Ch 3: Seventh Birthday

~1987 July 13 - Bertha Pov~

Today is my son's birthday and an important one at that as he's turning seven today.

We have invited many of our friends along with the Ministry worker that does the monthly checkups so we can have a big celebration.

My sisters and I have chosen and planned to decorate the house like a medieval castle, we even convinced the living guests to dress as princesses and princes and got some of them to bring some living armor to be the waiters for the party. If everything goes well we can have a knight theme party for our little prince.

My sisters are getting things ready while I went to our son's room to wake him up. When I get into his room I can see a clean room with a bookshelf filled with stories about knights and toys in a neat order while in the corner of the room there's a bed were you can see a little boy sleeping under the covers with the morning light shining down on his short messy white hair that's covering his eyes completely from the sunlight.

Getting next to him I started to shake his bed gently with my powers to wake him up. After a while, he started to open his sleepy violet-red eyes while letting out a little yawn from his mouth.

Bertha: "Good morning and Happy Birthday my little Ghost Prince!"

Ghoul: "Good morning mum! Where are the others?"

Bertha: "They are getting the party ready sweety. Get up already and put on your close. Your ants and uncles are coming to celebrate your first big birthday."

Ghoul: "Humm, okay mum."

Getting off his bed Ghoul walks into the bathroom to wash his face and clean his teeth. After he was done in the bathroom he walks back into his room to take off his nightgown to be replaced by a violet color prince costume that we had specially order for today.

Once he was done getting dressed we walked down to the dining room so he can have his breakfast which didn't take long to eat and after he finishes eating we went into the gathering area of the house to greet our guests.

It didn't take long for the guests to come as the first once started to show up right after we got to the door.

The first guest to show up was the Ministry worker who does the monthly checkups her name is Jessie La Maye, she came in wearing a brown dress that matches her hair and eyes along with a big box probably a gift for Ghoul. After greeting her a group of ghost came in not that long after her. They were a noisy bunch of friends who love to act like servants whenever they greeted Ghoul as the Ghost Prince that made him blush as he finds being called that embarrassing. Once the old ghost got there fun teasing the little shy prince they started moving about the place not long after they left us, talking to one and another. Then after a short while, the last groups came in made out of wizards and witches with gifts and food in hand for the party.

The group of wizards and witches are old friends who amazingly are still alive and their families.

After everyone arrived I had Ghoul play with the great-grandchildren of my friends while my sisters and I talk to the guests.

The first person I went to talk with was Jessie who was already talking to a female ghost named Morgan.

Bertha: "Hello, sorry if I'm interrupting your little talk."

Morgan: "No not at all Bertha. We are just talking about the news of the werewolf attacks that had been happening for this past week. I'm just seeing if she knows anything about it."

Bertha: "Oh, do you really know anything about it, Jessie?"

Jessie: "Sadly I don't as it's not my department but what my coworkers are saying it seems that the werewolf is a normal American before he came here for a vacation. It also seems the last place he was seen before the attacks he was in London."

Morgan: "Haha, so he's an American Werewolf in London. What's the Ministry planning to do with him?"

Jessie: "They will send out four to six Auror and from the team two of them are at this party right now."

Morgan: "Oh, who and where?"

Jessie: "Over there the two watching the children Sir and Mis MacMillan. It seems that this is the last mission Mis MacMillan will be in as those two will be starting a family soon."

We keep talking about other stuff such as the latest wizarding trends and how our families are doing.

Once I finished talking to them I keep moving from group to group until it was time to cut the cake.

The cake was made out of butter beer with vanilla cream covered by crushed cookies powder on its sides and on top of the cake there was a picture of a knight fighting a dragon breathing out a fire that has "Happy Seventh Birthday Ghoul" on it while there's a princess in a tower at the background of the picture.

Seeing the cake all the kids were excited while the adults were laughing at there cute expressions but before they can get a piece we had Ghoul cut the cake while everyone had to sing a happy birthday song to him.

Everyone: "Happy birthday to you, when I went to Hogwarts, I saw a great ghost, And he looked just like you, Happy birthday to you, lets Squashed Mandrake in a stew, And put brooms in pajamas, Happy birthday to you, Ghoul, Happy birthday to you, You live in a haunted house, You look like a ghost, And you smell like one too."

After our little song was over, all the living guests and Ghoul got a piece of cake that was eaten pretty fast with all the children eating three pieces each.

