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Chapter 37

'"Ickle babikins does not get a free pass just because it's Christmas." Gertrude snarled from the darkness.

I rolled my eyes and just laid down on the ground.

"Are you really going to ignore me?" She growled from the darkness.

"Yup." I said, turning onto my side and putting my hands under my head as a makeshift pillow.

Gertrude shrieked in the darkness, but I was used to it by now so I ignored her. The echo finally stopped and I sat up.

"Are you done?" I asked.

There was silence before, "yes." She grumbled.

"Good, because I actually want to get some sleep tonight." I rolled my eyes and laid back down, but this time I laid straight on my back.

I felt a strange presence next to me and I just knew Gertrude was laying next to me.

"You used to be so afraid of me… Now I'm just a nuisance." She sighed.

"Yes, both are true. Now can you tell me how I can get you out of my head?" I agreed.

"I can't. I don't even know how I got in here. As far as I know, I'm dead and I'm just a spirit haunting your brain." Gertrude hit her head against the floor as there was a loud thump.

"Okay, so I can talk to Dumbledore about it and we can figure it out." I shrugged.

"Or you could just suffer through it like how I suffered through your existence!" Gertrude cackled and there was a suddenly burst of pain on my stomach.'

I sat up with a gasp and almost hit Harry in the head. He was leaning over me and just managed to get out of the way of me sitting up.

"Are you alright Cassie?" He asked, putting a hand on my shoulder.

I nodded and grinned at him. Hoping that he would believe me. His eyes told me he didn't but he decided not to push the issue, He pointed to the end of the bed and I saw I had a small pile there.

I crawled over there and watched as Ron picked up the box from last night. It had ended up in his pile, and the blanket I had on my bed as Ariel's bed had made its way to Harry's pile. Ron went to shake the box.

"Don't! You'll break them!" I put a hand out.

Ron just gave me a questioning look before taking off the ribbon and opening it up the box.

"Blimey!" Ron gasped as the chess pieces came to life.

I smiled as I watched him interact gently with the glass chessmen. I turned to Harry and he was looking at the blanket with the same questioning look.

"That blanket keeps your body temperature, no matter where you are. If it's a hot summer's night, it'll keep you cool. If it's freezing, the blanket will warm up." I explained.

"Oh! Thank you Cassie!" Harry smiled at me as he wrapped the blanket around his shoulders.

I turned to my small pile of presents and opened up the smallest one.

'I didn't know what to get you, so Harry told me to get this for you. I hope this is okay?' Ron's messy scrawl was on a small piece of paper.

I opened the little box and there was a plain silver chain. I was a little disappointed by it but I put it on my wrist anyways. It was a little big, but I could grow into it. I found another little box and this time the note was from Harry,

'To remember our first game and win together.' I opened up the smaller black box and there was a charm in the shape of a broom.

I couldn't stop my grin from forming as I took off my bracelet and put the charm through one of the links. I saw that there was a possibility of getting more than just one charm. And I was excited at the prospect.

I opened up a slightly bigger box and this was full of pumpkin pasties and chocolate frogs. That was from Fred, George and Lee. I opened up a pastie and munched on it as I opened up Hermione's present. She had gotten me a headband with a little cat charm in the middle of a bow. I decided I was going to wear it later.

"Oh you two must've gotten Weasley sweaters." Ron suddenly groaned.

"Weasley sweater?" I asked, looking at a lumpy present that I had been saving for last.

"Mum makes them every year. And I always get maroon. I hate maroon." Ron groaned as he opened up his mom's present and pulled out a maroon sweater.

I quickly grabbed the present and started to unwrap it. I pulled out a grey sweater that had a golden C on the middle. I looked to see Harry had gotten an emerald sweater with a gold H on the front. We grinned at each other and put the sweaters on. I saw that Mrs. Weasley had also made a bunch of fudge for me too so I added that to my pile of sweets.

I was discreetly opening up a present from Charlotte and was relieved to find some more underwear and stockings wrapped neatly. I put the paper back on that and watch Harry open up his last present as well. He pulled out a silvery piece of cloth and looked at it in confusion.

