It Is Time

There was a firm, sharp knock on the door of the Headmaster's office, and Professor Dumbledore looked up from his newspaper. "Come in?"

The door opened, and Albus hastily folded the paper and stuffed it under the desk. Not, contrary to Rolanda Hooch's cheerful joking, that he was only reading 'The Sun' for the page three girls. Muggle tabloid papers carried news of "unusual events" far more readily than the serious broadsheets, and such unusual events were often a good indication of magical/muggle difficulties. The classic example, of course, was the time in the 1920's when there had been a major breach in anti-muggle security which the 'Evening Standard' had carried as the "discovery" of a forgotten platform at King's Cross station hours before the Ministry had noticed. But that was beside the point. The point now was that Professor McGonagall was bearing down on him with a stern roll of parchment and a rather forbidding expression.

She held out the parchment. "The complete list for students staying over Christmas. And nobody," she continued, "need wish ME peace and joy this Christmas. The Weasley twins are staying!"

Albus fought down a laugh at her tone of exasperation. "That should make life interesting," he replied as neutrally as he could.

"You can laugh," McGonagall snapped back. "I'm not blind, I can see the corners of your mouth twitching, Albus!"

The Headmaster, given due permission, chuckled. "Minerva, is it possible to hide anything from you?"

"Humph!" The Deputy Headmistress shook her hand at him dismissively. "Of course it is! Ask the Weasley twins! The whole bunch of them are staying, anyway," she added, returning to the original subject matter. "I gather from Percy that Molly and Arthur are taking the little one to see Charlie in Romania. He didn't say they couldn't afford to take all the boys too..."

"I suppose Molly didn't think it safe to send them to stay with Muriel Prewett," Albus put in with another twinkle of laughter. "And Molly's rather short on other close relatives."

The quirk in Minerva's face at the idea of the Weasley twins combined with Muriel Prewett blotted out in an instant. "And speaking of short on other close relatives, Harry Potter's staying for Christmas too." Her tone was decidedly accusatory.

"Perhaps," said Albus carefully, reaching for the roll of parchment, "since the youngest Mr Weasley is staying away from home for Christmas for the first time, Harry has decided to stay and keep him company. Loyalty between friends is a Gryffindor trait, you know." He looked up to find McGonagall giving him a look that said not only did she not believe him, she knew he didn't believe himself either.

"Apart from them," she said after a moment's silence, "it's the usual suspects. The Ravenclaws who want to study, the happy couples whose parents don't approve, and the little Sutton girl with her father in the army in Hong Kong. Why," McGonagall concluded, "her mother doesn't arrange an international Portkey, since she works for the Hong Kong Ministry, I don't know. But there you have it."

Albus scanned down the list. It was, indeed, the usual suspects: those busy, romantic, with long-distance parents or – simply unhappy at home. "Thank you, Minerva."

She nodded in acknowledgement, stared at the parchment on his desk for a moment longer than she usually paid any attention to a Hogwarts form, and then turned and went out abruptly. The door closed behind her. And Albus sat, staring rather blankly at the equally blank portrait of Phineas Nigellus Black on the wall opposite. So Harry Potter had chosen to stay for Christmas.

So, Harry Potter had chosen to stay for Christmas. One of eight hundred students, one of over twenty-five who would be spending this Christmas at school. So?

The name on the list stared up at him. 'Harry Potter.' It was right up at the head of the list, as if the boy had hurried to put his name down to stay. 'Potter.' It was a name Albus had seen very, very often; many, many times on Hogwarts documents, but never actually before on the list of those to stay for Christmas. James had always hurried to go home, extending open invitations to come home with him to Remus Lupin and Peter Pettigrew and– Albus' thoughts hit an abrupt stop.

He must file the list, send a copy down to Filch and house-elves to plan the catering, but … then there had been Lily, whose eyes Harry had inherited. She too, had always been among the crowds eager to go home for Christmas, even to the sister who – well... Albus sighed. It was the only way to protect the boy, but he wished Petunia Dursley had managed to be just a little more gracious about the matter.

For the Greater Good, mocked the voices out of his past. True, too true... but what else could he do? He, like McGonagall, was not blind. It was not difficult to see the life Harry had led for the past ten years. Ten dark and difficult years; safe but-

And yet, there was no bitterness in those bright green eyes. No bitterness, and no resentment. Everybody else commented on how Harry had inherited Lily's eyes, and how much he looked like James apart from that. Albus could quite see how they saw Harry like that. But Albus could not manage to see him like that. The eyes are the windows to the soul. Out of the eleven year old's eyes looked a kind of selfless honesty, no bitterness at his fate, nor resentment at his lot. Apart from that, Albus had not seen Harry alone this entire first term. Always, the youngest Weasley boy was at his side. A tall, gangling red-head and a shorter, messy black-haired boy; one notable, the other less so. Other people might see James. Albus saw another version of himself and Elphias. A better version.

This time, the notable one did not seek fame. He had it, certainly, and the trouble that came with it; but he avoided it where he could, did his best to keep his friend from feeling over-looked or left out or inferior. This time, it was not the red-head who was brilliant, nor the black mop. They matched each other, and each strove to keep the other up. This time...

