Transfiguration took on a slightly odd air for the rest of the term, because Professor McGonagall decided to keep up interest in their class by having Ron, Hermione, Neville and Dean each demonstrating their abilities.

It might have seemed like she was giving them special treatment, except that the Professor also made very sure to point out all the downsides of their Animagus forms. Hermione couldn't rotate her wrists much, for example, while as Ron was so small he simply couldn't carry or use things that a larger animal would be able to.

Somehow, Professor McGonagall always went from that to talking about different aspects of Transfiguration spells – such as how someone doing Transfiguration needed to keep in mind exactly what role they wanted from the result of their spell. It wasn't particularly hard to make something larger or smaller at the same time as transfiguring it using a specific spell, or at least that was what they were told – Professor McGonagall had them all try it out with a tortoise-to-teapot spell, aiming to either make a very large teapot or a very small one – but changing it in other ways was more difficult because that meant altering the shape.

On the plus side, Ron did get a rather nice tiny tea set out of the whole thing.

Hogwarts castle corridors were cold that November, the Scottish Winter definitely setting in as the Frosty Moon waxed overhead.

Or at least, that was what the astronomy book said a full moon in November was called.

Harry didn't really notice, his scaly hide keeping him from most of the negative effects of the cold, but everyone else was wearing their warm winter cloaks except in the warmest parts of the Common Rooms or whenever a helpful upperclassman or -woman had thrown a Warming Charm their way. Bluebell flames were also much in evidence, and Ron had Percy transfigure him a little jacket sized for his squirrel form before lining the inside with careful jets of bluebell flames.

Harry had thought the whole point of a squirrel having fur was to keep it warm, but he supposed that maybe you just couldn't feel warm enough in weather like this.

When he asked in the Oddly Shaped Society whether anyone else was having trouble, he got a variety of answers. Tanisis had taken to wearing a modified horse blanket, saying that sphinxes were used to much warmer climates and even her shaggy cold-weather coat wasn't nearly enough, while Tiobald was just as inured to cold as Harry was.

Apparently the Black Lake remained pretty much the same temperature all year round, at least near the bottom where the Selkies actually lived. And water was much, much better at taking away heat than air was, so Tiobald just felt the same as he always did.

Luna just said that she had a pair of shoes with warming charms on them and a pair of shoes with cooling charms on them, since that way she'd be happy whatever the weather.

"But… what if it's just nice weather?" June asked. "Like in spring."

"One each," Luna told her. "It cancels out nicely. Otherwise I'd need a third pair of shoes for when it wasn't hot or cold."

Harry wasn't quite sure if that was a very smart way of looking at things, or just a very Luna way of looking at things.

Harry was starting to feel a bit frustrated by his Patronus Charm lessons.

It wasn't just that it was a tricky spell. He knew he'd only been trying it for a couple of months. But it felt like he'd got a long way towards getting it right very quickly, and then made almost no further progress for weeks – as if there was just something he wasn't getting.

The spell practice was helping, which helped a bit. He could cast the spell more quickly, and it didn't tire him out quite as fast – which might just have been that he was getting magic exercise or something – and it was still producing the silver mist that Remus said could keep him safe from a Lethifold or a Dementor for long enough to fly away.

Or see if they were flammable.

But that wasn't really why Harry wanted to learn the Patronus Charm, and after the silver mist from the latest attempt finally fizzled away he sighed.

"It'll come, Harry," Remus assured him. "This is a very difficult spell, and you're doing great at it. Even if you don't get it this year – which I think is entirely possible – you should get it done by the time of your OWLs, and that should serve you very well."

Harry nodded, and took a deep breath before doing his best to let all his frustration out again.

"Spells like the Patronus Charm depend so much on emotion that, oddly enough, many people who try to learn them cast them for the first time in situations of great danger or stress," Remus went on. "If we had access to a safe source of a Dementor or a Lethifold I might even recommend it as worth trying – but, of course, both are extremely dangerous and difficult to get hold of."

"I can understand that," Harry admitted. "And I'm not desperate, not really… I'll keep trying. Maybe next time, though."

He frowned. "It's the full moon next Monday, isn't it?"

"That's correct, Harry," Remus agreed. "I've already started my course of potions for the month."

