Generally, I love birthdays, whether they are mine or someone else's. I love everything about them, really. When they're mine, there's the fun of having your favorite meals, eating your favorite flavour of cake and/or ice cream, getting random presents, and generally having a good time. When they're someone else's, other than that whole "what do I get them that won't make me look like a prat" vibe, they're also loads of fun. You get to have a good time at a party or event, you get to eat good food and have free cake and ice cream.
What's not to love?
Well, I found out the answer to what I thought was a rhetorical question quite recently at, ironically enough, a birthday party. Here's the thing - whilst my family is quite close with my mother's relatives - hence the frequent reference to my Muggle cousins - I actually know quite little about my father's pureblood line, other than it is a branch of the Macmillans. Where Hughes fits into that, I'm not quite certain - just that my great-grandfather's name is Ralph Macmillan, and he just celebrated his 142nd birthday last week.
I know, I know, this is boring, but I promise - the context is important here. Because last Tuesday, I found myself sitting alone next to Great-Grand Ralph at his own party - and I had not the faintest clue what to say to him. I'm not even sure he knew exactly who I was. But I was trying to be polite, so I asked him if this party matched up to the best birthday party he'd ever had. I didn't expect what I got, but I thought it might be worth sharing, because his rant gave me so much to think about.
First, though, I had to endure the standard lecture on how "kids these days" are so spoiled and have things so easy, et cetera. I'm used to this. I've heard it a lot and have learned how to tune out most of it and just surface at the proper places to sound sympathetic or contrite, whichever is called for. GG Ralph was no exception, although I almost missed the most important thing I would ever learn.
"... but what I regret the most," Great-Grand was saying when I tuned back in, "is that you youngsters will never know the sheer joy and freedom of uninhibited flight on your birthday."
I blinked. Surely, I had misheard this.
"Um, sir?" I said tentatively, "I am so sorry, but I think I must have missed something. What do you mean, 'uninhibited flight'? I was lucky enough to get a new racing broom last year; is that what you are talking about?"
"Brooms," my great-grandfather scoffed. "That's no way to have fun on one's anniversary date. Brooms are all very well and good for the faint of heart who need safety and stability. Why, they might as well ride carpets or hippogriffs, and what fun are those?"
I thought about the Wronski Feint that I'd been practicing this summer and decided that it probably wasn't the time to bring this up. Not if I wanted to possibly learn a new way to fly.
"No, the reason you lads will never know the pure joy of independent flight is simple. Air's too crowded nowadays. That bloody Secrecy Act thing ruins everyone's fun. One simple slip of a disillusionment charm on a beautiful fall evening, and then where are you? Being shot at with those bloody rifles, that's where you are. Ruined my best set of brand-new birthday dress robes. Grounded for six months, threatened with Azkaban, actually had my own memory modified, and for what? Fifteen minutes of pure joy on my fifteenth birthday. Yes, that's right, lad," Great-Grand said, seeing my look of confusion and misinterpreting it as shocked horror. "They wiped my memory clean. Or, at least, they thought they did."
He cackled and leaned closer, inadvertently smearing icing on the hem of his sleeve. "Turns out the only thing they wiped was the knowledge of how to fly, but not the feeling of it. Never did figure out how, never was able to duplicate it, and every one I ever asked or mentioned it to thought I was nuttier than a fruitcake for saying it was possible."
"What was possible, sir?" I asked, almost holding my breath in equal parts hope and dread.
"Why, flying on one's own, of course. Just you and the wind. Like a bird, only better, because it's you! Ah, that was the best birthday ever - and the worst, all in one." He sighed and leaned way back in his seat, eyes closing gently, a slight smile on his face.
I gingerly unfolded myself and tiptoed away, thinking hard. It might have been a story just to amuse himself and tease me. But somehow, I didn't think so.
What I do think is that Great-Grand Ralph Macmillan was right. That would have been both the best and worst birthday ever - and now I want to see if I can duplicate at least part of that day on my own next birthday. Not the getting-caught-and-getting-modified part. But the flying?
That would be the best birthday present of them all!