Harry's sixteenth birthday dawned clear and bright, and he didn't even see it. Since the summer began, he only opened the curtains at night, when he was certain no light could come in, and they were always closed again by the time morning came. That was the way Harry liked it, because it meant he had to think less about the outside world, about the Order, about what he was missing at 12 Grimmauld Place, far beyond his own sphere of existence.

And it meant he kept everything else locked up in his room, with him, where he wanted it.

Luna's owl arrived just past nine o'clock in the morning, and Harry let it tap at the window for a full ten minutes before he got up. He had had so many owls since the end of the school year that it didn't even seem to matter any more. None of them said anything, just words: just words and words that didn't mean a thing, that were just scribbles of nothing.

Harry stared at the ceiling while the owl tapped on the window, and studied the watermarks in the plaster. He'd only noticed them this summer, as if the roof had only started leaking since he came back. As if the sky had started crying (raining) so much that the house could no longer keep out the damp.

He knew the owl was from Luna before he opened the window, before he drew back the curtains, before he even got out of bed. It wasn't just that Luna owled him every day, though she did-- it was that he could feel it, when someone was reaching out, when it was someone who might understand.

The owl didn't let him bring it inside. It just let him detach the parcel from its talons, and then it left. Only there long enough to do what it came for, and then it left.

The parcel was wrapped in old editions of the Daily Prophet from the previous month, and Harry didn't look at them. It was a box, and on top was a birthday card, which Harry didn't read. He didn't need people wishing him happy this and happy that-- not even Luna, who must have known that happiness was no longer an option.

But he should have known that Luna wouldn't know how to choose birthday gifts. There was no note inside the box, and nothing offered in the way of explanation. But Harry didn't need it, because:

It was a mirror, with a spindly, etched handle, made of something that looked like stone and felt like metal. It was small but heavy, and when Harry held it up to his face, he saw that it didn't reflect. There was something engraved on the back, but he didn't dare look at it.

He knew he was supposed to be grateful. He was supposed to be, and he should have been, but he couldn't even bring himself to feel it. It wasn't Luna's fault, but it should have been.

Harry put the mirror down and thought, I never should have let it in.

 

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