Once the cake was finished it was time to open the gifts. The first gift Ghoul open was from Jessie she had gifted him a collection of books about Auror seeing as Ghoul wants to be one in the future it made him very happy. After putting away her gift and giving his thanks Ghoul kept on opening gifts that vary from books to toys, outfits and some money until there wasn't any more to open. The gifts that he seems to like most are a magical chess set made out of white and violet pieces, magical playing cards used in divination, books on Knight and Auror, a pennant made out of crystallized vampire blood that he put on right away and a ghost cat as a pet.

Not long after all the gifts were open and put away everyone was ready to leave as the day was getting late and it didn't take long for them to say their goodbyes. Once the last person had left Marianne and Arcana started to clean the mess while I got Ghoul and my sisters to meet me in the study.

When we all gathered into the study my sisters and I look all over the place to make sure no one was here and even if we found a bug we kill them as they can be magically link to someone and we can't let what we are going to do be know to an outsider. After making sure we are the only ones left in the room we came in front of Ghoul.

Bertha: "Honey we have something to tell you."

Ghoul: "What is it, mum?"

Bertha: "You see as you are seven now it's time to start your pre-education magic lessons soon as so you can have a head start when you enter into Hogwarts. But let me tell you this is a special type of pre-education so we are not teaching you the typical magic theory class so and we are also not talking about reading books as if we want to do that we could have started to educate you much earlier.

This kind of education we are talking about is usually done by a special high ranking pure-blood wizarding houses that are sometimes called royal houses.

As every royal house have there owned and special way to teach their members magic that can make any of them into high ranking wizards and witches but what they all have in common is in there teaching is that they must start the education of the young wizard or witch at seven-years-old when the children magic has gone through its first maturity and is considered safe to start.

You need to know this will be a hard challenge and if you choose to go through it might twist your mind. You might be thinking if it's worth it and I will tell you it is so all I need to know if you are ready this will be the only chance you get."

After pausing for a while to let my words sink in and I was able to see the determination in his eyes so I continued to talk.

Bertha: "Good! Sisters bring us the family grimoire."

After telling them the order they left to only bring back an old white covered book with yellow pages showing how old it is with red, blue, violet, and black ancient runes covering it. This is my family grimoire something that any wizard will kill for and can cause a war if it is found out to still exist.

Bertha: "Now listen to me Ghoul this is an ancient grimoire a relic that is rumored to come from the age of Gods. most royal families have one that they use to educate the younger ones and make unique magic that is derived from it.

In our family, we can only have one person that can learn magic from it in every given generation. To see who can learn from it in every generation until now, our family had a Battle Royale to see who will learn from it and at the end, many will die if they are not unprepared. The fighting for this opportunity has left our family crippled leaving my generation as the last generation well that was until you came along. My sisters and I had fought for it and I was the last one standing becoming the holder of it.

Luckily or unluckily in this new generation, there will be no fight over it as you are the only one so there no need to fight to learn from it. The only thing you need to do right now is going through a special process to bond with it."

Ghoul: "What do I need to bond to it?"

Bertha: "You just need to spill your blood onto it and survive what comes next."

Ghoul: "What do you mean from that mum?"

Bertha: "Just do it and you will see don't worry honey we will always be next to you."

After giving him a confident and an assuring smile Ghoul pick up a letter opener from the top of a nearby desk to cut his hand to pour out his blood onto the grimoire. Once his blood touched the grimoire it started to react by drinking his blood and once it was filled it opens itself to only release chains of myriad colors with pointed ends that look like transparent blades to strike Ghoul on special parts of his body where magic is known to gather at. When the last blade stroke Ghoul the chains started to pull him into the grimoire.

Bertha: "I hope he survives."

Fiona: "Don't worry so much sister Bertha unlike you he didn't enter after killing his only remaining family and he's still young. His hart shouldn't be burden by anything he will probably pass without a problem."

Samantha: "Sister Bertha as much I hate to agree with Fiona she is right and if anything ready goes wrong he will come out only losing a large part of his lifespans and we have ways to fix that. It may be hard but we can still do it as we even still have most of the ingredients to make the life-prolonging potion and we are doing this early so he doesn't die from the sudden loss of lifespan like you when we fought for it when our ages were well over our thirties."

Bertha: "I know but he only has one chance to bond with the grimoire and I want him to pass."

After I said that I stayed quiet while looking at the white grimoire where our son once was waiting to receive him in any kind of condition he may be in when he leaves it. Hopefully, he will pass the test without changing much.