"Do you have any idea if something's going to be different?" Harry asked. "Professor Sinistra says the next full moon is going to be a lunar eclipse, which doesn't happen very often."

"The last one was in June in 1992," Remus replied, thinking back. "That was before… well, before Sirius started kindly providing me with Wolfsbane potion, so I don't remember all the details of what happened. But I don't remember anything especially unusual happening, if that's what you're wondering."

He smiled. "I believe Professor Sinistra is going to be having as many students as wish to see it on top of the Astronomy Tower to watch? I might come up and join you – as Moony, of course."

Harry thought that sounded like a nice idea.

As it turned out, a lunar eclipse was somewhat less dramatic than a solar eclipse, and took several hours.

The whole process started about half past three in the morning, but nobody wanted to be up that early on a Monday, and those students who were really interested in astronomy stated making their way up to the Astronomy tower not long before six AM.

There was a lot of yawning, even from Ron who was interested to see just how much difference there was.

Harry split off from the others to go down to the Defence Against the Dark Arts office, which Remus had told him had an apartment attached to it – apparently that was how things were handled with all the teachers at Hogwarts – and knocked on the door gently to see if Remus was up.

A slightly startled yelp answered him, and paws thumped on the floor before the door handle turned and Harry was able to push it open.

His wand was ready, just in case the eclipse had done something terrible to Moony that they hadn't expected, but… well, Harry wasn't an expert at wolf body language (he only really got practice with June, because three-headed dog body language was different on account of their being both dogs and three-headed) but Moony looked really very relieved to see him.

Shaking himself like he was trying to dry off, Moony sat and pointed to Harry's wand, then to his neck. Harry understood straight away, and flicked his wand as he cast the spell to revert Moony's werewolf transformation.

Moony pulled a sheet over himself as he reverted, and Harry stepped back to give his friend a little privacy.

"...phew," Remus said, eventually. "Thank you so much, Harry. I… well, I didn't expect that."

"What didn't you expect?" Harry asked. "Did something go wrong?"

"I found out why it is that werewolf attacks aren't nearly so bad on nights with lunar eclipses," Remus answered, as there was a rustling noise from the other side of the doorway. "And why any there are seem a bit more vicious… as the moon got darker, I started to realize that I had fur."

"Pardon?" Harry asked, not at all sure what Remus could possibly mean. "Don't you normally have fur?"

"Yes, but I don't normally notice it like that," Remus explained, stepping back into view again. He was dressed normally, now, though he kept scratching his head or the back of his neck every few seconds. "I was itching all over for what must have been hours..."

Harry thought about that, and winced. It sounded like the same sort of thing that had happened when he was about to moult, and he wouldn't have wished that on anyone.

"Does that mean werewolves are allergic to lunar eclipses?" he asked.

Remus gaped for a moment, then snorted.

"I like that," he decided. "Maybe I'll write an article about it, it certainly sounds less threatening when you put it that way."

After all of that, the actual lunar eclipse was interesting to see. It felt somehow wrong to see the moon a deep red colour, with how used everyone was to it being white when it was visible at all.

Ron pointed out that, really, the more surprising thing was that it normally looked white. It was mostly basalt and other dark grey rocks, not white at all, and if it really was white then it'd look much brighter.

Then someone asked what it would be like if a werewolf lived on the moon, and nobody had any idea. Even Professor Sinistra, when she heard, just said that that was one of those things where it wasn't very clear how the magic worked because nobody had actually been able to test it.

Strangely, it seemed as though books about moons and werewolves took up quite a lot of Harry's new reading around then. The new Discworld book had a werewolf in it, Angua, and it was interesting to go back and read the book a second time once you knew that everyone was nervous about her because she was a werewolf instead of a woman – and that Carrot's nervousness around undead (which werewolves apparently were on the Discworld) was made worse by the fact he'd been talking to Angua about it.

Still, they seemed to be in love at the end of the book, and Angua did have some things she could do that real werewolves couldn't. Harry even pointed that out to Remus before lending him the book (along with the first of the books with Carrot in it), and Remus had to admit that he'd really like to be able to change any time even if he still had to change during the full moon.

