Eighteen

Posted originally on the Archive of Our Own at http://archiveofourown.org/works/6143086.

Rating: General Audiences

Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply
Category: Gen
Fandom: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Relationship: Hermione Granger/Ron Weasley
Character: Ron Weasley, Harry Potter, Hermione Granger
Additional Tags: Cake, Socks, all your traditional birthday gifts
Stats: Published: 2016-03-01 Words: 787

Eighteen
by ladyknightley

Summary

It's Ron's birthday, and the day can't go uncelebrated even if they are stuck in a tent in the
middle of nowhere. Drabble.

“Happy birthday, mate.”

Ron blinks as Harry drops a card and a terribly wrapped package in his lap. “We’re doing presents?”
he asks, tearing into the paper. He blinks again as soon as the gift is unwrapped and he can see
what’s inside it. “Are these…my own socks?”

“Yes,” Harry says apologetically. “I’ve been wearing them the past few months and I thought you
might want them back.”

Ron squints at him. “I thought they were mine,” Harry clarifies. “But don’t worry, I’ve washed
them.”

“Thanks, mate,” Ron says. “You really shouldn’t have.”

“I know, I know,” Harry says, waving him away. He turns seriously. “Honestly, I’m sorry I couldn’t
get you a real present. I’ll never be able to thank you enough for—”

“Oh, shut up,” Ron says. “Whatever it is. Shut it.”

“But I—”

“Unless it you were going to get me Cannons tickets. Was it going to be Cannons tickets?”
“When this is over,” Harry says, gesturing around him in a way meant to encompass both their tent
(today pitched in a sodden field in Cumbria, miles from any other living creature that doesn’t have
four legs and say ‘baa’) and also Voldemort and the Death Eaters and everything the past few
months has been, “I will buy you a Cannons season ticket every year for the rest of your life. Top
Box, and everything.”

Ron grins. “I’ll be sure to live to a hundred and eighty then, to get my money’s worth out of you.”

“I’ll write it into my will, in case I predecease you,” he promises, and both of them laugh even
though the chances of that happening are probably too real to risk making a joke. “Hey—you
haven’t opened your card yet! I bought it specially in that Tesco we snuck into in Shepton Mallet last
week.”

Ron rips it open. On the front is a cartoon of a boy in a car with TWO TODAY! printed in huge
bubble letters. “The car’s orange, see?” Harry says. “Also, it was the last birthday card they had that
didn’t have flowers or hearts on it.”

Ron laughs. “This is just too much,” he says, pretending to choke back tears of emotion. Then he
laughs again.

“What?” asks Harry.

“I was going to make a daft joke about how all my other birthdays pale in comparison to this one,”
he says. “But, actually, if you think about last year…”

Harry grimaces. “Yeah, maybe it’s not as bad as all that… No one’s poisoned you yet today!”

“And I’m not dating Lavender, either. It definitely could be worse,” Ron says cheerfully. “Although,
Hermione’s not speaking to me today either, so maybe this is going to become a pattern for my
birthdays in the future…”

Harry makes a non-committal noise in his throat and, like she’s been summoned by him saying her
name, Hermione appears. “Dinner’s ready, Harry,” she says, addressing him like Ron’s not there.

“See?” Ron hisses, as he follows his friend back into the tent. Harry just shrugs again, then moves
out of the way so Ron can see their table. Instead of the usual unappetising sludge made from
whatever they’ve managed to scavenge, there’s a plain sponge cake with one candle stuck into the
middle, and three plates. “Cake?” he asks, surprised. “How’d you manage that?” he asks Harry, but
it’s Hermione who answers.

“You can’t have a birthday without cake. And there’s a muggle bakery in the town. So.” Her voice
is matter-of-fact, almost bored, but there’s a hint of smugness about her face as he studies the cake in
sheer delight. Hermione has forgiven him enough to ensure he has cake on his birthday. That’s better
than a lifetime of Cannons tickets.

“Hermione, thank—”

“You’d better hurry up and blow out the candle before it drips wax onto the icing,” she says, so he
does. Harry whoops and cheers like they’re at a party in the Gryffindor Common Room, and
Hermione gives a few quick, polite claps.

He doesn’t dare make a wish, yet. It feels like asking too much. Instead, he cuts the cake into three
roughly equal pieces, plates them, and hands out forks. Harry scoops out a forkful of his own piece
then raises it high in a toast. “Happy eighteenth, Ron!” he says, and Ron grins back.
“Cheers,” he says, raising his own fork high like Harry. He risks a look at Hermione. She has a
much smaller forkful, and she lifts it only a couple of inches, giving him a brief nod. Then, like an
afterthought, a tiny, but genuine, smile.

And there it is—the birthday wish he didn’t dare ask for. Maybe eighteen won’t be entirely awful,
after all.

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