mahogany ; d.m

23 - birthday

CW: mature content and smut
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As the days progressed and the next weekend approached, the snow which settled over the grounds of Hogwarts was only laying on thicker and thicker.

It was the morning of Athena's seventeenth birthday, meaning she was finally a witch of age. She was woken by the racket of Hermione shuffling and moving in and out of the dormitory. She had disappeared again when Athena finally opened her eyes and sluggishly rolled out of bed.

After putting on her dressing gown and slippers, she wandered downstairs into the common room, feeling largely well rested.

Gathered around the fireplace, were Harry and Hermione joined by all four of the Weasley's and on the table between them was an abundance of beautifully wrapped gifts.

"Happy birthday!" they all rejoiced when they noticed she had entered.

"Oh wow! Thank you,"she gushed, eyeing the gifts. She hugged all of them with gratitude.

"Finally an adult," Fred beamed, releasing her from their hug.

"Maybe now you'll stop teasing me about last year," she whispered, conscious that the others wouldn't hear her as they were organising what gift she should open first.

"Never," he grinned, then running to take a seat, he plummeted onto the sofa next to George.

"We think you should open this one first," Hermione blushed while pointing an outstretched finger to the largest gift on the table.

The present she had instructed to was a giant cylinder with a dome-shaped top which had been beautifully wrapped in floral green wrapping paper. However, there were small holes poked through the surface of it, around every four inches down.

She gradually tore off the paper to see a beautiful, white snowy owl, perched on a branch behind a dome-shaped cylinder cage.

"Oh my gosh!"Athena infused, staring at the exquisite creature. "Wow!"

"Me, Harry and Ron all chipped in,"Hermione beamed. "We thought you could use your own owl since you were always having to use the school ones."

"Thank you so much!"she jubilated, pulling Hermione, Ron and Harry each in for a hug.

"Right, our present next," George said standing up and handing her a rather large box. "From me and Freddie."

She opened the gift to find a dozen products of the twins' jokes and pranks which they had been selling around Hogwarts.

"Thought you could use a laugh," Fred smiled.

She thanked them both with a incandescent smile and resumed to open the rest of her gifts. Ginny had given her a selection of Honeydukes chocolates, Harry had bought her a few boxes of Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans; Hermione had given her a variety of sweets including fizzing whizzbees, ice mice and pepper imps; Ron had gifted some Chocolate Frog's and the twin's also gave her an extra gift, something which they called a 'Skiving Snackbox'.

She had made the decision to call her brand new owl Amata, named after one of the three witches in the story 'The Fountain of Fair Fortune', which she had found and read for the first time a while ago. Since then, she had read it a few times and loved it.

She released Amata from her cage, allowing her to join the other owls in the Owlery, feeling completely chuffed with her gift.

When they attended to the Great Hall for breakfast, all of their Gryffindor peers said a 'happy birthday' to her and she thanked them all with appreciation.