A/n: It's really short, but it was the best place to end this chapter.

"Hey, Ash, wake up!"

Ash looked up, blinking away sleep. "Wha..." he mumbled intelligently, spotting Harry and Ron in front of him. Both were excited to such a degree that he was sure he'd be able to reach out and touch it.

"It's Christmas!"

Ash blinked again and sat up properly, traces of sleep vanishing. 'Christmas?' He'd forgotten it was today - in between worrying about Buckbeak's trial and doing school work, there hadn't been much time to think about it. Shrugging away his confusion, he got up.

"Come on, we've got to go open our presents!"

Ash rushed downstairs to find the other Gryffindors up and waiting. "Cilan should be here soon," Iris said, "then we can start."

Ron, who'd been grabbing for a present already, deflated. "I'll go find him!" he decided, jumping up and rushing over to the portrait hole.

Before Hermione could advise him against dashing through the castle in his pyjamas, he'd opened the door. "Oh - he's here already!" Ron reached out and grabbed the Hufflepuff, dragging him over to his present pile and rushing back to his own.

Cilan took a moment to regain his bearings after the rushed entrance, then smiled. "Happy Christmas," he said, handing out the gifts he'd brought with him.

"Aw, thanks Cilan!" Ash took the present and tore the wrapper off, revealing a box and a book. He opened the box - 'macarons, yes' - and took one of the treats out to eat. "The Art of Being a Connoisseur," he read, flicking over to the first page, "heh - step one: make constant food puns."

Cilan smiled. "I thought you'd like it - I wrote it myself. It adds a certain humour to the gift, doesn't it?"

"Very funny Cilan," Iris said dryly, though she was smiling down at her own copy. "Better than Ash's drawings - you have no originality!"

"Says the one who gave out dragon figures!" Ash had moved onto Iris's present, holding out the enchanted model on his palm. "It's pretty cool though..." he admitted.

"I guess your drawing is nice too. Less childish than last year anyway," Iris teased. Cilan gave her a reproachful look. Iris huffed, but returned to opening the last of her presents.

"Hey, who's that from?" Ash asked, pointing towards Harry's present pile. They'd managed to get through all of the usual presents, including Weasley jumpers, but Harry still had one left.

"I don't know," Harry checked the package over for a label, but found none. Failing there, he tore the wrapping paper off, then stopped. "This is..."

"A Firebolt?" Ron gasped, noticing Harry's gift, "who got you that?"

Turning it over in his hands again, Harry shrugged. "This means I won't have to use a school broom!"

"Still, a Firebolt?" Hermione said sceptically, picking it up from Harry's lap, "They're expensive. Who do we know who could've got you this?"

"McGonagall again?" Cilan suggested, "Though... she probably would've signed it."

"Oh no, Detective Cilan's on the case," Iris laughed. "Who cares where it came from? We have to go out and see it in action!"

"Yeah!" Ron agreed, "This is supposed to be the latest and greatest broom, I bet it goes really fast!" Ron was right; it certainly looked impressive - sleek, streamlined, and visibly well made. "Man, those Slytherins won't know what's coming - they won't even be able to see it, it'll be that fast! This puts their Nimbus 2001s to shame!"

"Do we have to go out now?" Hermione asked, "It's probably really cold, we should wait 'till its a bit warmer."

Cilan looked over at her, then nodded: "Why don't we play some chess?"

Ron, the only one who could actually win at chess, grinned. "I guess we don't have to go out right now..."

In the end, Harry didn't end up going out to check his broom before dinner. He grumbled slightly at this as he was dragged down to eat, but didn't really mind too much. There'd be plenty of time to go out flying later, and Christmas dinner was always something to look forwards to.

'Or,' he thought as he entered the Great Hall, 'it usually is, at least...'

Though he'd known that there were less people staying behind for Christmas than usual, he hadn't taken that to mean that he and his friends were actually the only ones to stay. As such there was currently only one table in the room, around which the staff sat.

"Ah, come in!" Dumbledore greeted cheerily, waving the group over to the table and conjuring up a few more chairs. The table adjusted size to accommodate for the newcomers.

Snape, looking, if possible, even less happy than usual, sneered at the group as they sat down awkwardly.

Ash pulled a face at the awkwardness in the atmosphere, but did his best to ignore it. He started piling food up on his plate, when Pikachu tapped his hand.