Then the second book, one that Harry got early in December, was a continuation of a science fiction story where the moon was actually a giant spaceship. It was a completely different way to have the moon be important, having it fly off into space by itself, and Harry couldn't help but wonder what that would have done to werewolves in that book.

Come to think of it, they'd probably be surprised but very happy about the whole thing.

The book itself was another one of those books where it was hard to know what to feel about the fights going on. In the first book of the series the villains had been really villainous, horrible in all sorts of ways, but in this second book only a few of them were. The rest of them seemed to be people doing their jobs, doing what they honestly thought was the right thing to do, and once everyone knew what was actually going on there wasn't really a need to fight… but they couldn't skip past the fighting, because nobody was willing to listen.

Harry wondered if that was the sort of thinking that Professor Dumbledore had to do all the time, trying to find a way to get past the fighting to the bit afterwards where everyone didn't have to fight. It sounded like a very hard way to think, but also the kind of thing that was the right thing to do and the kind of thing that a wise old dragon should know how to do.

While Harry was neither old nor particularly wise yet, he was a dragon, and it seemed like this was the sort of thing he should practice. (He didn't need to practice getting old, though – that was the sort of thing that happened by itself, or at least that was how it seemed to be.)

At the end of the next society meeting, where Tiobald had been explaining how he'd been thinking of trying to demonstrate typewriters to his clan – the main problem being trying to make them work underwater, probably – Harry asked June to stay and talk for a bit.

"Of course," June agreed. "What did you want to talk about?"

"Well, this is going to sound a bit silly to say," Harry admitted. "I want to know some more of the details about what it's like being a warg, because I want to put werewolves in my Dungeons and Dragons game."

June's ears swivelled slightly, and her tongue lolled out. "You're right," she agreed. "That does sound a bit silly."

Harry chuckled.

"Why don't you ask Professor Lupin?" she added. "I think you know him, is that right?"

"I do, yeah, but… it's Middle-Earth werewolves I'm thinking of," Harry explained.

"That doesn't make me less confused," June said. "Wasn't it Middle-Earth where you got the idea for the name Warg?"

"Yeah, but you could have been either wargs or werewolves," Harry tried to explain. "They're both smart wolf things of different types in the Lord of the Rings books, it's just that we already use the word werewolves for a different thing in the real world."

June sat down on her haunches. "It makes as much sense as anything else you've said so far."

Harry assumed that was positive.

"Well..." June went on. "You've heard quite a bit of it already. We have to stay in the deeper parts of the Forbidden Forest most of the year, because we don't want to run into Muggles – not because we don't like Muggles, necessarily? I think it's just that it's kind of awkward."

"What about hunting?" Harry asked. "I know you're biologically a lot like wolves..."

"Well, it has been kind of hard recently," June confided. "Usually it's not that bad, we hunt in little family groups of three to five. We can either do it by just running our prey down or by setting traps – everyone has to know how to set traps, because it's the best way to be sure of feeding yourself if you're unable to work with others."

She frowned, stretching a little. "It's usually deer, rabbits, plenty of other small animals… obviously the smaller it is the less it fills us up, but we're used to eating a lot and then fasting for a while."

"I know that, yeah," Harry agreed, thinking about the wolves in the Belgariad books and what Poledra had said when she was pretending to just be a wolf. (Or was that the right word? She'd started as a wolf, after all.) "So… hunting a bit like wolves, but also a bit like humans?"

"Yep," June agreed. "Hmm, what else… well, I know humans write things down a lot, but as you've probably noticed I wasn't very good at that. Most of how we remember things is telling stories."

"And singing?" Harry guessed.

"And singing, yes," June confirmed.

"That's actually great," Harry smiled. "Though I might have trouble writing the stories and songs…"

June tilted her head. "Hmm…"

When Harry did the last Dungeons and Dragons Club meeting of the year, he introduced them to the werewolf tribe in the middle of Greenwood the Great just like he'd originally planned. They had a few jobs for the group, like dealing with some nearby trolls, but mostly Harry just had it as a kind of differently flavoured version of the time the Fellowship had stopped by in Lothlorien or Rivendell – a kind of chance to rest, away from the stress of travelling, and take as long as they wanted to stock up.

Harry had to try hard not to giggle when he described the werewolves gathering around a fire to sing one of their old songs, and June began singing from where she'd been hiding behind one of the desks.

