The next Christmas

Hey there Albus!

I am so excited to be coming over to yours for an entire week over new years, it must be so busy at your house what with all of your aunts, uncles, brother sister and cousins coming to stay so I am really happy hat you are letting me come over. I got your last note and am still confused on what a 'fire-work' is. Mum says it is a large exploding rocket, which sounds pretty scary. Dad says that there used to be wizarding ones when he was younger and your uncles Fred and George (sorry if that hurts you, I know that must be hard, losing family members during the war)drove out of Hogwarts a teacher so horrid that she cut into students hands and may possibly be a vampire, (mum reprimanded him for that last comment and told me that I probably shouldn't mention this woman whilst I am at your house because she did unspeakable things to your family, dad rolled his eyes and said that most of his family did.) Anyway, dad said that they were banned because they had a tendency to interfere with magical wards and were apt to explode at the wrong times because of their magic traces. Mum said that muggle ones were totally safe and legal.

I've got to go now, but guess what! My Christmas present was a pure silver owl named Fortis, which is Latin for stron, which is what I guess I need to be, he is really cool and I am going to be sending you this letter on him. See you later!

Scorpios

I was so happy to hear from Scorpios, so I quickly filed his letter away in my special box and quickly picked up Sapiens from his box and bought hi downstairs with me to show uncle George.

When we were in Diagon Alley the day after the holidays began James, Lilly and I were all told to look round and get a couple of ideas for Christmas presents. I really wanted a pet, James has an owl and Lilly got a ferret a year or so ago, I haven't had a pet since killer the hamster when I was six. I was looking in there and recently they had gotten a new shipment of snakes, so I went to take a look. Anyway, one of them began to speak, confused, I responded and asked it where it came from, this snake was beautiful, about an inch in diameter and as long as my arm in pure green. The sign next to it said that it was a simple grass snake, non venomous. I heard a scream from behind me and someone yelled 'Voldemort snake whisperer' it was the owner of the shop. Confused, I ducked down and when I saw that she had been screaming at me I sobbed and sprinted out f the shop. I had gotten out of Diagon Alley, through the Leakey cauldron and was part way down the street before anybody caught up to me. I felt something close around my wrist and looked around to find Uncle George looking really worried. I let him bring me back into diagon alley and he led me to the upstairs of the joke shop.

"Now Albus, you really should know better than to run off like that, you could have been seen by some muggles and then where would we be? You know that we have to remain a secret."

I was in tears by this point, "But uncle George, she called me voldemort." Could see his shocked face so I continued, "I was in the pet shop because mum and dad told us all to go and look for a present idea and I really wanted one. They had these beautiful grass snakes there and one of them started to talk to me. It worried me a little bit but I wanted to talk back, so I asked it where it came from and then the shop woman yelled 'Voldemort snake whisperer' so I dropped down because I thought that someone was going to attack me and then I realised that she was talking about me so I ran."

Uncle George looked shocked, "You can speak to snakes?"

"Never before now, although come to think of it, there have been a couple of occasions in the common room where I will say something and Scorpios will look at me really weirdly. Is this bad? And why did she say voldemort?"

"It seems like you got the parselmouth gift, it is not necessarily bad, but some people think that it is because of the history of who has had it in the past, that doesn't make you bad though. As for the rest of it I will leave for your dad to tell you."

I never did get the whole story off of my dad, but on Christmas morning I got a rather odd selection of gifts from my parents. A crate full of dead mice, all vacuum packed using a muggle method and with some freshening spells put on them, a heat pad, a blanket and a strange glass case. I was then told to close my eyes and a small lump was put in my lap. It was the grass snake from Diagon alley! The exact one! I began to speak to it and it remembered me! I decided to call him Sapiens, which is Latin for wise.

Scorpios arrives

At around noon on the 28th of December Scorpios and his dad both flood into the parlor of Potter Manor and I immediately ran to give my best friend a hug. Seconds after Scorpios climbed out of the fire his dad appeared with a small suitcase and a very ruffled looking owl. I immediately sucked in a breath of panic, how would seeing their old rivals affect our families? Strangely my mum just appeared and invited Malfoy Sr to have a butter beer and a sit down. There was no hardship at all between the adults, although I did see Uncle George pull Draco aside and say something along the lines of ' saw you at the funeral, you cried. I didn't know that you cared so thank you.' I was really confused so I just dragged Scorpios upstairs into the children's 'play room' to meet the others. Hugo and Lilly were both introduced, whereas Rose and James gave him a big hug each. They were al, playing with their presents. James had gotten a new broom stick and a servicing kit, Lilly had gotten a potion starter kit which she was really excited about. A lot of potions only require a magical core, only masters level ones actually need a wand. She did have to promise to not make anything harmful or illegal, to store them all correctly and label them. She says that she wants to try to brew Felix Filices but I think that James has talked her out of that one. Rose got something that I believe is called a DVD PLAYER and some DVDs. They are like people, but they are on a disk and don't talk to you but you can see it on the DVD Player. James said that it was because the Weasely's recently got running water and electricity in their house and ours was done at the same time, which was quite fun. Electricity is strange though because it is like magic and you touch a switch on the wall and the light turns on and it is all very strange because what is wrong with using the light stones which are in our walls that permanently keep the house at a perfect light level except for when you are sleeping because they turn off the ones in that room when you tap the wall tree times. Scorpios seemed even more confused by the electricity than I was which was pretty fun to see. Hugo got a special present called a pygmy dragon. Our Uncle Charlie invented it, some of them breathe fire and others ice, they can fly but are fiercely loyal to their owners and grow no larger than an average size snowy owl. A lot of kids want them and since Charlie now owns the breed he is pretty rich. Hugo got a baby one which is about the size of my fist, it is pale blue and breathes fire. Yesterday we found out that his favourite food is ice cream and so he eats that all of the time, in honour of that we names him ice, a trick for some people.

On New years eve we all counted down to Midnight together, which was fun and then we went outside and had a massive fireworks display. Scorpios seemed pretty scared when the first few went up but we all laughed together at the final one, which was two big spinning balls of fire attatched to a fence and Teddy discreetly pointed his wand at them and they both started to rise up into the air and fly about. Which you have to admit was pretty funny.