Chapter 10 - Christmas Morning

Passing day after day in the same way, you didn't notice how close christmas was getting, so it came as a shock to you when you awoke to find a pile of gifts at the foot of your bed, on what you thought was just another morning. You gaze in amazement at the pile, never before had you received anything on Christmas morning. Every year you would look on at your 'friends' in envy as they opened brightly wrapped presents from various sources while you would receive that one gift from 'the orphanage'. That one gift was only ever sent through pity, thinking it unfair if you received nothing, of course the others all were sent matching presents. And then they would all talk about their gifts, this was the one time of the year you were included... 'Hey Freak, what did you get this year?' His voice sounded too real in your mind as did the ringing laughter.

Anyway why waste your time and thoughts on them when you had gifts to open! You flick your wand, wordlessly sending the pile onto your bed beside you. After taking the gift off the top, you read the label, 'Merry Christmas Tom, love Druella x', it was wrapped in a shiny red and decorated with silver ribbon. You slowly peel back the paper taking care to try and leave it unharmed. Inside is a box labeled as 'Honeydukes full taster selection' You peek into the box amazed at the amount of chocolates and sweets shrunk inside. You place the box by your bed on the floor to be placed in your trunk later and pick up the next gift on the pile, from Abraxas. You open in to find a book, Tales of Beadle the Bard, you open it, stating to read you find it to be a book of magical fairy tales. Putting it on your beside table you open the rest of the presents, all from various members of Slytherin, the more expensive gifts from your stalkers. The random assortment of gifts spread across your bed, mostly useless rubbish you'll never use or look at again, clearly people don't know you very well. You use the vanishing spell you had learnt last week to clear all the paper, pleased when it worked first try.

You head down to breakfast glaring at the people waiting for you in the common room who wish you a merry Christmas.
You walk out of the room taking a rather obscure route to the great hall losing your followers one by one. When you were finally alone you head to the hall peeking through the door to check none of your stalkers were waiting for you there. Finding none you walk in, sitting down and placing a slice of toast onto your plate to be buttered.

"Hello Tom!" Said the overly cheery voice of Professor Slughorn as he moved from his place to sit next to you, "How are you this fine Christmas morning?"
"I am fine thank you professor, a very merry Christmas to you too Sir" You take a small bite of your toast, taking care not to display your disinterest and disappointment in Slughorn's interruption.
"I was planning on a Christmas party just before term broke up, unfortunately it had to be cancelled, I was wondering whether you would care to join me on the Friday after the beginning of term for a belated New Years celebration? You could bring a guest, of course. There shall be no one insignificant invited I ensure you, only the greatest witches and wizards of their respective years, most of whom have become masters of their craft, leaders, or otherwise well known figure heads. I do hope you will be able to attend Tom, I would love to introduce you to the greater more intelligent part if the magical society. You can arrive at my office at nightfall, no need to eat beforehand, drinks and refreshments will be served all evening."
"I would be delighted to attend Professor, I shall ensure that I am available that night and shall confirm when I will no doubt being seeing you for dinner this evening."
"Brilliant, brilliant, I shall see you later then, Merry Christmas." He stood, walking out humming Christmas songs under his breath. Finally you were able to eat your toast in peace.
Later that afternoon you found yourself back in the library, you had found a book all about Hogwarts, Hogwarts a History. You sit at your table in the back corner of the library and begin to read. Not long later you come across the names of the four founders, you leave the book on the table with your bag and start running your fingers along the spines of the books as you walk up and down the isles.
Not too long later you find a book about the greatest witches and wizards in history. You take it back to your table and open it to the glossary at the back, you soon find the page reference to Slytherin, Salazar you flick to that page.

Ten minutes later you come across something you do not understand, "Slytherin was a well know speaker of parseltounge, this brand of magic is called dark however the ministry of magic has not banned it as the trait is rare and has died out in recent years." This passage caught your attention for three reasons, the first was the word parseltounge and the lack of detail encouraged you to discover more. The second was that it was rare, in the last few weeks you had picked up a craving of unusual magics and how they were performed. The final part was the dark, it led you to just more questions, what made magic dark?

Before you could explore the concepts of dark magic however, you wanted to find out what this parseltounge was. Clearly if it was labelled dark there would not be any information about it in the school library although your professors might know and be able to explain. Maybe you should ask Slughorn when you spoke to him that evening, yes that would work, accept his invitation and then ask him once you had caught his interest. After all it can't be really bad if one of the school founders had used it. You decide to pass the time by finishing the book on Hogwarts before heading for dinner.