AN: This chapter is shortish. Sorry, saphron0076, I didn't get to your question in this one like I said I would, but it should show up in the next.

Also, to all readers: If I do continue this story past first year, would it work better as seven-ish separate fics, or as one really really long one? Or something in between? I can't decide. Let me know what you think!


"No wonder Coach wants it!" Harry muttered in awe, staring at the entry Hermione had shown them. "Imagine living forever!"

"I'm more interested in that infinite gold bit. I mean, what you could do with that!" said Ron, his eyes glowing. "I could buy my own Nimbus Two Thousand. I could buy my own Quidditch team!"

"You could also get into a lot of trouble," said Hermione. "Having anything you wanted any time you wanted would not be a satisfactory way of living."

Ron and Harry both stared at her. "You're daft," said Ron. "What could be unsatisfactory when you can satisfy anything you want?"

"Don't be silly. You can't have anything you want. You couldn't buy friends or peace of mind or fulfillment or knowledge or…any number of things. But you could buy a lot of stuff and it would get boring, you wouldn't have to work for any of it and so it wouldn't mean anything. Everyone knows it's the trying for something that makes it special. And as for living forever…well, imagine, you'd still grow older and older and older, and you'd watch all your friends die, and then time would go by faster and faster until you're watching centuries pass in the blink of an eye. And you could never again be with the people you'd lost—your parents and your friends, and you could never make new friends either because you'd know you were just going to watch them die too, and you could never fall in love, or have children…imagine how lonely living forever would be!"

"You think too much," said Ron.


Ron was staying on at Hogwarts for the holidays, just like Harry; apparently Mr and Mrs Weasley and Ginny had gone to Romania to visit one of the older Weasley brothers. Hermione was off for home, though, and before she left she told them she wanted them to keep searching the library. "Find out anything you can about three-headed dogs, and protective enchantments," she said.

"Who wants to keep poking around some mouldy old books?" Ron complained. "Why can't we just go and ask Hagrid?"

"Don't be stupid. Hagrid wouldn't tell us."

"He told us Flamel's name, didn't he?"

"You're suggesting Hagrid might be a traitor?"

"No…but I think if a couple of kids can get something as important as that out of him, a clever bloke like Coach could find out how to get past Fluffy, especially if Hagrid trusted him the way he trusts Jimmy."

"Well…try anything you can. But don't let Coach know what you're up to. And send me an owl if you find anything," she said.


Once the holidays actually started, though, Flamel, Fluffy, and the Philosopher's Stone began to slip their minds for the first time in months.

They had the dormitory entirely to themselves and the Common Room practically to themselves, so they for once got the good armchairs near the fire. Ron taught Harry how to toast things on forks—the Dursleys had never let him within combustible distance of fire—and they spent many happy hours munching on muffins, marshmallows, scones, and toast. Ron also taught him all sorts of wizard games—Exploding Snap, and SnitchSnatcher (a board game version of Quidditch, which Ron called "good practice"), and Magical Symbols (something like a word search mixed with connect-the-dots) and Gobstones.

"My grandmother used to play this with me!" Harry said before Ron had finished explaining the rules of Gobstones. "I didn't know it was magical. I used to be really good."

Ron seemed to think it a bit silly, calling it a "kids' game". He preferred wizard chess, which was exactly like Muggle chess except that the figures were alive. Harry could play Muggle chess well, but he got all out of sorts when sixteen different figures all shouted instructions at him, and Ron always beat him in the end.

Playing games with a friend…

He'd seen witches and wizards and magical beasts, he'd seen ghosts and goblins and magical feasts…he'd seen giants, three-headed dogs, flying brooms and angry bowling balls…and of all this, the weirdest feeling was this of relaxing in a squashy armchair by a roaring fire, playing cards and helping plot highly improbable ways of getting Draco Malfoy expelled. Was this how people like Dudley felt all the time?

Christmas morning brought another surprise, another set of weird feelings, and another new experience—Christmas presents. He hadn't expected any, but when he woke up early in the morning the first thing he saw was a small pile of packages at the foot of his bed. He stared at them for a long time before tentatively reaching out his hand and reading the labels.

