“Do you know what they are setting up back there, Neville?” Harry asked, trying to peer through the kitchen windows into the backyard where several wizards were laying out various tarps on the ground and casting some spells.

“Now, don’t ruin the big surprise for yourself, Harry,” Alice chided him, “You’ll find out when everyone else arrives soon. Frank and I wanted to make sure we celebrated your birthday properly, even if we missed it by a few weeks. A belated birthday party! I’m sure you kids will have a lot of fun with what we have planned.”

Harry stopped looking through the window as Alice opened the oven and pulled out a tray of chocolate chip cookies. Harry and Neville had helped her pour the batter and place the chocolate pieces. Apparently Alice liked to cook muggle food because she said wizarding food was usually so bland and boring. Harry had to agree. For all the variety of meats and magical vegetables wizards had access to, all the dishes they served were all rather similar to each other.

Alice used her wand to levitate the steaming tray onto the kitchen counter. “Cookies are ready!” she said brightly after letting them cool for a bit, Neville and Harry dived in and ate a couple each. Even then there were still plenty left. Harry made sure to only eat three, his large appetite was still coming back. The squirrel’s soul had only suppressed his usual hunger for a little less than a week.

Harry had offered to start paying for his food, but Alice and Frank had flatly denied him and just cooked enough food after that that for the first time in Harry’s life even he was stuffed at the end of every meal, despite the effects of him consuming the squirrel’s soul fading away. It was a lot of work for Alice especially to do all of it, and Harry was very grateful for the effort she was putting in for him.

There was a knock at the door and Alice quickly cast a charm on the steaming cookies to keep them nice and hot, then started walking to the front.

“Oh, that must be them,” she said before opening the door. There were the full Weasley and Granger families, a large pile of colorful wrapped boxes bound in ribbon floating behind them.

“Happy Birthday, Harry!” they all chanted in unison as they saw him, “Well, late birthday,” Fred added a second later.

“Are those all for me?” Harry asked in confusion. That was a rather large stack of gifts.

“Of course, Harry! Everyone got you something. And there’s quite a lot of us,” Ron answered.

“Come in, come in,” Alice stood to the side and everyone came inside, “You came just in time, Harry and Neville just helped me finish up making the chocolate chip cookies.”

Hermione perked up, but the Weasleys just looked confused. “Cookies?” Ginny asked, “What are those?”

“You haven’t had cookies?” Hermione gasped, “C’mon, Ginny. They are great, I can’t believe I didn’t think to show you them when you came to visit us…”

— — —

Everyone went into the kitchen and everyone started digging into the cookies.

Harry listened in on the adults conversation as everyone else enjoyed the food. Harry shouldn’t eat any more and deprive everyone else of their fair share of the treats. Neville was talking about Quidditch with Ron again which wasn’t something that Harry was overly interested in.

“I have never heard of this Alice,” Arthur Weasley said after eating a cookie and seeming to enjoy it, “Is this a muggle recipe?”

“Yes, when I married Frank he introduced me to all of the muggle foods that I had been missing,” Alice replied, “I haven’t looked back since I started. There’s just so much variety to work with. I’m sure you know all about it Denton, Jean.”

The Grangers looked up from the cookies that each of them had grabbed, “Oh, we’re not generally ones for sweets,” Jean answered, “But we can make exceptions for cases like this. These came out rather good.”

Mrs. Weasley looked rather put out as she saw her husband and children enjoying the cookies so much, “Alice, how could I get a hand on my recipe?” She asked abruptly, “My family appears to enjoy it a good bit. I might want to take a crack at making them myself!”

“Oh!” Alice said, “Uhm, there’s a muggle shop in London that sells a good selection of cookbooks. I can give you directions if you would like…”

“Yes, I would appreciate that, Alice. Thank you,” Mrs. Weasley said primly.

There was a moment of awkward silence before Arthur Weasley coughed. “Well, I see there are workers in the back. I’ve never hired them myself, but I’ve heard they are great for events.”

“Yes, they should be done in a few minutes,” Alice said, “Then we can let the kids have some fun. I almost want to try those things myself after they told me what they were going to do. We also got them to cater the food for us, it was all very convenient.”

“Oh, catered?” Mrs. Weasley asked curiously and seemed oddly relieved, “What did you order?”

“Oh, I have the list somewhere in here…” Alice rifled through her drawers for a moment before taking out the long receipt and handing it to Mrs. Weasley.

Mrs. Weasley’s eyebrows rose as she read down the long list.

“Five full cooked turkeys on top of everything else? Isn’t that too much?” Mrs. Weasley said in confusion as Mr. Weasley leaned over to read it as well. After a long moment, Mrs. Weasley handed it over to Mr. Granger who also began reading it with his wife.

This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

“Well, it seems that way,” Alice said, “But only Harry is getting four of those turkeys. He’s a growing boy, a bottomless pit even more than most boys his age. I’ve been cooking furiously to keep up with him!”

Harry looked away and Alice seemed to notice and turned to him, “Harry, not that I mind,” she said to Harry, “I’m happy to do it, I’m just still adjusting to the larger portions. I find cooking relaxing, so don't you worry about that.”

Harry nodded and looked back up, “Thank you for going to all that extra effort for me, Alice. You really don’t have to do it, I can just eat less if it's too much for you…”

“Harry,” she said firmly, “You are going to eat as much as you want in my house. Okay?”

“Okay, Alice,” Harry said.

Mr. Granger looked up from the list. “Well, I don’t think when I was teenager even I could eat one full turkey in one sitting, let alone four. I’m not sure I fully believed Hermione when she told us about your appetite, Harry. I guess we’ll get to see it first hand today.”

