Christmas is coming. That was my thought when I looked out the window. There was a few feet of snow outside, and the lake had frozen over. On my way to the Great Hall, I heard Fred and George getting in trouble for bewitching snowballs to follow Quirrell. Only a few owls made it this morning, most likely due to the storm, and I got my second letter for the year. I learned that it was from my mum letting me know that I had to stay at Hogwarts over Christmas due to some unforeseen problems. I passed the letter down to Emily and saw her pass it to Alex, who then passes it to Anthony.
I think everyone's looking forward to the holidays to start. Both the Gryffindor common room and the Great Hall had fires going. The corridors had become icy, and the wind rattled the classrooms windows. The worst classroom of them all had to be Snape's class, down in the dungeons. Our breathes rose around us, and we kept as close to our cauldrons as possible.
One morning, Draco was being very unpleasant was talking about students who had to stay at Hogwarts over the holidays.
"I do feel so sorry for all those people who have to stay at Hogwarts for Christmas because they're not wanted at home."
I could tell he was saying that mostly to Harry, but Harry acted like he hadn't heard him. Draco had been like this since Slytherins had lost the Quidditch match. I knew Harry wasn't going back to his place for the holiday's because I saw his name first on the list when I went to Professor McGonagall to tell her that me and my siblings were staying for the holidays. Soon after I learned that Ron and his brothers were also staying, so I knew this Christmas would be fun.
When we left the dungeons at the end of Potions, we found our path block by a fir tree. Two large feet sticking out at the bottom and a loud puffing told us that Hagrid was behind it.
"Hi Hagrid, want any help?"
"Nah, I'm alright, thanks, Ron."
"Would you mind moving out of the way? Are you trying to earn some extra money Weasley? Hoping to be gamekeeper yourself when you leave Hogwarts, I suppose. That hut of Hagrid's must seem like a palace compared to what your family's used to."
I would've punched Draco for that comment, but Ron dived at him. Of course, this was just was Snape was coming up the stairs.
"WEASLEY!"
Ron let go of Draco and I just glared at him, hoping to tell him that I wasn't soon going to forget his remark.
"He was provoked, Professor Snape. Malfoy was insultin' his family."
"Be that as it may, fighting is against Hogwarts rules Hagrid. Five points from Gryffindor, Weasley, and be grateful it isn't more. Move along, all of you."
Draco and his friends pushed pass the tree, scattering needles everywhere, and I could faintly make out the sound of him and his friends laughing.
"I'll get him. One of these days, I'll get him..."
"I hate them both. Malfoy and Snape."
"Come on, cheer up, it's nearly Christmas. Tell yeh what, come with me an' see the Great Hall, looks a treat."
Harry, Ron, Hermione and I followed Hagrid and his tree to the Great Hall. Professor McGonagall and Professor Flitwick were there putting up Christmas decorations.
"Ah, Hagrid, the last tree, put it in the far corner, would you?"
The Hall looked spectacular. Festoons of holly and mistletoe hung all around the walls and no fewer than twelve towering Christmas trees stood around the room, some sparkling with tiny icicles, some glittering with hundreds of candles.
"How many more days until yer holidays?"
"Just one. And that reminds me, Sara, Harry, Ron, we've got half an hour before lunch, we should be in the library."
"Oh yeah, you're right."
Ron had to tear his eyes away from Professor Flitwick, who had golden bubbles blossoming out of his wand and was trailing them over the branches of the new tree.
"The library? Just before the holidays? Bit keen, aren't yeh?"
"Oh, we're not working. Ever since you mentioned Nicolas Flamel, we've been trying to find out who he is."
"You what? Listen here, I've told yeh, drop it. It's nothin' to you what that dog's guarding."
"We just want to know who Nicolas Flamel is, that's all."
"Unless you'd like to tell us and save us the trouble. We've must've been through hundreds of books already and we can't find him anywhere. Just give us a hint, I know I've read his name somewhere."
"I'm sayin' nothing."
"Just have to find out for ourselves, then."
And with that we left and hurried off towards the library. It's true that we had been searching for Nicolas Flamel since Hagrid had left his name slip. How else were we to know what Snape was trying to steal? The problem was that we had no idea where to begin, since we didn't know what Nicolas Flamel did to get himself into a book. Hermione and I had taken out a list of subjects and titles we had decided to search, while Ron walked through the rows of books. I don't know where Harry walked off to, but when we left today, Harry was waiting in the corridor. We shook our heads, letting him know we'd found nothing, then we were off to lunch.