It was certainly fun.

By the time the Christmas Holidays rolled around, Hogwarts looked a lot like a Christmas card. Snow hung off the spires and battlements and covered the grounds, light and fluffy and trodden with paths leading down to the Quidditch pitch and to Hogsmeade, and a giant twenty-foot tree outside courtesy of Hagrid and strewn with magical lights by Professor Flitwick only deepened the resemblance.

That thought was what led Harry to use his camera again. The day after the end of term itself and the day before everyone who was going home for the holidays set off by train, Harry flew up to a good spot overlooking the castle and took several pictures to use for Christmas cards.

Some of his friends got involved as well, not just Dean – who laughingly refused a suggestion to paint his crow-belly red and call him a robin – but more than two dozen students from several houses and years. Blaise in particular roped Daphne and Tracy into getting involved, and Daphne dragged her slightly annoyed sister into getting involved in turn, and the four of them ended up with a very nice picture of Blaise, Daphne, Tracy and Astoria standing next to the giant tree and waving at the camera.

Some of the others didn't go quite so well – the Smiths simply couldn't stand still for long enough to make the photo work – but Harry felt quite proud of how well the idea had gone. It wasn't something anyone could share with any Muggle relatives not in the know, but it was still nice to have. He supposed.

Then Hermione, Neville and Dean all went back down to London, and as the train left Harry perched on top of the battlements and wondered about visiting friends.

He'd visited quite a few of his friends before, usually over the summer holidays, but there were some he hadn't visited either. It was hard to know if he'd be able to ask about going to visit the Smiths (though it would probably be very interesting), while visiting Blaise sounded nice but he had the vague idea that it was probably a good idea for Sirius in particular to steer well clear.

Harry then wondered if he should ask June about visiting her pack – they were, after all, only over in the Forbidden Forest, though because it was Forbidden he should probably check with Professor Dumbledore first – and that led to him thinking about going down into the Black Lake for a visit to Clan MacUalraig.

He hadn't been swimming since his last moult, come to think of it, so if he was able to cast one of those spells like the bubble head charm to breathe underwater he'd be able to find out if he was better at swimming now.

It was a thought, anyway, and he went to go and find Tiobald to offer to melt a hole in the ice over the Black Lake if the Selkie needed it.

"Okay, Harry, here we go," Sirius announced. "Ready?"

Harry nodded.

"It's kind of a tricky spell, so watch how I do it first," Sirius added. "There isn't much to damage out here, but we might get unlucky."

Harry had to admit that Meade Hill, just outside Hogsmeade and currently covered with about a foot of snow, probably was quite hard to damage with a mis-cast spell.

He watched as Sirius moved his wand in a tricky movement, first flicking it slightly forwards and then raising the wand high into the air.

"Ignis Verberaque!" he incanted, bringing the wand down again in a sharp movement, and fire curled out of the tip of his wand. It formed a kind of long rope of fire, moving like a whip, which crashed into the ground and melted a wiggly line out of the snow.

That extinguished it, except for the little bit still attached to Sirius' wand, and he made that little bit coil up into a spiral before ending the spell with a quick flick.

"Can you see why I think this is a good next one?" he asked.

Harry frowned, thinking. "Well… it's a fire spell, so it's all part of heading towards being able to cast Fiendfyre. And it's a spell which is about not just making fire but controlling it, which is the same thing."

"Exactly," Sirius nodded, impressed. "And it's cool."

"Shouldn't that be hot?" Harry asked. "The ground is cool."

"I sometimes can't tell if that's deliberate or not," Sirius grumbled, and Harry did his best not to smile in triumph. "All right, now you try – wand movement first."

Harry copied the wand movement, first with his paw and then with his tail, until Sirius pronounced himself satisfied. Then he cast the spell, wand in his paw for the first use, and got a hawser-like thick rope of fire that just fell straight down despite his best efforts.

"Not too much," Sirius cautioned. "Remember, you want it thin enough to control and hot enough to do the job, but for now we'll just work on thin."

"Right," Harry agreed, and tried again. The result was sort of lumpy and uneven, instead of the whip of fire that they wanted, but it was getting better.

"I can see why we're doing this one when it's snowed," he admitted. "How long did you take to get it right?"

