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Chapter Seven: The Ghost of Christmas Present
Awaking in the middle of an exceedingly momentoussnore, and sitting up in bed to get his thoughts together, Malfoy had no occasion to be told that the bell was again upon the stroke of One. He felt that he was restored to consciousness in the right nick of time, for the special purpose of holding a conference with the second messenger dispatched to him through Severus Snape's intervention. But, finding that he turned uncomfortably cold when he began to wonder which of his curtains this new spectre would draw back, he put them every one aside with his own hands, and lying down again, established a sharp look-out all round the bed. For, he wished to challenge the Spirit on the moment of its appearance, and did not wish to be taken by surprise, and made nervous.
Now, being prepared for almost anything, he was not by any means prepared for nothing; and, consequently, when the Bell struck One, and no shape appeared, he was taken with a violent fit of trembling. Five minutes, ten minutes, a quarter of an hour went by, yet nothing came. All this time, he lay upon his bed, the very core and centre of a blaze of ruddy light, which streamed upon it when the clock proclaimed the hour; and which, being only light, was more alarming than a dozen ghosts, as he was powerless to make out what it meant, At last, however, he began to think -- as you or I would have thought at first; for it is always the person not in the predicament who knows what ought to have been done in it, and would unquestionably have done it too -- at last, I say, he began to think that the source and secret of this ghostly light might be in the adjoining room, from whence, on further tracing it, it seemed to shine. This idea taking full possession of his mind, he got up softly and shuffled in his slippers to the door.
The moment Malfoy's hand was on the lock, a strange, yet slightly familiar voice called him by his name, and bade him enter. He obeyed, albeit reluctantly and opened the door.
It was his own room. There was no doubt about that. But it had undergone a surprising transformation. The walls and ceiling were so hung with living green, that it looked a perfect grove; from every part of which, bright gleaming scarlet berries glistened. The crisp leaves of holly, mistletoe, and ivy reflected back the light, as if so many little mirrors had been scattered there.
"Come'n Come'n, Mister Malfoy, get'n 'ere." The grufff voice called out. Malfoy entered timidly, and hung his head before this Spirit. He was not the confident Malfoy he had been; and though the Spirit's eyes were upon him, he did not have the courage to look upon them.
"Now listen up, I'm th' Ghost of Christmas Present, so look up 'ere." The voice boomed.
Malfoy reverently did so. It was clothed in one simple green robe, bordered with white fur. On its head it wore no other covering than a holly wreath, set here and there with shining icicles. But the vestiments are not what made Draco Malfoy gasp, it was the fact that his old Care of Magical Creatures teacher was sitting before him. His eyes were the same beetle black as they had been before and his hair was dark that was streaked with grey. Draco Malfoy took a step back at seeing the man again and the man, whom Draco had always suspected was half giant, laughed boisterously at him.
"Been a long time since you seen me, eh? I thin' you still owe me an essay."
"Really?" Draco asked, but, he could remember the essay on Hippogriffs he had refused to do, sighting emotional trauma as his explination in third year.
"Oh yep, but thas not why I'm 'ere. Touch my robe, Mr. Malfoy." Hagrid said, and so, Malfoy did as he was told, and held on to it so tightly that his knuckles were turning white.
Holly, mistletoe, red berries, ivy, turkeys, geese, sausages, pies, puddings, and punch, all vanished instantly. So did the room, the fire, the ruddy glow, the hour of night, and they stood in the city streets on Christmas morning, where the people made a rough, but brisk and not unpleasant kind of music, in scraping the snow from the pavement in front of their dwellings, and from the tops of their houses, whence it was mad delight to the boys to see it come plumping down into the road below, and splitting into artificial little snow-storms.
The house fronts looked black enough, and the windows blacker, contrasting with the smooth white sheet of snow upon the roofs, and with the dirtier snow upon the ground; which last deposit had been ploughed up in deep furrows by the heavy wheels of carts and waggons; furrows that crossed and recrossed each other hundreds of times where the great streets branched off; and made intricate channels, hard to trace in the thick yellow mud and icy water. The sky was gloomy, and the shortest streets were choked up with a dingy mist, half thawed, half frozen, whose heavier particles descended in shower of sooty atoms, as if all the chimneys in Great Britain had, by one consent, caught fire, and were blazing away to their dear hearts' content. There was nothing very cheerful in the climate or the town, and yet was there an air of cheerfulness abroad that the clearest summer air and brightest summer sun might have endeavoured to diffuse in vain.
For, the people who were shovelling away on the housetops were jovial and full of glee; calling out to one another from the parapets, and now and then exchanging a snowball -- better-natured missile far than many a wordy jest -- laughing heartily if it went right and not less heartily if it went wrong. The poulterers' shops were still half open, and the fruiterers' were radiant in their glory. There were great, round, pot-bellied baskets of chestnuts, shaped like the waistcoats of jolly old gentlemen, lolling at the doors, and tumbling out into the street in their apoplectic opulence.
But soon the steeples called good people all, to church and chapel, and away they came, flocking through the streets in their best clothes, and with their gayest faces. And at the same time there emerged from scores of bye-streets, lanes, and nameless turnings, innumerable people, carrying their dinners to the baker' shops. The sight of these poor revellers appeared to interest the Spirit very much, for he stood with Scrooge beside him in a baker's doorway, and taking off the covers as their bearers passed, sprinkled incense on their dinners from his torch. And it was a very uncommon kind of torch, for once or twice when there were angry words between some dinner-carriers who had jostled each other, he shed a few drops of water on them from it, and their good humour was restored directly. For they said, it was a shame to quarrel upon Christmas Day. And so it was. God love it, so it was.
Kind of short, but I tried to make it longer. Thanks to everyone that reviewed, that really helped me upload the story....
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