Chapter Seven
A Birthday Surprise

Molly came over every day of Harry’s first week in Chicago. She would arrive early in the morning for lessons with Dresden, which typically didn’t start until close to noon, when Dresden rose from his cramped bedroom. The older wizard pleaded fatigue from his recent case for his late rising, earning secretive smirks and rolled eyes from Molly.

Harry awoke each morning to the screech of the metal door that would knock him off of Dresden’s couch. Molly would smile, and wedge the door shut, and offer Mouse his pat on the head as he loped to the door to nuzzle her leg. This would give Harry enough time to collect his glasses from the end table, so he could see Molly peering over the back of the couch and smiling at his tangle of blankets.

“Morning, Goggles. Feeling pip-pip and tip-top today?” she would say.

He would grumble in reply, “Morning, Giantess. Come down from your beanstalk, have you?”

But Harry didn’t mind the early rousting. It gave him someone to talk to over breakfast. As much as Harry had come to like Mouse, he felt a powerful need for company of the non-furry variety. His friends, and even his owl, were half a world away. Each day he spent away from the Burrow ached like an old bruise. Spending time with Molly made that ache tolerable.

As they shared breakfasts of cereal and Coke, they would talk, mostly about magic. Molly had only discovered her power the previous year, much later in her life than Harry had. Whenever he asked her about the experience, she would fidget, and change the topic back to Harry. He didn’t mind her reluctance, either, because she seemed absolutely fascinated with everything he knew about magic. For the first time since his eleventh birthday, Harry found himself the more knowledgeable of a pair of magic-users.

“Seriously? A castle?” Molly said, and nibbled on dry Cheerios from the edge of Harry’s bowl. “You go to school in a castle?”

Harry shook his head. “You believe in magic, but not in castles?”

She smirked over the rim of her Coke can. “I think you’re yanking my chain. You almost had me going, right up until the part with the moving staircases. What would be the point? Stairs are supposed to go where you need them to go, not just ‘wherever.’ That’s dumb.”

“Maybe your stairs are just lazy,” Harry countered, straight-faced. “Your stairs only go one place. What’s the use in that? I’ve got loads of places I need to go.”

The pleasant conversation would continue until Dresden emerged from his bedroom. Harry’s pleasant mood quickly soured in the tall wizard’s presence. The table would lapse into uncomfortable silence as Dresden ate. Then Molly’s lessons would begin.

Dresden and Molly disappeared down into a trap door, which was kept hidden beneath one of the dozen throw rugs in the apartment. At first, Harry had tried putting his ear to the door to listen in, but the old wood muffled the lesson into unintelligible mumblings. Once or twice he heard a loud bang emerge from the subbasement. But when he knocked on the trap door, no one answered, and the mumblings continued. The mysterious pair would not emerge until late afternoon, when Dresden would drive Molly home.

Harry spent most of his week pacing the inside of the apartment. He picked at the bookshelf of paperbacks without actually reading anything. He wrote out half-hearted attempts at letters to Hermione, which he knew he could not send, only to crumple them in frustration halfway through. And he pretended to be asleep on the couch when Dresden screeched through the crooked door late at night.

The last week of July dwindled, until the last day was upon him. Harry wanted to pretend that he had not noticed, but he couldn’t even fool himself. Not since his days in the cupboard had Harry felt so alone. McGonagall had abandoned him, and worse, she had stopped his mission to destroy Voldemort before it had ever really begun. Harry seethed at the thought of the meddling professor. He knew he would never forgive her for stranding him there.

That day, Harry awoke late, this time to Dresden emerging early from his bedroom. “Wake up and dress up, kid,” Dresden said to the still-groggy Harry. “I think it’s high time we get you out of here and stretch your legs. What do you say?”

Harry grumbled, and showered, which was miserable because Dresden never seemed to have any hot water left. Then he dressed, and followed Dresden and Mouse out to the cramped confines of Dresden’s old beetle in silence. Dresden hardly glanced over at Harry, and seemed content to keep the silence while Mouse continued his midmorning nap on the back seat.

They drove across Chicago to a quaint suburban neighborhood, where the houses seemed like they were miles apart in comparison to the postage stamp yards of Privet Drive. The beetle stopped outside of the nicest of the quaint two-story houses. As they squeezed out of the car, Harry finally asked, “Where are we?”