"A while," Sirius replied. "Let's try again."

Because he and Ron were the only people in their dorm over the holidays, Harry set his tent up and slept in that instead of in his Hogwarts four-poster.

That was partly because he liked the idea of taking the blankets and duvets – both summer and winter – from the two bedrooms in his tent and piling them all up together, making a thick, soft pile that he could sleep under. It wasn't anything he needed to do, but it was just fun.

It did make him wonder something, though.

Emerging from his pile of furnishings, Harry checked the time – it was still only about nine in the evening – and wandered out to the main Gryffindor Third Year Boys Dorm Room.

It really needed a better name than that.

"Hey, Ron?" he asked, softly. "Are you still up?"

"Of course, yeah, it's not that late," Ron replied. "I know it's Christmas Eve, but there's no point going to bed too early."

He pointed his glowing wand down by the side of his bed. "Want a game of chess?"

"Sure," Harry agreed. "I was wondering, though – why don't you go home for Christmas?"

"Honestly?" Ron asked, setting out the board, then shrugged as the pieces moved into place. "It's kind of Weasley tradition, I think Bill started it. He decided to steer clear from the madhouse it was at home during Christmas, and it kind of worked out for him, so Charlie did the same and it sort of caught on."

"But now there's basically no other Weasleys back at your house," Harry pointed out. "So going back there might be quieter."

"Yeah, but..." Ron shrugged again. "You just know that if I went back home the Twins would follow me."

Harry was the white side this time, and he frowned for a bit before pointing. "Right king's pawn forwards one square. And you're probably right."

"King's knight to F6," Ron countered. "Why do you ask?"

"It's just..." Harry began, then shrugged his wings. "Different experiences growing up, I suppose. My aunt and uncle are happy not to see me, which is fine, and if I want to see Sirius he's so close I don't need to take the train back to London for it. You've got a really big family, but you're so used to it that sometimes peace and quiet is better."

He nodded to himself. "And… King's Bishop forwards one square."

"Playing defensive," Ron noted. "Well, this is just a game for the heck of it… King's Rook's Pawn to H5. And I never really thought of it that way, huh."

He crossed his legs on his bed, looking down at the chess board. "Sorry if that makes it seem like I'm not understanding how you feel, or anything."

"You don't need to," Harry assured him, chuckling. "I've met most of your family, and back at primary school I sometimes flew up onto the roof to read books so I didn't have to deal with my cousin."

"Hey, that's a point, I can join Percy up on the roof," Ron brightened. "That'll make summers a bit easier to deal with."

He snapped his fingers. "That reminds me! You know the Quidditch World Cup is in Britain this time? Well, Dad's been talking about us all going to see the final – obviously we don't know who's going to be in it yet – but if you and Sirius were planning on going we could make it a joint trip?"

"I'll ask Sirius about it, but that sounds pretty good," Harry agreed. "Only… is it Britain? In football I think England has a separate team to Scotland and Wales and stuff."

"Well, there's English and Scottish teams and stuff, but the stadium is in Britain," Ron replied. "I think they picked somewhere in Devon-"

"Next move, please?" the White Queen asked.

"Whoops," Harry said. "Queen's pawn forward one space?"

That night, Harry had a dream about… something or other. It had been a good one, he remembered that much, but there wasn't much else that stuck with him except that there'd been a really big airship involved.

Blinking and yawning as he crawled out of his pile of blankets, he found a small note by his bed. It wasn't folded up, and he picked it up to read.

Mr Harry Dragon Potter,

We is sorry that your presents is outside the tent. We thought it wasn't polite to come in and put things where you might not want them.

Harry smiled, appreciating the thought, though after a moment he frowned instead.

If they hadn't wanted to come in, then… how had the note got here?

Shrugging, he picked up his glasses and headed through the kitchen for the door of his tent. When he pulled the flap aside, however, he saw presents piled up in the opening as if to block him in.

"Harry?" Ron asked. "That you?"

Fabric rustled, and Ron sniggered.

"You'd better start opening them now," he suggested. "Or you'll be trapped."

Harry bit down on a giggle, picked one of the nearest packages, and pulled it out of the pile to open. To his surprise, it was a book he hadn't seen before – and quite a peculiar one as well.