"Look - crackers!" the pokemon held out one of the cylindrical pieces of cardboard as he spoke, "Come on, pull it!"

Ash accepted the proffered end and pulled. Pikachu's size worked against him and he was unable to keep a grip on the cracker when it went off. A sailor hat fell out of the cracker, along with a slip of paper.

"What do you get when you cross a snowman with a vampire?" Ash read out. Without waiting for an answer, he continued: "Frostbite."

Dumbledore chuckled good-naturedly at the joke. Beside him, Snape scowled.

"Maybe the next joke will be better..." Pikachu said hopefully, holding out another cracker.

The next joke was no better than the last (if anything, it was worse), but Dumbledore laughed regardless, accepting the hat - a muggle approximation of a wizard's - from Pikachu and replacing his own with it. Ron laughed at the headmaster's new look, along with Iris. Hermione glared at the two even though Dumbledore took it in stride.

Other than Ash and Pikachu's continued efforts to find a genuinely funny cracker joke, the table was devoid of conversation. Eventually, Pikachu had taken everyone's crackers, and was now trying to balance the many hats on his head.

"Sorry I'm late!" Pikachu looked up at the apology, sending the hat pile off his head to crash into a pile of roast potatoes. Snape, having been moving his hand to reach for one of the potatoes, sneered at the mouse.

The rest of the table's occupants were busy watching the newcomer, Lupin, make his way to the table. As he took his own conjured seat, Trelawney gasped.

"Thirteen sat round the table!" the woman stage whispered. Ash felt a sudden wave of irritation over from McGonagall. "When thirteen sit round a table, the first to stand will die!"

"That's ridiculous," McGonagall dismissed. "Merely superstition." Hermione smiled and looked over at the Transfiguration teacher approvingly.

An hour that felt like an eternity later, Ash had finally eaten his fill. He nudged Pikachu, who nodded and started collecting up the different hats he'd gained from the crackers - apparently wizard crackers were capable of spitting out just about any type of hat, including the traditional paper crown, as Pikachu's current sailor hat proved.

"Leaving so soon?" Dumbledore smiled. He took his own hat, replacing it with his usual one, and gave the joke hat to the electric mouse.

"Yeah, come on guys," Ash got up, followed by his friends.

"Ah!" Trelawney gasped, pointing with all her usual dramatic flair towards Ash, "You were the first to stand!"

"And he isn't dead," McGonagall snapped. "Stop trying to scare them."

"Ah, professor?" Hermione looked to the transfiguration teacher as the rest of the group rushed to the door, "Could I speak to you for a second?"

"Oh," Cilan stepped back through the door, "I need to say something too."

Back in the common room, Harry and Ron rushed straight over to the Firebolt. "So cool..." Ron gushed.

"Whatever," Iris scoffed, taking a seat over in the corner. "If you like that broom so much, why don't you marry it?"

"You know..." Ron said thoughtfully.

Ash stared at the two. '- should ask those brooms to smack those two in the face.'

Ash blinked. That thought, though in his head, hadn't come from him. In fact, it sounded almost like...

'Pikachu?'

The mouse's ears twitched, and he looked up from where he was sat nosing one of Iris's dragon models. 'Yes?'

Either he was going insane, or he and Pikachu could share thoughts now.

'It's probably some aura thing, isn't it?' Pikachu guessed, hopping over. 'Still pretty cool though.'

'Yeah... hey, try going up to the dormitory. We should see how far away we can get.'

"Hey!" Ash span round at Ron's shout. He was still in the common room, but Pikachu was outside the window, sat on the back of Charizard. Ash had been mentally conversing with both of them for the last half hour.

"What's up?" he asked, moving back over to the centre of the common room. Ron was half stood up, grabbing onto the end of Harry's new broom. On the other side was... "Professor McGonagall?"

Behind the professor, Hermione was stood, looking slightly apologetic. Next to her was Cilan, frowning slightly. "It's for your own good." he said to the two boys.

"For our own good?" Ron gaped at the pair, "What part of taking away the awesomest broom ever is good for us?"

"Well," Hermione paused, "I thought, and McGonagall and Cilan agree, that the one who sent Harry that broom, was Sirius Black."

Silence descended upon the room as they all realised what she was implying about the broomstick.

To SarcasticInkling and the guest reviewer: I really like the ideas, but they're not part of the plot I have. I could write them as oneshots and put them in a separate fic, though.