Albus shook his head, and sighed again. But this was no time to sit about regretting. So, Harry Potter had chosen to stay for Christmas. And that, in a way, awful though the reason why, was a good thing. For Hogwarts would be able to give him the first happy Christmas Harry would, presumably, ever remember. And he, Albus, would be there to see it, which was something. Ron Weasley would, if he could afford it, probably give Harry a present; and it was unlikely that Hermione Granger who had become their friend would leave either of the boys without a gift; so that would be all right, even without a parcel from Privet Drive. And Minerva would see to the catering arrangements, and Hagrid and Filch would fix the decorations, and the House-elves would lay out all the gifts – and there was nothing, nothing Albus could do towards it. He smiled a little wryly. Typical of himself to want to do; to want, as Aberforth would have put it, to have a finger in another pie. But there was nothing he could do. Headmasters did not send gifts to students. Headmasters were left with nothing to do. Nothing but watch and wonder, as he did for all the students, if a little more intently for this one, how they would turn out; and hope, as he did for all the students, if a little more intently for this one, that they would have a merry Christmas.

He had seen something of one of Harry's Christmas's before: the first one; the Potters' last one; probably the only happy one. For that Christmas the Potter family had spent in its suddenly enforced hiding had been so happy it had positively radiated from the house, to envelope even casual callers like himself, dropping by to speak to James about an Order mission. Every inch had been decorated, every cupboard bursting with festive food – but it hadn't been the trimmings that had made the house a beacon of Christmas warmth in a bleak midwinter of war. It had been the people: James, as proud as punch and thinking constantly of new Christmas things to show Harry; and Lily, smiling non-stop, while rescuing Harry and James from each new idea.

"She won't let me get a Santa suit," James had complained cheerfully, flopping into the arm chair opposite Dumbledore once Lily had borne Harry off to have his afternoon nap. "Still, it doesn't matter for his stocking on Christmas Eve, because I've got the–"

And the stream of memories broke off with a start.

Why had he not thought?! Why had he not remembered?! Why had he–!?

Albus found he had half-risen from his chair and dropped the completely forgotten tabloid paper all over the floor. The frozen page three girls stared cheekily upwards, but Albus sat down again without bothering to rescue them.

How had it slipped his mind?

'It doesn't matter for his stocking on Christmas Eve, because I've got the – Cloak...'

He had forgotten that was Christmas, the shut away, reproaching memory of the day James Potter had entrusted him, so cheerfully, so earnestly, so unappreciating of what it was, with the third of the Deathly Hallows. He, Albus, had leaned back in the armchair with his own cup of steaming coffee that Lily had pressed on him, and asked, "the cloak?" In his mind's eye, he had pictured a cloak like the ones muggle Santas in high street grottos wore, bright red with a fluffy fur lining.

"Yep," James had said. "It'll be perfect, don't you think? The Santa who really can't be see– oh!" He had broken off at Albus's presumably confused expression. "Er, you didn't know I had an Invisibility Cloak, did you?"

And without further ado, apart from a passing kiss on Lily's hair as she came in to find Harry's missing teddy bear, James had dashed off and fetched the finest, most perfect Invisibility Cloak Albus had ever seen. "Been in the family for generations," he'd remarked, making a completely pointless swirl that merely made his floating head wobble crazily. "I, er- had it at Hogwarts, you know," he had added with a boyish, slightly sheepish grin. "Mostly used it for stealing food from the kitchens, and, er- well, other stuff."

Other stuff, indeed. It had been with the thought of a final explanation of all James' undetected mischief at school that Albus had reached out to touch the edge of the cloak, to feel silver smooth fabric, like light made solid, like no demiguise hair he had ever met, like no generations old Invisibility Cloak had ever been, except one...

"Here," James had said, slipping it off. "Have a look, if you're interested. I thought you'd want to be telling me off in retrospect, really. Concealed a lot of cakes and biscuits, that did."

Albus couldn't remember exactly what he had said in reply to the contraband food, only the all too clear memory of his request to "borrow it, for a little while." And James had nodded, and said "Sure! Maybe Lily will let me get a Santa suit, then," and grinned hopefully at his wife, and she had laughed relentingly, and they had waved Albus off from the front door, standing hand in hand – and they had died the next October.

The laughter had all gone. The Cloak remained packed away in the small hidden cupboard behind the portrait over his desk.

"Getting old?" said the Aberforth-like voice in his head, as Albus' hands shook a little as he unlocked the cupboard with a tap of his wand. His wand? The wand, the one Hallow he had any poor right to. And here was the cloak, a little silvery pool of flowing cloth. Albus picked it up carefully, still folded. It folded so small, it might have been a pillowcase. He put it down on the desk, clicked the cupboard shut again, and sat down to stare. The cloak seemed to stare back, its folds suggesting to Albus' eye an expression rather like Minerva with the form, stern and reproachful. He had had the cloak, and the Potters had died.

Oh, Tom Riddle had known where they were; the traitor in their midst had seen to that. Albus knew all that; it wasn't happy knowledge, but he knew it, he knew it. He could not claim all responsibility, said the Aberforth voice, can't claim every pie. And yet he had, without any arrogance in saying so, failed the Potters. Failed them with their Secret Keeper, failed them with their cloak. If he had only–

But 'If only' was no good. The ghosts of Christmas Past and Christmas Present could not be changed; all that could be changed was Christmas Yet to Come.

Albus straightened, and took a firm grip on the edge of the desk in lieu of of a bedpost. There was a 'Christmas Just About to Come' before him, personified at this very moment as a parchment list of those who would be staying at Hogwarts for it. It was his duty as Headmaster to send it on to Argus Filch for arranging the catering. But before that – Albus nodded – he had another duty.

"It's been in the family for generations."

And if it was, again, only to be used for collecting contraband biscuits, that was the right of Ignatius Peverall's descendants to use it so.

Your father left this in my possession before he died.

It is time it was returned to you.

Use it well.

~:~:~:~:~

A/N: And Christmas is coming! You will find the "little Sutton girl," two years older, at the Christmas table in PoA, or go over to The Sugar Quill and look up "Alexandra Sutton's Christmas" by catmeat. You'll enjoy it if you like this...!