It announced itself to be Harry Potter and the Dreadful Misunderstanding, and it had a picture of a black dragon on the cover – as well as the same human-boy-Harry that some of the books he'd seen back before the start of first year had. As Harry tilted it, the cover began to move, and he watched as the black dragon and human-boy-Harry started closely examining a checklist and a calendar respectively.

Also included was a little note from Professor Dumbledore, which explained that he was sorry that he'd been unable to find any socks that might be of interest to Harry and that the only thing he could find was a book. He was well aware that Harry had plenty of books already, so hopefully this was not one of them – unlike socks, books were a little more awkward to have more than one of a particular type.

Harry flipped through the book to see what sort of thing it was, and found that there was a bit halfway through when a Harry was arguing with a Potter about which of them should be allowed to use the name Harry.

He had the feeling that it would be a very peculiar book to read.

There was a bit in the front which was nice, though, where it said that any resemblance between the actual Harry Potter and any of the characters in the book was a complete coincidence – citing as evidence how they hadn't even known he was a dragon until it turned up in the news.

Putting that aside to read later, preferably when he had a free day so he wouldn't get too confused, Harry moved on to the next presents in the pile.

Ron had got him a broom compass, and apologized for not getting him anything bigger, but Harry thought the compass was a nice idea anyway – it was adjustable, and at the size Harry was at the moment it fit quite nicely onto the index finger of his right paw. It would be quite useful for flying long distances, though Harry had read the Swallows and Amazons books once and so he knew that you had to check the compass to see which way to go and then go there (instead of just looking at it the whole time).

Hermione's gift was a book called The Forge, which her note said was the first in a series of books which were kind of like a re-imagining of some of the bits in the Roman Empire book Harry had got her. She didn't say which bits, in fact she specifically said that Harry should try and work it out, and that she hoped he liked it.

Then Dean had made him something, which was always nice to see. It came rolled up in a tube, and when it was unrolled there was a great big portrait-size drawing of a white dragon just flaring his wings to alight on a pillar of rock.

As he examined it, it suddenly animated, and the white dragon finished his landing. A tiny green dragon flew over from the corner of the drawing, fluttering around the white dragon's head, and he smiled with green-blue eyes whirling before launching himself back into the air.

A red star shone overhead, and Harry suddenly recognized it as Ruth somewhere on Pern. He wasn't sure how Dean had managed to animate it – that wasn't a Charm they'd learned yet, so he'd probably need help from someone in one of the upper years unless they taught it in the Art Club.

Neville's present, on the other hand, was made of two parts. The first was a spider plant, along with a note that told Harry that now there were so many spider plants at Longbottom House that Harry could do him a favour and take one of them to reduce the numbers.

That gave Harry a chuckle, and then the second thing was a big box of chocolates.

"Did Dean do you a picture as well?" Ron asked.

Harry showed Ron, squeezing past the now-smaller pile to demonstrate, and Ron looked duly impressed.

"He did this one for me," he added, holding it up and letting it unroll to the bottom. It showed a red-squirrel dangling from underneath a branch and reaching for an acorn, then began moving with the squirrel snagging his prize and swinging back around to the top of the branch. He ran along the branch, crouched, and jumped off, then came back into the picture from the other side and spun around the branch to hang off it again.

"Wonder how he found time to do them all," Ron admitted. "If he did them for Hermione and Nev as well."

"Maybe he did them at the Art Club?" Harry suggested. "It's weekly, so he'd have time for… what, one or two sessions for each picture? Depends how long he was planning it."

Most people got Harry books, some of them Wizarding and some of them Muggle, and he was pretty much okay with that situation. It was rare (though not unknown) that he'd find a book he didn't like, and even if he did it would still make a good addition to his hoard as something to sleep on.

Then there was the package from Mrs. Weasley, which contained a new and larger jumper (one which Harry guessed would fit him until his next moult without stretching, unlike his current jumper which was showing the strain slightly) and a great deal of homemade sweets. It wasn't the first time, but Harry was very impressed with the quality of it all and felt quite pleased by getting that.

"Oh, come on, not again," Ron grumbled, though it sounded like he was barely avoiding sniggering.

Harry looked up, and Ron held up a copy of The Tale of Squirrel Nutkin by Beatrix Potter.