“Molly’s house,” said Dresden, as he attached Mouse’s lead. “I need to talk to her parents. I figured that, since the two of you have been getting so chummy over the last week, you could make nice while her mother yells at me.”

Before Harry could wonder what he meant, they were at the door. The bell chimed merrily, and footsteps thundered on the other side. Then the door slivered open, with no one on the other side.

Harry peered through the crack of the door, confused, until Dresden bent down and addressed the bottom of the door. “Good morning, Mister Carpenter. Are either of your parents around?”

A little boy with sandy blond hair threw open the door. His beaming smile was at level with Harry’s knee as the boy turned back to the house and hollered, “Mom! Other Harry’s here!”

A moment later, the little boy scampered back, making room for a tall, older woman with strong features to come to the door. Except for her blonde hair and the difference in age, she was a dead ringer for Molly. “Harry,” she said to Dresden in a voice that was almost friendly.

Turning her gaze, she fixed Harry with a look that gave him chills. The woman possessed an aura that wasn’t any magic Harry knew, but was just as potent. He shivered at the cold steel behind her eyes as she said, “And are you the young man Molly has been talking so much about?”

It was all Harry could do to keep his voice steady as he raised his hand. “Harry. Harry Potter, ma’am.”

“Charity Carpenter,” the woman said. She turned her long look back upon Dresden, and then stepped back. “Won’t you both come in? Wipe your feet.”

Harry followed the tall warden into the house, and spent half a minute scraping his sneakers against the mat in the entryway. He saw Dresden do the same, and even Mouse shuffled his paws on the mat before trotting forward onto the carpet.

The house’s interior matched its exterior in quality and quaintness. The white walls and wooden trim had weathered quite a number of children over the years. Harry could tell by the motionless Muggle pictures on the walls, all of them portraits or family photos, all of them with enough children to give the Weasley family a run for its money. On the far wall, he saw Molly progress from a grinning Primary Schooler to a surly teenager with dyed black hair just by looking down the wall.

The little boy who had answered the door peered out from behind Charity’s leg. “You brought another Harry? How many are there?” he asked Dresden.

Dresden bent down and ruffled the boy’s hair. “Well, there’s at least three, I guess,” he said, and laughed with the boy.

A curt clearing of Charity’s throat silenced the both of them. “Harry,” she said, calling upon a motherly tone that made Harry’s spine straighten quicker than Aunt Petunia’s nagging ever could. “Go play. Mister Dresden and I need to speak.”

As the little Harry rushed up the stairs, he had to swerve to avoid Molly, who tramped down the stairs wearing combat boots and a summer dress. Her white and pink hair was swept back behind her ears. “Harry? Boss? I thought I heard you guys down here. What’s going on?”

“Kitchen,” said Charity, silencing Dresden and Harry before either could draw breath.

The rest followed Charity down the hall. Molly asked Harry a silent question, to which he shrugged. He didn’t know any more than she did, a situation that was becoming unbearably familiar to him.

Charity led them under a prominent wooden crucifix and into the kitchen, which seemed spacious enough for two families. A trio of children ranging from older than the little Harry to younger than Molly sat on stools at the counter, all clamoring for a fresh sheet of cookies, which was being removed from the oven by a large man with sandy blond hair.

“Harry,” the man said to Dresden in greeting. His trim beard split for a genuine smile. As he straightened, he struck Harry with his size. The man stood only a few inches shorter than Dresden, but packed considerably more muscle, which he kept under a pressed flannel shirt. Harry had to wonder if everyone in Chicago was so tall, and how they managed to fit in anything, as he followed Dresden around the counter to shake hands with the man.

“Michael,” Dresden said, trading grips and smiles with the man. “Isn’t it a little early for cookies?”

Michael’s smile dimmed as his wife threw cross looks at him around Dresden. “I thought a snack might make this more pleasant. ‘Some’ people are more receptive when they have chocolate,” he added in a graveyard whisper.

“Don’t you two start conspiring against me,” Charity scolded them. “Especially not in front of the children. I won’t have it. And I’ve already decided, Harry, so you and your friend had best take a cookie and be on your way.”

