Jointly written with the wonderful Neon. These three all celebrate their birthday within a few weeks of each other in late Jan and Feb.

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277b, Diagon Alley, Wednesday 26th January, late evening

They split the decisions three ways, which sort of seemed fair. Where, what and food - the when already dealt with, as Saturday ahead of Lix's birthday. The witch drew a blinder already, snagging the option of choosing the what. The wizards, shortly returned from their weekly swimming expedition, awaited her decision with suspicion.
"Ice skating." She spoke at last, "I haven't gone in aaages," Her fingers were wrapped around a mug of what the wizards now both called 'fruity disgrace' after Johann's disgust at cutting down caffeine. "We were talking about it only the other day that we should go." Lix gestured to Arc beside her at the kitchen table.

Johann glanced between them both with mild trepidation.
"Well, that works well with where we're going." He smiled and lifted his own mug, "though I'm keeping that a surprise. Just dress for skating. Oh, and if we're having birthday cake," Johann leaned forward towards Arc, reaching his long fingers out to touch his friend's forearm, "It best only have 30 candles on. Or whatever you're claiming your age is this year."

Lix scoffed and put on a voice, addressing an imaginary audience,
"We're all the same age. Honest." She grinned. Johann dropped his mug back to the table, wrinkling his nose at the taste of mango fruit tea.
"Thirty-five, Arc. I am ancient." He protested to Arcturus and then corrected, gesturing to Lix "We are ancient."

"You haven't got the mental attitude of a sixty-year old." Arc retorted which got a chuckle out of the other two for the acknowledgement.
"True, you're ancient," Johann agreed with a solemn nod and then gestured to Lix again,  "but then you'd be shagging someone half your age."
"Stealing youth back." Arc laughed, but since they'd delegated cake duty to him and his sweet tooth, he had an answer. "Since the cake is for all of us, all we need to do is take the average of all our ages! Which comes up to 33 candles and two thirds, but we can leave out the two-thirds of a candle."
"Thirty three'll do!" Lix exclaimed enthusiastically, "anything that's not my real age."

"I dropped by a few bakeries," Arc continued, "to see what they'd do. I reckon we're not going for any of the flashy cakes? Because I got offered a few." He consulted a small list lying on the table next to him. "Had to turn down jumping cheesecake, because apparently the bits still jump when you've eaten it. Then there's a black forest cake popping cherries-- I mean, cherries on the cake that pop--" Arc turned a brilliant shade of red as the other two burst out laughing, but joined them shortly after in their mirth.

"They shoot confetti!"
"Confetti!!" Johann echoed, wiping an eye, starting to laugh all over again.
"Anyway, I said no to those. We've just got trifle, chocolate buttercream and sponge, tiramisu or cheesecake. Only one." He took a look at his friends and dissolved into giggles again. "I'm never going to hear the end of that..."

Paris, Saturday 5th February, late afternoon

"Let go,"
"No, I'll fall over-"
"Let go!"

Lix prised Johann's grip from the edge of the rink, skating backwards as they went. Around them skated people babbling in French in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower and in the cold air hung the smell of creperies and coffee. She giggled at the sight of Johann trying to keep his feet pointing in the right direction, one of her woolly hats shoved on his head to help keep him warm. The third member of their party was getting his skating feet again and was amongst the throng a moment ago when she'd skated past.

"Here we go."
"… Lix."
"Just one foot and then the other,"
"Liiiiix!" Johann protested
"You'll be fiiiinne," Lix countered with a shrug, "Here you go." With a cackle she released his hands in the middle of the ice and spun away gracefully. Best way to learn was to go in at the deep end sometimes. He'd get the hang of it soon enough. This was excellent - brilliant way to celebrate birthdays! Paris wasn't somewhere she knew well, and she didn't speak more than a few words of French but they could be themselves amongst strangers and it didn't take long to get there from the French Ministry. It was very tempting to sample all the food, only they were going for dinner afterwards and she'd have to skate her socks off to build up enough appetite for both.

Up ahead she spotted Arc and slid through skating bodies to catch him round the waist and deliver an enthusiastic kiss, catching his balance for him.
"Hey look at you, you haven't forgotten it since the Hogwarts lake eh?" She grasped his left hand in her right for a moment as they skated together and grinned.
"Aah, Elixa, don't scare me like that." Arc returned her kiss, going along with her brief skating.
"We should do this more often, not just for birthdays."
"Not as rusty as I thought, no. I'll take up your offer once we get back - and once I remember how to turn corners." She released Arc's hand and skated away, snaking through other skaters to find some space towards the middle. Her retreating figure only drew the line of sight towards the third member of their party stranded in the middle. He watched her skate off, and then realised the flailing individual she'd zipped past at high speed was, in fact, the third member of their party.

"Oh Merlin why did I agree to skating?" Johann exclaimed to himself amongst the swirling skaters, arms out to either side trying to balance. Lix had always been infuriatingly good at this sort of thing. He tried to look up and spot the far more trustworthy healer. He needed to get back to the edge or something to hold onto before he ended up on his backside (which had happened half a dozen times already), preferably while not taking out a Muggle child on the way. Thank Merlin he hadn't mentioned his visit to Aunt Margo, she would find this hilarious, and at least the youngest two cousins were away at school now and wouldn't chance upon him.

"Arrrrrrc!!" Johann cried out over the noise of scraping skates, whoops and chatter, one foot taking off in a direction he hadn't meant, balance changing suddenly so that he wobbled visibly, arms flailing to keep balance as Lix's magenta woolly hat dropped over his eyes.

Arc wound past the crowds muttering "Oh, Lix" under his breath, and arrived just as Johann shouted, catching his friend's balance before he tipped over. "Elixa's a fan of sink or swim, I see. Escape route to the side it is." With one arm under his friend's for security, they skated unsteadily to the edge where parents were teaching their children. Arc had half a mind to do the same.