"You will keep looking while I'm away, won't you? And send me an owl if you find anything."
Hermione looked at us very hopefully. I knew I would, Hermione and I were very much a like in that way.
"And you could always ask your parents if they know who Flamel is. It'd be safe to ask them."
"Very safe, as they're both dentists."
Once the holidays had started, Ron and Harry were having too much fun to help me look for Nicolas Flamel. After two days of looking by myself, I decided to hang out with Harry and Ron in the common room. Since we were the only ones there, we got to sit in the arm chairs by the fire. We ate everything we could spear on a toasting fork and Ron and Harry plotted ways to get Draco expelled.
Ron also started to teach Harry to play wizard chess. His set was very old and battered, but it still worked, so it was useable. It was funny to watch them play, Seamus had lent Harry his chessmen, and they kept shouting different bits of advice at him.
On Christmas Eve, I went to bed, not really sure about how I felt towards the next day. This would be my first time away from home for Christmas. Sure, I had Anthony, Emily, and Alex, but it just wasn't the same as being with everyone in my home.
I woke up the next morning, alone in my room. I sat up and saw a few presents at the foot of my bed. Two from my parents, some chocolate and some money, one from Emily, new chessmen, one from Anthony, different sweets from Honeydukes, two from Alex, one was a prank, and left my left hand blue and the other were a few of my own pranks I could pull, one from Mrs. Weasley, a rich red jumper, and one from Hermione, a book that I had told her I had wanted to read.
Christmas dinner was so big, I wondered how the few people here would eat it all. There were roast turkeys, both roasted and boiled potatoes, chipolatas, tureens of buttered peas, and silver boats of gravy and cranberry sauce. Ever few feet there were also crackers. Harry pulled open a cracker with Fred and it went off with a blast and engulfed us in a cloud of blue smoke. From inside the blue smoke a rear-admiral's hat and several live, white mice appeared.
Flaming pudding followed the turkey. I laughed with Fred and George when Percy nearly broke his teeth on a silver Sickle embedded in his slice. Of course, after that, we all checked our own slice just to make sure it wouldn't happen to us.
When we left, I was commented on my jumper by Fred and George. All through dinner, they hadn't noticed that I had also gotten a jumper from Mrs. Weasley, and that I was wearing it.
That afternoon, Harry, Ron, Fred, George, and even Percy had a snowball fight in the ground. I stayed out of the way, so I wouldn't get hit, but Percy crossed my path, and Fred and George ended up hitting me with two snowballs each. It was then that we all decided to go back inside and heat up by the fire.
After turkey sandwiches, crumpets, trifles, and Christmas cake, we were all too full to do much before going to bed except to sit and watch Percy chase Fred and George all over Gryffindor Tower because they had stolen his prefect badge.
After everyone had gone to bed, I was still sitting by the fire. Although today had been amazing, I still felt a little home sick. It wasn't until I heard someone coming down the stairs that I realized that I was starting to fall sleep. When I didn't see anyone, I figured I had dreamt it and got up. In doing this, though, I ended up pulling a cloak off Harry.
"Sorry about that... Where did you get this? Do you know how hard it is to get these?"
"It was one of my presents, and yeah, Ron told me this morning."
"Where are you going? Can I come with you?"
Harry looked at me and I looked down. Ever since the three-headed dog and the troll, I had been hoping to join Harry again on something like that.
"Sure, just be quiet."
Harry put the cloak over the both of us and we quickly and quietly walked through the portrait hole. Doing this though, caused the Fat Lady to wake up.
"Who's there?"
We said nothing, just continued to walk down the corridor. Harry stopped for a few seconds then continued to walk. I didn't know where he was going, but followed him closely, so that no one would see us.
When Harry stopped to light a lamp, I saw where we were. We were in the library, and it was very dark and eerie. Harry held up the lamp, and even though I could see Harry holding it, it still looked weird to kind of see it flouting as though no one was holding it.
Harry walked right to the back of the library and I know right away where he was going. The Restricted Section. We carefully stepped over the rope and Harry held up the lamp so we could read the titles. It was no use either way, since the books, the ones that had titles, were in languages that neither Harry or I could read.
Harry put down the cloak and lamp and started looking at the books on the bottom shelf. I decided to start looking at the top shelf. I felt Harry pull out a book and continued reading the titles. Suddenly there was this loud shriek and I jumped backwards, just missing the lamp. Harry closed his book, but the shriek went on and on. Harry stumbled backwards and knocked over the lamp, which went out at once.