Molly exchanged a confused look with Harry. She stood behind her younger siblings on the stools, and said, “Vamoose, rug-rats. The grownups need to talk for a minute.” She waited until each of them had snatched a cookie from the tray and scampered, giggling, from the kitchen. Then she turned to her mother and said, “Decided what?”

Charity’s face became a wall. “Never mind what. There doesn’t need to be a discussion, because she isn’t going. It’s as simple as that.”

Molly’s confusion became alarm. “Wait. Who’s not going where?”

“Charity,” Michael said softly, and rested a hand on her shoulder.

She threw her husband’s hand aside and stormed to the sink. “No, Michael,” she said in a tight, quavering voice that somehow rang louder than a shout. She began rattling the sink’s dirty dishes, burying her attentions in soapy water.

Harry stepped back from the tense exchange. He saw Molly try to speak again, but Dresden stopped her with a look. The tall wizard placed Mouse’s lead in her hand, and said, “Why don’t you two take Mouse out back? He looks like he could use some air.”

As Mouse nuzzled her leg, Molly gaped at Dresden. “Harry, that’s not fair! If this is something about me, I deserve to—”

“Vamoose, rug-rats,” Dresden told Molly and Harry with an infuriating smile. “The grownups need to talk for a minute.”

Harry watched Molly’s neck darken to match the pink in her hair. Then he followed her tromping footsteps out the back door, which he darted through the instant before Molly slammed it hard enough to rattle its glass. He and Mouse watched her fume at the curtained windows.

“Of all the unbelievable… This is exactly why I moved out!” she snarled, and kicked a softball sitting on the deck.

Harry had experience with being excluded from meetings, and knew better than to sulk. He hushed Molly with a gesture, and then pulled a long, pink string out of his pocket. His Extendable Ear was one of the few things he had been carrying on him when McGonagall had collected him, and consequently one of his few remaining possessions. He unraveled the Ear and fed its end through the crack of the door.

“—just got her back.” Charity’s voice rang through the Extendable Ear, as clear as if they had been sitting in the kitchen. Molly gasped in astonishment, making Harry smile as he gestured her to tilt her head toward the Ear’s end. “And now you want to take her away again? Just like that?”

“I don’t want to take anyone anywhere!” Dresden insisted. “This isn’t something I want to do, Charity, even if you were one hundred and ten percent on-board with the idea. But the fact is that she goes where I go now. Or did you forget that my head is on the chopping block too?”

It must have been a profoundly wrong thing that Dresden had said, for dead silence followed through the Extendable Ear. Harry glanced up at Molly, and found her ruddy anger had become whitish shock. She staggered back from the ear, rubbing at her mouth, as if to hide her grimace.

Then the door opened. Harry jerked the pink string back and smiled awkwardly at Michael, who loomed in the doorway. He looked at his daughter’s mute horror, and then offered Harry a wan smile and a plate of fresh cookies. “You two shouldn’t be listening to this,” he said, more advisory than scolding.

“Sorry,” Harry stammered, winding up the Extendable Ear as fast as he could.

Michael’s smile remained steadfast. He nodded, and then gently closed the door.

When Harry turned, Molly was already halfway across the yard. Mouse stared up at Harry with soulful eyes, and then picked up his lead with his teeth and padded to a comfortable spot on the deck, where he proceeded to nap with gusto. Helpless, Harry followed Molly into the yard.

She led Harry to the base of an old, tall tree. A sturdy ladder had been fixed to the tree, and led up to a tree house, which was half-masked in branches. Molly’s hands wrung the ladder as she stared up at the simple wooden house above them. “My dad built this for me when I was little,” she said, her voice undercut with trembling. “When the other munchkins came along, he kept adding to it, and fixing it up.”

“It’s nice,” Harry said hesitantly.

“Mom just…she still sees that little girl waving to her from the railing up there. She does.” Molly glanced back at Harry with glistening eyes. “I’m going to be eighteen next year. What’s she going to do when I’m…? I mean, she keeps treating me like I’m still…”

Harry shrugged. “I understand, believe me,” he said, and thought of McGonagall, and of Mrs. Weasley’s comforting, exasperating coddling. He thought of Dumbledore, of the old wizard’s constant, obfuscating, mysterious ways, and felt heavy with the memory. “I suppose I’m lucky,” he muttered. “Where I come from, we come of age at seventeen.”