"What is that?" I asked, tilting my head to the side as Ariel started to play with the red ribbon Ron had tossed to the side after opening up the chess pieces.

"I've heard of those!" Ron put the box of Bertie Bott's Every Flavor of Bean he had gotten from Hermione on his bed.

"If that's what I think it is - they're really rare, and really valuable." Ron said in a hushed voice.

"What is it?" Harry asked, holding it in front of him.

"It's an invisibility cloak," Ron finally said, "I'm sure it is - try it on."

Harry threw the cloak around his shoulders and both Ron and I gave a shout. Harry's entire body had disappeared except for his head! He looked down at his feet, or where they should have been, and then rushed to the mirror. He was inspecting himself when Ron started shouting about something.

"There's a note! A note fell out of it!" Ron picked the letter up off the ground.

Harry took off the cloak and put it on the bed and reached for the letter from Ron. I got up off the bed and approached the cloak. It was beautiful. I touched it and the strands of silver in the cloak moved when I touched it, almost like it was alive.

'It's so beautiful.' I thought to myself.

"I'd give anything for one of these," Ron said as he started to admire the cloak with me.

"What's the matter?" I looked up at Harry who had a funny look on his face.

"Nothing." He shook his head, but his facial expression didn't change.

'He must be feeling how I did when I got the map from my mom…' I thought to myself.

Fred and George bounded into the room and Harry tucked the cloak quickly out of their sight, I stood in front of Harry as he hid his cloak.

"Merry Christmas!" They both shouted.

I giggled when I saw they were wearing matching blue sweaters, each had their respective G and F on their sweaters as well.

"Hey look! Harry and Cassie got Weasley sweaters too!" Fred pointed at my sweater.

"Their sweaters are better than ours, though." Fred reached behind me and grabbed Harry's sweater and inspecting it.

"Why aren't you wearing yours, Ron?" George ruffled my hair and walked over to Ron with a devilish smile on his face.

"Come on, get it on, they're lovely and warm." Fred turned to Ron as well, his grin matching his twins.

"I hate maroon." Ron moaned as he pulled his sweater over his head, obviously not wanting his brothers to force it on him.

"You haven't got a letter on yours," George crossed his arm and looked at his sweater, and back to Harry and I.

Harry had put on his sweater as well, and I thought he looked quite dashing in it.

"I suppose she think you don't forget your name. But we're not stupid - we know we're called Gred and Forge." George finished off.

I covered my mouth to cover my laughter.

"What's all this noise?" Percy had poked his head in.

He was done opening his presents too, from looks of the sweater under his arm.

"P for prefect! Get it on, Percy, come on, we're all wearing ours, even Harry and Cassie got one." Fred had pounced on Percy with George hot on his heels.

"I - don't - want -" Percy was cross as the twins forced the sweater over his head, his glasses ending up askew on his face.

"And you're not sitting with the prefects today, either," George smiled at me and Harry, "Christmas is a time for family."

"You guys are welcome to sit with us too." Fred said over his shoulder as they marched Percy down to the common room.

I giggled in excitement as both Harry and I looked at each other, both of us grinning. It was one thing for me at my house, Charlotte tried to make it family friendly at the house. But there's something about… Being part of an actual family that excites me.

I didn't completely understand Harry's history, but I'm sure that he was more excited than I was to be celebrating a family that actually wants him to be there at the table with him… I had to turn around and hide my eyes. I didn't want the boys to see me tearing up and asking me questions.

We all went down to the common room and Harry got to play with Seamus' chessmen, and Ron started playing with the pieces I had given him. I kept giggling because the new pieces kept shouting at Ron for making wrong moves and they slowly started to understand that Ron knew what he was doing. They kept beating Harry's chessmen, and Harry's chessmen were just getting angrier at the poor boy.

George and Fred were playing some random card game and Percy was writing on a desk, I'm not sure if he was doing homework or if he was just writing for the fun of it. I had Ariel in my lap, I had on a fresh pair of pajama pants since I didn't think to bring a pair of trousers from Charlotte's house.

We eventually went down for an early Christmas dinner, there was already food set on the tables. There was so many different plates, and my mouth was started to water from looking at all the roast turkeys, mountains of roast and potatoes!

