Harry Potter and the Ankh of Khepri

But before he could think, the blanket suddenly tore down again, and it was ripped back, to reveal a single face that Harry had seen many times before, though only in his dreams. The structure of a human boy, but with the tan skin of a lion, the eyes of a hawk, and a mouth full of sharp teeth like a crocodile. The boy was smiling, just smiling. "Morning, sunshine," he whispered.

Blanket down, and this time, when the blanket came back, there was nothing there. It was just nothing. Nothing left to see, nothing there, not even black. It only existed for a second, before there was that feeling of suddenly something happening, the blanket came down, and Harry James Potter was brought out of his nightmare as suddenly as it begun.

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He'd been having these dreams for a month now, even though every morning when he woke up, drenched in cold sweat, he couldn't remember anything about them. And this morning was no different at all. He bolted awake, quite suddenly, torn from his nightmares so fast that he gasped. The darkness and the silence fell over him like a blanket, and as he looked around his dark room, the fleeting memories were already drizzling away. He sighed. Pulling the covers up, he sat back against his pillows and just took a few moments to let his heart beat settle again, wishing that he knew just what it was that made him so scared.

It was still dark outside. No light was peeking through the velvet drapes hung over the windows yet, and shadows were still thrown here and there across the darkened room. As always, when Harry glanced at his two room mates, he saw that Ron Weasley and Draco Malfoy were still fast asleep. They always slept until nine anyway.

He sat up, taking his glasses from the bedside table and putting them on. The shadowy room around him came into clearer focus. Ron was lying on his back in bed, snoring silently, his mouth wide open, and under Ron's mattress, Harry could make out a box-shaped distortion. Ron truly was terrible at hiding presents.

For today was Harry James Potter's seventeenth birthday, at last. Four weeks before, his sixth year at Hogwarts School Of Witchcraft And Wizardry had drawn to a dramatic end, and ever since, he had been living at Grimmauld Place with Draco and the Weasley family. During the month, not much had happened that was out of the ordinary - at least, out of the ordinary for a house full of wizards. Summer time boredom was settling in place, and being expressed in most inventive ways. Just the day before, Mr Weasley had been called home from work early to get rid of a hoard of dancing blue carrots which had besieged his daughter Ginny in the bathroom. Ron still maintained doggedly that it was an accident.

Of course, there had been sadness too in his month at Grimmauld Place. A week into the holiday, Percy Weasley's funeral had taken place. It had been a very quiet, sombre occasion, for just the Weasley family, where Percy's ashes were scattered into the wind on top of Stoatshead Hill. Where muggle funerals said goodbye, the wizarding version was more like, "until next time".

And so today was his birthday at last. It was the first of his birthdays that he would spend in fully wizard company, and he was definitely looking forward to it. There was that box-shaped lump under Ron's mattress to attend to, but more than that, Harry was most excited about finally celebrating a special occasion with friends and family all around him. And there certainly would be a lot of people to talk to. Staying in the house at the minute were Mr and Mrs Weasley, Bill Weasley, Ron, Ginny, Harry, Draco Malfoy, Remus Lupin, Tonks, and of course, Snape. Snape would most likely prefer to spend his summer anywhere but Grimmauld Place, but his duty as Harry's magical guardian had brought him here. Bill was over in England for Percy's funeral, and would be staying for a few more weeks, while the second eldest brother of the Weasley family, Charlie, was staying at Hogwarts with the gamekeeper Hagrid. Occasionally, Fred and George Weasley would come round to liven things up a little, or get the children to test some new product. Harry quite enjoyed these visits, because apart from that, he was stuck in Grimmauld Place around the clock, and it did get very tedious sometimes.