"Bend your knees a bit, they give you some stability. See?" Arc instructed, and Johann tentatively attempted to oblige, "Not too far down, no, that's just inviting trouble." Arc let Johann go to demonstrate, stepping back out into the throng a bit. "You ever slid on a slippery floor before? It's something like that? I'm terrible at explaining, I just know how to do it, sort of--oof!" A skating couple collided with him, and for a moment there was a blur of clothes and limbs. Johann watched from the side as his friend negotiated the moving bodies.

Arc grabbed onto a flailing hand in panic and managed to travel with it for a good way before he realised he'd ousted the girl's partner in the collision and replaced with himself. He could see Johann laughing in the background as he released her hand with a flushed face. The girl said something to him in French - he sort of guessed it as a 'it's okay' statement - and laughed. Arc allowed himself an embarrassed chuckle as he skated back, turning his face away as he passed the girl's boyfriend going past in the opposite direction.

"There are worse things," he said, still red in the face, once he got back to Johann. "Want a spin out on the ice with help? Or content on staying here with the railing? Elixa!" He'd just spotted her coming back around. "You don't just leave him out in the centre!"

"It'd be easier if I just charmed his skates," Lix suggested, relenting to join her companions. She had rosy cheeks beneath her curls from racing around. "But alright." She took one of Johann's hands in the attempt to help him get the hang of things. "You're cramping my style here, Joh," she teased, "should be Arc and I skating round kissing-"

"Don't kiss me!" Johann suddenly exclaimed, gaze fixed on his feet, concentrating very hard on moving one foot then the other, and thrust his arm back at Lix thinking she was about to try, accidentally shoving himself into Arc and swearing as he pitched forward. Between them they tried to compensate, but as Johann threw his weight back in an effort to regain his balance, down he went, gripping tightly to them both as he let out an effeminate shriek. Lix came down over his legs, missing the boots, bracing herself off the ice, yelling at him to let go, Arc landed half on the top of him with a surprised yelp.

"Oof!" Johann exclaimed from the bottom of the pile, flat on the ice, his breath clouding in the winter's air. "I've brought the two of you down to my level!" In spite of how much the landing had hurt and how cold it was, he couldn't help but laugh at how they'd ended up.

"It's not much of a view down here, just saying." Arc laughed as he tried to get up without digging his elbows into Johann. "Let go, Johann. Let go, you're not going anywhere else while you're down here!" He tried to get up still laughing, skates slipped a little and he near dropped right back on his friend if he hadn't stopped himself. The cold air was dry and he coughed a bit, but he was laughing too much to care. "I'm not getting anywhere either. Elixa-- Lix, help, seriously."

Righting herself on the ice, the smallest of the trio extended both hands to Arc first, hauling him up with counterbalance before repositioning to reach for Joh's hands. Despite the fact the lanky one wasn't a huge weight, she just wasn't enough with the awful balance so they took an arm each.

"Bloody hell, good job we're eating after..." She teased, sticking out her tongue.

Ascendio Italiano, Slandermouth, Saturday 5th February, late evening

One might wonder why the outwardly unromantic Arcturus Hollingbury had chosen their dinner to be at romantic, floating restaurant Ascendio Italiano. It came with good reviews, and views, and despite the unfortunate historic associations for some of the party. Certainly taking a boat to dinner was a bit different after a long afternoon in Paris.

"Elixa, whatever you may say about my food," Arc said, carefully picking up the last of his meal from the plate, "you know I can't compete with this. At least that gives me incentive to step out of the flat now. Maybe once in a while. With you." He gave her a smile as he finished his food, and then signalled to a hovering waiter.

The cake had been a somewhat tricky affair regarding the number of candles, but Arc had somehow made them fit - by some of them not touching the cake at all. Roughly half the candles floated around the cake - a chocolate cake topped with a layer of dripping ganache with whirls that moved across the surface - in a tight horizontal halo. The rest at least had a spot on the cake itself.

As the waiter set it down, the whirls carefully bloomed one by one to reveal the words 'Happy 30s' in white. "Many returns to all three of you," said the waiter. "Would you like the staff to sing?"

"Oh ye-"
"Please don-" Lix and Joh answered at the same moment and glanced to each other realising their contradiction.
"Of course!" Lix prevailed, massive mischievous grin on her face from the wine she'd drunk most of. "I'd even take a few jarveys."

Thankfully the awkward situation for all was not long lived, for the number of candles might have posed a genuine fire hazard until they managed to blow them out between them. The noisy disruption to dinner was complete and the three of them were left alone again.

"Here," Lix passed the knife, point towards the cake, flat across the tablecloth to Arc, leaning her shoulder against him as she did. "Your cake, and you can cut in straight lines. Me and this bottle of wine got a bit friendly over dinner." She left a kiss on his cheek before leaning away.

Johann had leaned forward with his elbows on the edge of the table to examine the cake in more detail. He wasn't a man with a sweet tooth and had been relieved that Arc had been assigned food while splitting their choices, for the fact Arc knew a bit about cake. He reached out to gather the floating extinguished candles from the air around it.

"Hope I've got enough room," He uttered, helping to keep the cake still while Arc cut into it, "Food's been great. Brilliant choice for dinner, mate."
"Bloody good choice." Lix echoed with an enthusiastic nod. "Whole day's been fun, even if you two are my nerdiest friends."
"The cheek!" Johann exclaimed, reaching past Arc to swat at his cousin.

Lix cast aside her wine glass and threw her arm round the back of Arc to grasp Johann's arm. She hauled them all together for an uncoordinated hug, sandwiching Arc between his older birthday celebrants before leaving a kiss on their foreheads in turn.