"Everyone's getting me squirrel stuff this year," Ron explained, moving on to another present. "Or nut stuff. It's funny, but it's a bit less funny ten times in a row."

"Open mine, then," Harry suggested, moving past his now much diminished pile to tap a big oblong parcel.

Ron leaned over the side of his bed to grab it, clearly slightly dubious about whether Harry was having a laugh, and tore off the wrapping paper.

His griffin statuette flew down to collect the paper and took it up to a big rustly nest it was building atop a shelf, but Ron didn't notice.

"Science experiments for kids?" he asked, reading the title.

"Yeah, it's all stuff that Muggle kids or young teens are supposed to be able to do with stuff they can get hold of cheaply," Harry explained. "I had a look through when I got it, and I'm pretty sure I can get the stuff for most of them in Fort William, so let me know one you want to do a few days in advance and I can get the stuff for it."

"Nice," Ron pronounced, leafing through the book. "Yeah, some of these look pretty good… mountain building?"

Harry craned his neck to see, and they read the description through.

"I didn't realize that was how mountains were made," Ron admitted. "Neat."

He picked up one of the last things on his pile, which turned out to be a wooden box. Opening it, he reared back in surprise as a paper crane flew out.

It circled his head once, wings buzzing, then landed back down on the bedsheet and unfolded.

Three seconds of shifting paper later and a book with the silver-embossed title of The Animagus Book Of Being An Animagus was resting on the bed.

Ron picked it up and opened it, and on the first page was a handwritten note from Professor McGonagall expressing her congratulations.

"That was cool," Harry voiced. "I wonder if anyone else got one?"

"Probably," Ron agreed.

Harry went back to his own present pile, and there were only two things left. The first was his present from his relatives, which turned out to be a single unadorned pencil and a list of future chores.

It was touching that they'd thought about him, and Harry absently began shaving little bits of wood off the end of the pencil to see if he could sharpen it by talon. Then he got to the very last present, which (as he'd expected it would be) was from Sirius.

The accompanying letter said that he hoped Harry enjoyed what was inside, and if it wasn't tasty enough to qualify as a full Christmas present there might be something else they could get. Now curious, Harry undid the paper and stared.

It was a Game Boy box.

"What in Merlin's name is that?" Ron asked, as Harry picked up the box to find the opening – and found that, yes, there was indeed a Game Boy inside.

"It's a Muggle game thing," Harry replied, wondering briefly how to explain it to his friend. "Dudley had one… actually, he had two, because he broke one. It makes… sort of, moving pictures, and you press the buttons to change do things."

He frowned, searching for an example for a moment. "So on the screen it might show a picture of a wizard, and you press one button to make him jump and another button to make him cast a Stunning spell."

"And what about making him cast a different spell?" Ron said. "Like transfiguration?"

"I don't think they know enough about wizards to make that work properly," Harry said. "And the game in this one is, um… something about a zelda. I think that's some kind of elf, but I'm not very clear on the details."

Dudley had mostly just complained about how the game wasn't exciting, if he was remembering the right set of games.

He flicked the power switch idly, then turned it around to have a look – and blinked.

The battery light had lit up red, and a set of black letters saying "Nintendo" slid down the screen with one of those registered-trademark 'R's accompanying it.

Then it went 'fwing!' and a moment later began showing a black-and-green animation of the sea.

"I thought Muggle stuff didn't work at Hogwarts," Ron said, shifting so he could watch as a ship came into the picture. They both saw someone with pointed ears trying to sail the ship through what was apparently a storm, then get struck by lightning.

Harry turned the Game Boy off, every bit as confused as Ron sounded.

"Maybe it's like how Dean's watch works?" Ron suggested. "That's got electricity in it, doesn't it? And so does this?"

"Yeah, but all the books say Muggle technology like radar and computers and stuff doesn't work at Hogwarts," Harry replied, frowning. "And those use electricity as well."

Despite his frown, though, he did feel quite impressed. It seemed that Sirius had got him a mystery for Christmas.

Even if he hadn't meant to.

AN:

There was more of a delay for this chapter pair than usual, and that's because I buggered up my computer. I'm now on a new computer.

Anyway. Getting a project for Christmas is nice.