Ariel had followed us down the stairs and happily trotted next to me as the Weasley's, Harry, and I all went to sit at the end of the table near the Professor's table. There were some other people in the other houses who had opted to stay at Hogwarts for the holidays.

As we started to eat, I put some small pieces of turkey and roast on a plate with just a little bit of gravy drizzled on the meat. I set the plate down for Ariel who started to eat it happily. George gave me a wink as he held out a wizard cracker for me to pop.

Before I could pull it, Harry and Fred had pulled one together and instead of sounding like one of the fake poppers the muggles had. This one went off like a cannon with blue smoke, a rear admiral's hat came out and Fred promptly put it on Harry's head, white mice came out of the cracker too.

I watched as Ariel left her food on the plate and started to stalk the different mice.

"Well, at least she gets to catch her meal?" I shrugged as Percy gave me a scolding look.

George and I pulled the cracker and green smoke came out with a cannon bang. A pink bonnet had come out with some butterflies and I grinned the biggest grin as I handed the bonnet to George with a wink of my own.

George smiled at me and put it on his head, tying the strings under his chin and he fluttered his eyelashes at me, putting his hand under his chin like a woman who was trying impress her crush. I covered my mouth to try to keep from howling in laughter. I really didn't want to laugh so hard in front of everyone but it was getting really hard.

Flaming Christmas puddings came as soon as we were done with the main course. They were absolutely delicious and I didn't understand why they would cook sickles in with the pudding. I had found five sickles and had put them on the table and Fred and George were adding to the pile. I wasn't planning on taking the pile and I hoped they knew that.

Once our meal was over, I was walking away with balloons that wouldn't explode, a Grow-Your-Own-Warts kit, and I had also gotten my own wizards chess set! They were the color grey which I absolutely loved. We all took our piles up to the common room. Once we had done that, and changed into warm clothes, we went out and had a glorious snowball fight. Hagrid even came out and threw massive snowballs at us!

I couldn't decide if I wanted to stay on Harry's and Ron's team, or the twins, so I just pelted everyone until they all decided to throw snowballs at me. George even snuck up and managed to get a hold of me, so he and Fred threw me into a snowbank and it was a great time.

After we had gone back into the common room, I had changed into another pair of pajama pants and I was wearing the sweater Mrs. Weasley had made me. Harry was also wearing his, we both were sneaking each other small smiles. We were both excited to have something homemade.

I found myself laying on the ground when the portrait had opened and Ariel came trotting in with a mouse in her mouth. I quickly got up off the ground and hopped on a table. We all watched my cat drop the mouse, and she just watched it.

"Ariel." I said calmly.

The mouse moved and Ariel pounced on it. We watched as she played with the mouse around the common room. I don't know how long we just watched her but she finally had enough of chasing after the mouse. We heard the crunch of the the poor mouse's bones. And we all shuddered.

"I am so sorry." I said to Harry who was sitting on the chair at the table I was on.

"It's a cats instinct." Harry shuddered again.

There was a sudden shout and Fred and George were tossing something small between themselves as Percy ran after them. They had stolen Percy's prefect badge from the looks of it. The mood had lifted after Ariel's feast and it was much needed.

I had decided to fall asleep in the boys room again that night, I watched as Harry restlessly tossed and turned. For some reason I couldn't sleep either. Finally he stood up and grabbed his cloak, he looked at it, then at Ron, then at me.

"What are you thinking?" I asked quietly, sitting up in the bed.

"This was my father's." He answered, just as quietly.

I pulled the blanket around my shoulders as Harry threw the cloak around his shoulders. His legs disappeared my eyes couldn't comprehend that he was there, but he wasn't.

"Cassie! We can go exploring Hogwarts, and we won't get caught!" Harry turned to me, excitement in his eyes.

I stared at him and my eyes got wide. I jumped up and Harry threw the cloak over me too, and it completely covered us both without any problems. We both shuffled down the stairs, trying to match our steps with each other so that the cloak didn't fall off or show our feet.

"Where do you want to go?" I whispered to Harry as we entered the common room.

"The library." Harry whispered back.