Then a thought struck Harry. He was seventeen today. He was an adult, and no longer restricted by the Ministry’s monitoring charms. Pulling his wand from his back pocket, Harry waved it over the plate of cookies. “Wingardium Leviosa,” he incanted.

Molly jumped back as the plate levitated past her head. The plate rose smoothly to the treetop, and then sidled into the tree house, out of sight. “That was incredible,” she said, breathless. “What is that? Is that a wand? Like, an honest-to-God magic wand? I knew Harry was full of crap when he told me they didn’t work like that.”

Harry was glad to see her smile again. “Come on,” he said, and grasped the ladder. “If we’re going to be left in the dark, we may as well have something to eat.”

They followed the cookies up, Harry before Molly in deference to her dress. The tree house was sturdier and more spacious than Harry imagined it would be, and easily accommodated the both of them. They sat at either side of the tree house door and emptied the plate of cookies while watching the kitchen curtains.

Taking the last cookie, Molly let her head bounce against the doorframe and sighed. Her eyes wandered from the house back to Harry’s wand, which rested next to his hip. “Seriously, how did you get so good at that? I’ve never seen such a smooth ascent on anything. I don’t think even Harry is that good with wind magic.”

Harry shrugged. “It was one of the first charms I ever learned, actually.”

“Back at Hog-Warts, right?” Molly gathered her legs up under her dress, so that only the tips of her boots peeked out. She hugged her knees to her chest, and stared at some distant point past Harry’s head and through the walls of the tree house. “It sounds amazing there, the way you describe it. It sounds perfect.”

Harry pulled his legs in through the door, leaning against the wall as Molly did. “Well, it’s not perfect. But it’s…home. As much of a home as I’ve ever had, at any rate.” Before he could stop himself, he added, “And right now I wish I didn’t have to go back.”

“Why?” Molly asked, wiping chocolate from the corner of her mouth.

“Because it isn’t safe, for me or for my friends. Because Dumbledore is gone, but his mission isn’t.”

“What mission? What’s a ‘dumble door?’ ”

He groaned. How could he possibly explain to someone who had never heard of the Ministry, or of Voldemort? “There are… Do you have dark wizards here?” he asked, suddenly aware of how little he knew of Molly’s world. “People who use magic to hurt other people?”

The question seemed to shock Molly. She tightened her arms around her knees, and said, “Uh, yeah. Yeah, we do. They’re called ‘warlocks.’ ”

“Yeah. Well, we have ‘warlocks’ like you wouldn’t believe, called Death Eaters. They bully and curse people into serving them, and they kill anyone brave enough to stand against them. I have to find them, and stop them. I have to stop them. But I can’t do that at Hogwarts.”

Molly was quiet for a moment. She stared at her dress, the white half of her hair falling into her eyes. Then, in a mousy voice, she said, “You know, not every warlock is bad. A lot of them are just confused, and scared.”

Harry looked up in surprise. “What?” he snapped.

She rocked back at his tone. “I’m just saying,” she stammered, “that not every warlock means to be bad. You know, not everybody gets a castle to learn this stuff in. Some people have to figure it out on their own, and they try to help the people they love, and they just…they just…”

The very idea boiled in Harry’s blood. “The head Death Eater’s name is Voldemort. He killed my parents. He gave me this when I was just a baby.” He tapped the scar on his forehead. “Do you want to tell me that he’s not bad?”

Her ears turned pink. “I didn’t mean… Forget it. I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

Harry calmed down with a deep breath. He had to remind himself that Molly didn’t know. He wasn’t ‘The Famous Harry Potter’ to her, something for which he should have been grateful. “No. I’m sorry. I just…I have to stop them. I have to stop Voldemort, or he’ll keep killing everyone I care about.”

They stewed in silence again, until Molly said, “You have friends at Hog-Warts?”

“Mmn,” Harry said, and nodded.

Molly fidgeted. “You have a girlfriend?” she asked.

