You’re sitting on the ground, the moisture seeping through your jeans. The last notes of Happy Birthday to You hang in the quiet, spoken more than sung, a little shaky. You’d waited all day. You’d seen the whispers, the huddles in the common room, and let yourself believe.

But there was no surprise. No cake in the Gryffindor common room. Not even a card. Harry was obsessed with the latest Quidditch strategy, Hermione with her exam timetables, Ron with whether the house-elves would make treacle tart for dessert. It just… didn’t come up.

A soft, deliberate crunch of gravel comes from the path behind you. Then another. Then several.

You don’t turn. Not until the footsteps stop, and a low, familiar voice cuts through the twilight silence.

They’re all there, silhouetted against the darkening sky. Mattheo Riddle at the front, holding a small, round cake with seventeen lit candles that make his sharp features glow gold. Lorenzo Berkshire beside him, a couple of lumpy, wrapped parcels tucked under his arm. Theodore Nott, Blaise Zabini, and Draco Malfoy fan out behind them, hands in the pockets of their baggy jeans or leather jackets.

No one’s smirking. No one’s laughing. Mattheo just looks at you, the candlelight flickering in his dark eyes.