As soon as we heard footsteps coming down the corridor, Harry was putting the book back on the shelf and I was trying to light the lamp. Harry threw the cloak over us and pulled me away, leaving the lamp behind. Filch was in the doorway, but he looked right through us as we passed him and ran through the corridor.
We came to a stop in front of a suit of armour. We had been so busy run that we hadn't noticed where we had run. There were suits of armour all around the school, so figuring out where we were wasn't going to e easy.
"You asked me to come directly to you, Professor, if anyone was wondering around at night, and somebody's been in the library, Restricted Section."
"The Restricted Section? Well, they couldn't have gotten far, we'll catch them."
We stood rooted to the spot as Finch and Snape came around the corner ahead. They couldn't see us, thankfully, but it was a narrow corridor and if they came much closer, they'd knock us over.
We back away as quietly as we could. I saw behind us a door that was ajar and pointed it out to Harry. He nodded, knowing it was our last hope. We squeezed through the door, trying not to move it. To our relief we managed to get inside the room without Finch or Snape noticing anything. They went passed the door and we lead against the wall, breathing deeply, listening to Finch and Snape's footsteps dying away. That had been close, very close. It was a few seconds before we noticed anything about the room we were hiding in.
We were in a disused classroom. There were desks and chairs piled against the wall, along with an up-side down waste basket. Propped up against the opposite wall was something that didn't look right in the room. It was like someone had placed it in this room to keep it out of the way.
It was a magnificent mirror, as high as the ceiling with a lavish gold frame, standing on two clawed feet. There was an inscription carved around the top: Erised stra ehru oyt ube cafru oyt on wohsi.
I couldn't move. Not because of the mirror, but because I was too tired to move, and feeling that if I did, I would just collapse to the floor. Harry, on the other hand, walked right up and in front of it.
I didn't know what he saw, but he turned around and held his hand over his mouth. Slowly, he turned back around. As he did, I found myself walking closer to the mirror. Harry looked behind him again, and I wondered what he was trying to look at.
"Mum? Dad?"
Harry said it very quietly. I think that if I wasn't standing beside him, I wouldn't have heard him say it. I look at the mirror, but I didn't see anyone in it but Harry. I was about to say something to Harry when I saw his face. It was like he wasn't looking at the mirror, he was looking through it.
It wasn't until a distant noise did Harry brake from his trance. He whispered something under his breath and we both hurried from the room back up to the dorms
"You could have woken me up."
Harry had told Ron about last night, and Ron didn't look to happy that Harry had gone off without him and taken me along with him. They talked about it all through breakfast and the rest of the day.
That night, Harry and Ron snuck out under the cloak, and I made sure no one was around when they came down. After they left, I decided to just hang around until they came back, just in case they came back when someone was here, or someone came down as Harry and Ron were coming back.
When they did come back, they looked out of breath, like they had run the whole way back. Only later, after they had caught their breath, did I learn what happened.
The snow still hadn't melted the next morning. Harry and Ron were sitting on the chairs, not really doing anything. Ron kept asking Harry if he wanted to do stuff, but Harry wasn't interested. Honestly, he looked like he wasn't even there, like he wanted to be somewhere else.
"I know what you're thinking about, Harry, that mirror. Don't go back tonight."
"Why not?"
"I dunno, I've just got a bad feeling about it, and anyways, you've had too many close shaves already. Finch, Snape and Mrs. Norris are wandering around. So what if they can't see you? What if they walk into you? What if you knock something over?"
"You sound like Hermione and Sara."
"I'm serious Harry, don't go."
"He's right. You shouldn't go Harry. What if you get caught by Snape? There's no why you could get out of trouble if Snape's the one to find you."
But Harry wasn't listening. I looked over at Ron and gave him a hopeful look. I knew Harry would go again tonight, so I had to stop him before he left.
That night I stayed behind in the common room so I could stop Harry before he left and try to convince him that going was a bad idea. I was just starting to doze off in the chair when I heard Harry come down that stairs.
"Still going than?"
"What are you doing there?"
"Trying to stop you from going."
"Sara, you never looked in the mirror, you wouldn't get it."
And with that, Harry threw the Clock over himself and walked out of the room. After a few minutes of going back and forth over staying in the common room or going to bed, I decided to go to bed. I was tried, and I had tried to stop Harry from going. If he got in trouble, than it was his own fault.
Falling asleep didn't come easy. I think it was because I had been putting it off for a while. When I did finally start to fall asleep, I could hear someone coming up the stairs and figured it was Harry coming back from the mirror. Just before I fell asleep I heard a voice in the back of my mind. I hope he's not in trouble.