To Harry, from Hagrid, said the top one. Harry Snape, with love from Ron's Mum said another. Really presents for him! He opened them slowly, one by one.

Hagrid had given him a flute that he'd obviously whittled himself—it sounded a bit like an owl. Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia sent fifty pence—how friendly, Harry thought; he gave it to Ron after he woke up because Ron thought the shape was funny. Ron's mother, who had apparently heard about Harry from her sons, had knitted him a bulky green jumper—soft, warm, and hardly too big at all—and made him a large box of fudge—very tasty. And lastly he opened a bag of assorted sweets—"Didn't know which kind you liked so I got you some of everything, I tried to pick the nastiest ones out of the Every Flavour Beans, I had them sent to Malfoy anonymously, tell Ron you're welcome, love Hermione."

"Wow, four presents, counting the fudge separate," he said, genuinely pleased.

"Only four?" said Ron, wide-eyed. He looked guiltily at the massive pile of packages still on his bed.

"It's wonderful," said Harry. "Normally all I get is…well, something like that, from the Dursleys," he said, indicating the fifty-pence piece, "and sometimes a note from one of my teachers, you know, I'm so pleased to have you in my class this year, Henry, Merry Christmas."

"Looks like you've still got one of those," said Ron, indicating a card Harry hadn't noticed lying on the very end of his bed.

"Maybe it's from Professor McGonagall," said Harry. He took off the green ribbon and opened the card—a piece of stiff, plain white parchment, folded in half. Inside, in a spiky, angular hand Harry had never seen before, were the following words:

One of your father's schoolboy inventions. In hopes you may find it useful. Happy Christmas.

A folded piece of parchment fell to the floor, and Harry bent to pick it up. It was old and very dirty and very wrinkled, and covered in tiny, cramped writing that looked like a recipe. The first line consisted of two words, in slightly larger text than the rest:

Invisibility Potion.

"Potion" had an E on the end, except someone had crossed it out and drawn a being-sick face. There were a lot of little notes, additions, and cross-outs like that, in different hands, and one large ink blot in one corner.

His father?

"McGonagall?" Ron asked.

"Eh?" Harry glanced up.

"Is it from McGonagall?"

"Er…no, it's…it doesn't say who it's from, actually…." He stared at the card. It was a recipe; a list of ingredients and instructions for making the Invisibility Potion. The ingredients were mostly simple things like lemon juice, squid ink, and cuttlefish tentacle; he was pretty sure he could get most of this from the student supply cupboard…"It's just a Christmas card," he said finally.

"Oi, let's go see if Fred and George are up yet. They say Christmas feasts at Hogwarts are brilliant…."

Harry nodded absently and put the little card carefully in his pocket.

He thought about it all morning. He and the Weasleys helped each other eat their Christmas sweets, and played Exploding Snap and compared presents. The other boys found the fifty-pence piece just as interesting as Ron did, even after Harry told them it was worth less than two Sickles.

Who had sent him the card? Had that recipe really been his father's?

After dinner—more and better food than he'd ever had, even at Hogwarts, and several enormous piles of crackers—the Weasleys went outside to have a snowball fight.

"I'll be there soon," Harry said to Ron. "I'm going to go have a look at the library."

Ron gaped. "Are you suddenly channeling Hermione? It's Christmas, Harry!"

"I know, but we promised we'd look, right? I won't be long."

Harry slipped away before Ron could object any further, but he didn't go to the library. Instead, he took two lefts and a right and ran down the staircase toward the dungeons, toward the Potions classroom which held the students' supply cupboard…


About an hour later, Ron, red-cheeked and covered in flecks of snow, ran up the steps to the dormitory.

"Harry, I went to the library and you weren't there so I thought…oh." He wrinkled his nose. The room smelled strongly of fish, but there was no sign of Harry.

"Is he in there?" George called up the stairs.

"No. Maybe he went out already," said Ron, glancing around again. The room was definitely empty, so he shrugged and ran back down the stairs.

In the corner, Harry smiled to himself.