Knowledge Is Power ↣ Harmione

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter 22

Harry sat at his 'birthday breakfast' and thought this was easily the best birthday he'd ever had, celebrations were very informal with the marriage blessing arranged for this afternoon containing quite enough formality for everyone involved.

His presents were mostly in the form of novelty gifts though pride of place went to a beautiful hand made chess set where he and Hermione were the King and Queen, Luna and Neville the bishops, who else but Sirius and Remus as the Hippogriff riding knights with mum and dad as the rooks. The white pawns were uniformed Dobby's with the addition of a WWII GI helmet and machine gun but the poor blacks had to settle for a row of Cornelius Fudges as their first line of defence. The black's had Dumbledore as King, Voldemort as his 'Queen' Lucius Malfoy and Snape were the bishops, Vernon and Marge Dursley were the ostrich riding knights while the rooks were represented by a couple of dementors.

Mum and dad had crafted the pieces while Remus and Sirius handled all the charm work, as a gift it was beautiful, thoughtful and priceless but as a chess set it was a dead loss.

This was for two reasons; the battle animations between the pieces had everyone in stitches of laughter – watching Snape's arms fall off while Dumbledore rushed to pick them up for his friend had Harry struggling for breath he was laughing so much. Malfoy would sneer at the opposing piece then wet himself and walk off embarrassed while the Dursleys caused their ostrich legs to buckle under the weigh of their obese passengers and had to be carried off the board by the cursing siblings. Dumbledore would offer a lemon drop while using his other hand to try and sneak curses in while Voldemort seemed to have been based on every bad drag queen cliché imaginable, right down to his snake – a feather boa. Cornelius tried to bullshit every piece he came up against whereas Dobby was deadly with his machine gun, Emma's piece was equipped with her pump action but her aim seemed off with every shot catching the black character in the groin.

The main reason it was useless as a serious chess set is that the whole thing was charmed so black could never win, if Luna was in trouble Neville would appear and rip the black piece in two while none could get within three squares of Hermione.

Harry was touched by the thought and skill that had went into the creation of the gift but it was the idea behind it that he treasured most; the dark side couldn't harm any of them.

Hermione's present had confused him, it was apparently the latest product in the illegal Harry Potter gift range, an 'I've slept with Harry Potter' t-shirt. All became clear when he saw his wife's apparel, she had the same colour t-shirt with 'so have I' emblazed across it's chest while the back bore the legend 'there can be only ONE'.

Dad was howling with laughter when he saw it as this was supposedly from his favourite movie though Harry wasn't sure how 'Dirty Harry' featured in it. His mug from Joan bearing the message 'Worlds Best Dad' almost had him in tears, as did receiving cards from every orphan old enough to hold a crayon.

He and Hermione had spoken quietly to Gillian about their concern that some of the children might be jealous over their adoption of Joan, she was able to dispel most of their worries with the fact that all of the children were now staying here and their futures had never been so bright thanks to them. She was quite sure some of the children wished it was he or she that had been adopted but they were mostly used to the process by now and their quality of life had improved beyond recognition, Jillian joked that things were now so good ordinary kids would be starting to disown their parents to become orphans and be placed here.

Neville watched his best friend baulk at all the attention and had a smile on his lips from knowing exactly how he felt; his birthday dinner last night had put him in the spotlight. Neville's smile had been a permanent fixture since that dinner when he had diverted the attention away from himself towards the beautiful angel by his side. Luna had stayed with him the night they discovered Bellatrix had escaped and he'd returned the favour after their fight with the bitch, they had done nothing more than cling to each other and taking comfort from the fact they weren't alone anymore.