Mrs. Granger put a hand on Mr. Granger’s arm and looked at Harry.

“Don’t you worry about it Harry,” she said, “Like Alice said, you shouldn’t go hungry even if you have to eat more than other people. Especially given your situation...”

The mood dropped a little as Mrs. Granger reminded everyone what had happened to Harry at the Dursleys.

“Well, I think the workers should have finished at least one of the surprises by now,” Alice said with a slightly strained voice, “Why don’t we all go outside and try them out, kids?”

Everyone looked up from their conversations. Hermione had also been telling Ginny about other muggle sweets that Ginny should try while Ron and Neville had still been talking about Quidditch.

Everyone made their way outside and curiously inspected the bright blue tarp that had been laid out closest to the door.

The man in charge of the workers came over as they all came outside, “Just about done, Ma’am. Shouldn’t be more than five minutes to run the last checks on the charms. Remember to call us back for disposal, the charms are only rated for safety for a week at most.”

They all idled around and Harry inspected the area curiously. There were a total of three brightly colored circular tarps laid out on the ground scattered about the lawn. One of them was floating about three meters off of the ground and there was a rope ladder spilling over its side to a much larger circular tarp below it on the ground. The workers had their wands held out and were going to each tarp and casting a series of spells as a group.

Everyone watched as they finished checking the last tarp and declared that it was all clear. The leader came up to them and clapped his hands.

“Alright kids!” he said, “Let's show you what we’ve cooked up for you today.”

They went to the first colorful tarp. The man walked inside and as soon as he crossed the boundary he pushed upwards and launched straight upwards like a rocket! Everyone gasped as he quickly was about to fly out the other side. But before he could he suddenly seemed to bounce off of nothing and shot back the other way. He started to slowly float downwards after reaching the top of his jump.

“As you can see, this is our low gravity chamber!” the man said theatrically as his feet touched the ground again, “Jump for the moon while inside! If you get too close to the edge you will get redirected back inside, so bounce around to your heart's content. Once you want to leave, just make sure to get back to the ground and walk out slowly. Like so.”

He bounced forward lightly and slowly walked back over the boundary of the tarp until he was back onto the grass and fell back into normal gravity.

They moved to the next tarp along with the man, but Harry and the others gave longing glances at the tarp as they left. That was so cool!

The man stepped on to the next tarp and immediately began floating upwards. He pointed his finger above his head and immediately shot upwards. He shifted his arm and he started to turn to speed up along the direction he was pointing. He bounced off of some sort of invisible ceiling high above them and then to their shock pointed straight downwards. He plummeted at high speed head first towards the ground!

He slammed into the ground at high speed, but instead of getting hurt he just bounced back upwards as his momentum reversed in an instant. Using some more complicated maneuvers involved with lifting and lowering different numbers of his fingers and pointing in multiple directions at once, he floated downwards until he walked back onto the grass again.

“Our anti-gravity chamber!” He announced, “A bit harder to navigate, but speed around with the point of a finger. If you practice this one lets you do some more complicated motions. Just now I demonstrated for your worried parents our spongify charm we placed on the ground of all of our products. Even the most dangerous maneuvers will be perfectly safe inside our chamber as long as you don’t hit someone else too fast.”

He moved onwards and even the adults were slow walking and looking back now, looking at the tarp in wonder.

They reached the final tarp that was floating three meters off of the ground with a larger one placed on the ground.

“Now this one is special,” the man said as he stepped onto the larger tarp, “On the tarp below me we have the classic spongify charm and barrier to prevent any injuries. But in the center we have reverse gravity!”

He grabbed the ladder and shifted his body so he was below the floating tarp. In an instant he flipped upside down and climbed down, up? The ladder so he was standing on the bottom of the floating tarp. He walked around and spun while completely upside down. He walked to the edge of the tarp and leaned over it and grabbed a previously unseen handle on the other side and pulled himself over the lip so he was standing on the top of the floating tarp under normal gravity again.

“And just remember, it is perfectly safe as long as you land on the tarp below!” he shouted before jumping off and landing belly first on the ground below, only to bounce a few times before he stopped his momentum. He made his way to his feet and stepped outside the border and looked at the kids that were practically hopping in place in anticipation. Even Harry. He felt his eyes were slightly widened and he was bouncing on the balls of his feet resisting the urge to immediately start testing it out immediately. Now this was magic!

“So, kids,” the man said with a smile as he saw their eager faces, “Who wants to test them out first?”

Everyone charged forwards at the man’s teasing words and began to furiously play a spontaneous game of tag as they laughed and ran around. Harry dodged Hermione’s grab, jumping out from under the floating tarp. Gravity flipped and he rolled as he landed on the ground and bounced. He looked back and saw that Hermione had shifted focus and managed to tag George before he could leap away. Harry felt his smile grow. This was the best day ever!

— — —

Harry held his stomach and leaned back as he sighed in content. He had eaten all four of the turkeys Alice had bought for him, much to the Granger and Weasley parents' astonishment.

Harry and the other kids were all tired from running around for hours while they played outside. They all sat splayed out on the grass exhausted as the adults kept talking back at the outside table that they had set up. Harry enjoyed opening the presents before dinner, it was much more fun while there were other people there to share the experience with. Much better than his Christmas at Hogwarts had been.

With heavily lidded eyes and a full stomach sitting on the soft grass, Harry began to drift off to sleep as the warm summer sun beat down on him. The sounds of the adults' conversation washed over him as he slowly drifted off.

Best…

Birthday…

Ever…