nothing to do with the camera. Percy whipped his head around and saw steadily approaching jet black clouds.
‘Stefan get the boys,’ he said frantically, ‘the rest of you pack up.’
‘Whats up?’ asked Neville who was starting to enjoy himself.
‘Thunderstorm,’ said Percy eyeing the skies.
Percy was right, the two-week heatwave was ending, and even as he said this it started to rain and it was getting heavier by the second.
They scrambled about gathering all their things quickly as they could, grabbing deckchairs and picnic baskets and blankets and running up the steep path before it got too slippery. By the time they had gotten out of the cave, it really was chucking it down and they were laughing and screaming as they ran out of the garden into the house.
‘Had fun kids?’ laughed Lyall as he took some deckchairs and a picnic basket from Stefan.
‘Sod off,’ said Stefan as he shook rain water out of his blonde hair.
The day at the beach had been brought to an abrupt by the long awaited thunderstorm, but that didn’t ruin the party, they just moved it inside. They turned the sitting room into a fort with the beach blankets, and ate the picnic off the floor instead of at the beach.
Then Remus got the video tapes out.
‘Too young?’ asked Lyall passing Remus a videotape of Monty Python.
‘Far too young,’ laughed Remus thinking the bad ideas that Harry, Ron and Ginny not to mention Fred and George could get from the Pythons.
‘I’ve got it!’ said Lyall pulling out a tape. He had bought it as a joke last time he was in a muggle video shop, for Stefan and Percy. It wasn’t a princess film so the boys wouldn’t complain, and it was still appropriate for the kids to watch.
He passed the box to Stefan and waited for the reaction from him and Percy.
‘Lord of the Rings,’ said Percy reading the cover.
‘But this is a cartoon,’ laughed Stefan.
‘They’ve made Tolkien into a cartoon,’ said Stefan almost rolling on the floor with laughter.
‘And?’ said Remus.
‘Fair enough,’ shrugged Percy. Percy didn’t care if it was a cartoon or not, Tolkien was Tolkien.
Percy sat down on the sofa next to Stefan, and Stefan put his arm around Percy and they all watched film. They sat their for two hours watching elves, and dragons, hobbits and wizards, and by the end Stefan’s mouth was hanging open in awe.
‘That was so cool!’ said Fred and George.
‘I get why you were so obsessed Percy and Stefan,’ said Cedric.
‘Were obsessed?’ laughed Harry.
‘Just look at them!’ said Ron.
Stefan and Percy had been silent for the whole film, and now Stefan’s mouth open, and Percy was shaking his head in confusion.
‘But where’s the rest of the film?’ asked Percy checking the box.
‘Percy that was the whole film,’ sighed Fred.
‘We’ve just watched it for two hours!’ agreed Ginny.
‘But they only covered half of The Two Towers, and none of Return of the King,’ said Percy.
‘It was good though,’ said Stefan still slightly dazed by how good the film had been.
‘Yes it was rather good,’ admitted Percy.
Percy pulled his ring necklace out from under his t-shirt, and Stefan touched it with his crown.
‘Nerds,’ coughed Fred.
‘What was that?’ asked Stefan fingering his wand.
‘Nerds,’ coughed Fred, George, Harry and Ron.
‘They’re calling you and Percy nerds because you love The Lord of the Rings,’ said Luna.
Leave them be wrote Ophelia before showing around the message.
‘To be fair,’ said Cedric, ‘I wish I could use a sword like that Aragorn can.’
‘Thank you,’ said Stefan bowing slightly.
Hope brought out the cake after this, which was a purple tie die cake that looked like a birthday present.
‘Cut into it dear,’ said Hope passing her the knife.
Ophelia cut into the cake, and sweets came spilling out from the middle of the cake. Ophelia gasped in astonishment as she found the hidden skittles and Haribo’s.
‘Thank you Granny!’ she whispered hugging Hope.
‘That’s quite alright dear,’ said Hope patting her on the back.
Once they had had cake it was time for presents. She had been given assorted books from most of her friends, and a belt with a holster for her wand from Cedric. Ginny had gotten Ophelia a Holyhead Harpies scarf, as she was still trying to get Ophelia into quidditch, and Luna had given her a watercolour painting of Ophelia, Ginny and Luna sat on a low wall with their hair hanging down their backs. Luna had been working on her painting and was actually starting to get quite good.