We exited the common room in silence. The Fat Lady squawked when the door opened but since we didn't answer she sat alert. Harry and I looked at her and continued our walk in silence, we wrapped the cloak tighter around ourselves.

The hallways were dark, and even though it wasn't my first time wandering the halls at night, there was something more dangerous when there was someone with me. I guess it would have to be that if I got caught, it wasn't just me who was going to get in trouble. I didn't realize I had gripped Harry's arm but he patted my hand when I must have been squeezing too tight. I loosened my grip but I still held onto his arm.

It was weird being quiet and not talking to Harry. Since I didn't think to bring my map we didn't know who was around any corners. I was mentally slapping myself as I realized my mistake.

'I've got to tell someone about that map!' I told myself as we entered the library.

Harry lit a lamp for us to see where we were going in the library. Even though I knew Harry was holding the lamp, it was still eerie to see it just floating. We walked towards the back of the library where the Restricted Section was. Harry stepped over the rope first, then he helped me.

'I better buy some black clothes. That cloak is not going to cover all of us when we get older and bigger.' I thought as Harry set the lamp on the ground.

I turned Harry's head to me and put a finger to my lips. I slipped out from underneath the cloak and went off down the section we were in. I didn't want to leave the lamp out of my sight since I knew Harry was by it.

I didn't even get to pick out a book before there was a shriek in the air. I flinched, I had my ears covered and I turned to see a book slam shut and get shoved back to where it belonged. The lamp fell over and I fell to the ground in a crouch, I darkened everything I could.

"Cassie!" Harry hissed and I saw the air ripple by the rope.

"Harry!" I hissed back and in a crouched position I hurried to him.

He lifted the cloak to reveal his feet and I crawled underneath the cloak and I was covered. It was difficult to get over that rope, but we managed it. At the entrance was Filch. He must have been down the corridor, or used a shortcut to get to us. Harry grabbed my hand and we ducked underneath Filch's raised arm.

Harry lead the way as we ran through the corridors, trying to keep our steps quiet and our gasps light. We stopped in front of a suit of armor, Harry looked around while I tried to stay close to him, but out of his way.

"You asked me to come directly to you, Professor, if anyone was wandering around at night, and somebody's been in the library - Restricted Section." Filch's voice was coming closer to us.

'I thought we left him in the library?!' I pulled Harry against the wall by the lone suit of armor.

"The Restricted Section? Well, they can't be far, we'll catch them." Snape's voice replied.

Harry didn't move as they came around the corner. I watched as they walked down the narrow corridor.

'We've got to move!' I tugged at Harry's sleeve and he looked at my panicked face.

He gave a quick look around and shuffled the both of us through an ajar door. We squeezed into the room without Snape and Filch noticing thank goodness. We waited until they had walked past the door and we listened to their footsteps die away.

"That was too close." I whispered to Harry.

He let out his breath he had been holding and he nodded. We both took a look around the room we were in. There were desks and chairs stacked against the walls. But the odd thing in this room? Was the ornate mirror in the middle of the room.

"It doesn't look like it belongs here." I whispered, stepping out from underneath the cloak.

"It looks like it was just put here to be out of the way." Harry appeared to agree with me.

I walked up to it. It had a golden frame and two clawed feet. It seem to fill the space it was in, appearing bigger than it probably was. I saw an inscription carved into the top.

"Erised stra ehru oyt ube cafru oyt on wohsi." I struggled to say.

Harry stepped in front of the mirror and I watch his reflection throw a hand on his mouth and he whirled around to look behind him.

"Harry?" I turned to face him.

"Don't you see them?!" He hissed at me, pulling me behind him.

I looked into the mirror and I only saw the two of us.

"See who Harry?" I asked, looking at him in concern.

Harry didn't say anything, he just got closer to the mirror but I stayed where I was.

"Mom? Dad?" Harry finally said, his breath foggy up the mirror.

"Harry… What do you see?" I asked, started to get a little frightened.

"My family." He answered.

I didn't ask him anymore questions, he was so enraptured in the mirror. I was so worried about him, I failed to notice that in the mirror, Harry and I weren't alone. Hermione, Fred, George, and Ron were there too. And we were older, all smiling at each other.