Harry grunted. “Yeah. Only…no. I don’t know. I want to. But she would be in too much danger. It wouldn’t be safe for her.” The thought knitted his brows together. He forced himself to laugh as he said, “This isn’t quite how I imagined I’d be spending my birthday.”

He looked up to see Molly wipe an odd expression from her face. “It’s your birthday today?” she asked, sounding relieved for the change in topic. “Why didn’t you say anything? Harry didn’t say anything about it.”

“I didn’t tell anybody,” Harry said. “Why bother? I don’t want a fuss, especially not here, and not from Professor Dresden. No offense, but the only thing I want is to leave here.”

Molly chuckled. “‘Professor Dresden.’ That gets funnier every time I hear it.” Then she sobered, and crawled forward on her hands and knees, her boot tips clomping on the planks. “Come on. There’s gotta be something you want, Goggles. Everybody wants something on their birthday.”

Harry’s gaze drifted back out the door, and skipped across suburban rooftops toward the horizon. “I want lots of things,” he admitted. “But I’m not going to get any of them, so there’s no point in wishing, is there?”

Molly sat down next to him, and rested her head against the wall with a long sigh. “You don’t really get the point of wishing, do you?”

He shrugged.

“Okay. Let’s start small. Close your eyes,” she instructed him.

Harry gave her an odd look, which was met with her stern expectance until he did as she commanded. He closed his eyes and settled back against the wall, feeling foolish as he did.

“Good. Now, you remember that girl? Miss ‘Maybe-Yes-Maybe-No? I want you to picture her in your head. Think hard.”

Ginny’s face came to him at once. He saw her freckled smile turn to him, swishing her ginger hair as it did. A wave of homesickness washed over him as he watched her fade into his thoughts. “Yeah?” he told Molly, talking around an unexpected lump in his throat.

“Good.”

Something soft brushed against his lips. Through closed eyes, he saw Ginny’s face lean into his, kissing him gently, hesitantly. Startled, he kissed back. He savored the sensation of her lips against his, and the smell of her hair, as he tried with all his might not to notice that Ginny tasted like chocolate chip cookies.

The kiss ended. Harry opened his eyes, and saw Molly, sitting back in her original spot. A cheshire smile shone in her face. “Happy birthday,” she murmured.

“Thanks,” he mumbled. His heart raced.

A shout from below the tree house made both of them jump. “Molly! Come down here,” Charity hollered.

“You too, Goggles,” Dresden’s voice added.

Harry shared a guilty look with Molly before following her down the ladder. Dresden waited for them at the bottom, holding Mouse by the lead. Michael and Charity were there as well. The former was straight-faced, whereas the latter did nothing to hide her displeasure.

“Oh, I know that look,” Molly said, recoiling from her mother as she jumped off the ladder. “Whatever it is, it was Harry’s fault.”

“Which Harry?” Dresden asked with a small smile.

“Whichever one the blame sticks to,” Molly said at once.

“Good answer,” said Dresden.

Charity cleared her throat, silencing the lot of them. She fixed her daughter with a stern look, and said, “Molly, Harry will be going to England in the fall. It seems he’s taken a teaching position at a school there without even considering his responsibilities here first.”

The news rocked Molly. “Wait, what? You mean, Harry is… You’re… You can’t!” she cried to Dresden. Whirling upon Harry, she said, “You knew about this? When you said Harry was going to teach you, I thought that meant you were going to be here for a while, not that you were taking him back with you!”

“Easy, Grasshopper,” Dresden said, and added, “It wasn’t exactly my choice,” with a sidelong glare that Charity ignored.

“We know how important your studies with Harry are,” said Michael. “That’s why, after discussing the options, we’ve decided that you’ll be going with him. You’ll be spending the year with him in England, going to school there—“

“A school which we apparently know nothing about,” Charity added curtly.

Molly was struck dumb by the news. She stared at Dresden, who self-consciously straightened the collar of his unseasonable duster. “I’m…I’m going to Hog-Warts?” she said. “I get to go to magic school?”

“It’s you and me against the Brits, Grasshopper. Do you think you’re up to it?” Dresden asked her.

When Molly’s dumbfounded look turned to him, Harry could only shrug. “Mind the stairs,” he said, and offered her an uneasy smile.