Stefan and Percy had gotten Ophelia a set of books on non-verbal magic.
‘We know that with your mutism casting spells will be harder than normal,’ said Percy, ‘but hopefully these can help you get started.’
‘Once you’ve got your wand I’m going to start tutoring you,’ said Remus, ‘just a few basic spells, but non-verbal magic can be quite difficult.’
I can’t use my wand outside of school! Ophelia scribbled out hurriedly. She didn’t want to get arrested for using underage magic.
‘Don’t worry princess we’ve got permission,’ said Remus, ‘special circumstances.’
‘Lucky!’ exclaimed Harry and Ron.
‘Hey Remus, you couldn’t get us some of these special circumstances could you?’ asked Fred as George looked interested.
‘Don’t even try it boys,’ said Lyall shaking his head.
‘I was going to let you use your Mum’s trunk,’ said Remus pulling out a new trunk, ‘but I thought you should have your own.’
Ophelia walked over and looked at her new school trunk. It was a very pale wood, almost white, and there were sea creatures engraved on the trunk, including two large dolphins on either side of Ophelia Hope Lupin which was painted in black letters.
‘We tried getting one with mermaids, but they didn’t have one,’ said Remus.
‘Hippogriffs,’ said Lyall, ‘dozens, but no mermaids.’
‘It’s perfect,’ she whispered before hugging her Dad and Grandpa.
‘Open it then,’ said Stefan knowing that the best part was inside.
Ophelia fumbled slightly with the clasp of the trunk and pulled it open. The trunk was sorted into four sections, one for school equipment such as telescope and cauldron, another section was for her clothes, another was for anything else she needed, and the last section, was thinner and ran all the way down the bottom of the trunk, it was a bookcase, and if she stacked three or four deep, she could easily take forty books with her to school!
Harry had been given a similar trunk last year, but Harry’s section at the bottom was for his broomstick not his books. Both Ophelia and Harry’s trunks were also featherlight so no matter how much they put in their trunks, the trunks would hardly weigh a thing.
Remus beamed with pride as his daughter looked through her new trunk. He knew for a fact that if it hadn’t been for the salary James and lily had been paying him for the last eleven years, he would never have been able to afford anything anywhere near as nice as this trunk, but they were more than financially stable, and his daughter wanted for nothing.
‘There is one more present,’ said Lyall pulling a package out of his pocket.
He had gotten the idea because Remus had told him that Sirius had used to own a pair, and they sounded perfect for Ophelia.
‘Now we gave Harry Hedwig, but this is very special and very rare.’
Ophelia nodded in understanding.
‘I had to look in every shop in Diagon Alley, but I finally found one in an antiques shop. You can use these to contact us when you’re at Hogwarts, but they’re much faster than owl post.’
‘What are they?’ asked Ron.
‘Go on open them,’ said Ginny. Everyone was eager to see what item was so mysterious and very rare.
Ophelia opened the package, and found two slightly faded mirrors that were slightly discoloured from age, but worked just as well as they had done when they were new.
‘Woah!’ exclaimed Percy.
‘Those are communication mirrors!’ said Stefan his eyes popping in amazement.
‘What?’ asked Fred and George.
‘Communication mirrors,’ said Percy, ‘you can use them to talk to another person. When another person has the second mirror, you can talk to each other and see one another.’
‘Wow!’ breathed Harry and Ron.
‘We know you’re going to miss us when you’re at school,’ said Hope, ‘and owl post just isn’t the same. It takes two days for the letters to arrive, and you can’t see each other.’
‘This way you can talk to me and your Granny, and most importantly your Dad anytime that you want.’
‘We can talk everyday if you want,’ said Remus putting an arm around Ophelia.
Ophelia looked down at the old mirrors and stammered for a moment.
She burst into tears and pulled her two grandparents in for a hug.
‘I’ll take it the gifts a success,’ chuckled Lyall.
‘Thank you,’ muttered Ophelia.
‘You’re welcome Cariad,’ beamed Hope.
