Unfortunately, Harry did not wake to a small boy bouncing on his bed.   Instead, he awoke to a small voice in the center of the room.

"A'cio shoes!…A'cio shoes!"



Harry opened his eyes and put on his glasses.  Small Harry was standing at the foot of Ron's bed holding his older counterpart's wand and pointing it determinedly at a small pair of shoes a few feet away.  Harry smiled.  His younger self had been paying attention last night.

"A'cio shoes!"  The little boy tried again, waggling the wand.  Nothing seemed to be happening.  In frustration he gave the wand a good hard shake.  Sparks flew out of the end and zoomed to the floor, burning the wood slightly and causing a little curl of smoke to rise.

"Harry!" exclaimed the older boy in alarm.

Small Harry jumped backward and dropped the wand, covering his face with his hands.  "I'm sorry," he mumbled through his fingers.  "I didn't mean to!"

Older Harry stepped out of bed and walked over to his younger self, kneeling near him.  "Harry?"

"I didn't mean to," repeated the child, still hiding his face.

"I know you didn't," Harry assured.  "I'm not mad.  You just scared me."  He reached out to touch Younger Harry lightly on the shoulder. 

The little boy flinched away.  "I did magic."

"Hey, honestly, it's okay.  No harm done.  We can even do some magic later, together, if you want to.  It's just that wands are…C'mon, Harry, look at me."

Cautiously, Younger Harry widened his fingers and peeked through.  When he saw that the older boy really didn't seem to be angry, he dropped his hands altogether. 

"Like I was saying," Harry continued, putting an arm around the little boy, "wands are really for big people.  I guess I should have told you earlier. Are you all right?"  He looked doubtfully at the black spot on the floor.

Small Harry nodded, still looking subdued.

The older boy sat back on his heels and grinned.  "Hey, don't look so glum!  It's Christmas, and there are some gifts downstairs just waiting for a little boy named Harry to open them."

The younger Harry's face lit up and he began to bounce up and down.  "I have real presents!  I have real presents!  Can I open my presents now? Please?  Right now?"

At Harry's nod, his younger self hurtled down the stairs toward the small pile under the tree at a rate of speed that made Older Harry fear for his safety.  However, once the child had reached the presents, he stopped and stood without moving, staring at the gifts wrapped in bright paper and dripping with ribbons.

"Which ones are mine?" he asked in an awed whisper.

"All of them," Older Harry replied. "Mine are over there." He waved vaguely at a chair. " I wanted to watch you open yours."

The younger Harry still didn't move.  "What should I open first?"

"It's up to you.  Oh, wait.  Open that one," Older Harry gestured to the biggest package, "last."

Harry had been of two minds about buying presents for his five-year-old self.  What he wanted was to buy an entire toy store and put it under the tree, and he could probably have afforded to do so.  Then again, Harry hated to give the little boy things he would only have to leave behind when he went back to the Dursleys.  Even if, by some miracle, Dudley didn't take his presents away and Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon didn't wonder where they had come from (and Harry didn't put it past them to accuse a five-year-old of stealing), there was the problem of giving young Harry too much to remember his trip by.  Older Harry had finally decided to buy several things he knew the younger boy could eat, or use up, or hide easily, and a couple things that would just not be able to go back to the Dursleys.

The older boy sprawled on the floor with his chin propped in his hand and watched in delight as five-year-old Harry reached out for a large, flat box.  As soon as he touched it, he lost all hesitation, ripping off the gold and red wrapping and long strings of red ribbon.  He opened cardboard and held up one of the many small packages inside.  "What's this?"

"Chocolate frog.  They're not alive, but they're magic, so they hop around a bit before you eat them."

"Can I open one now?"  the little boy asked.

Chocolate before breakfast?   "Sure," answered Harry.  Some junk food first thing in the morning never killed anyone, he figured.  Caution prompted him to add, "Just one for now."  He grinned as the smaller boy ripped open the package and the frog gave a great leap under the tree.  The little boy dove for it and devoured the treat in two bites.

Next, younger Harry reached for a breadbox-sized package, and older Harry found himself gleeful with anticipation.  This was something it wouldn't be easy to bring back to the Dursleys', but Harry hadn't been able to resist. 

When he was very young he had longed for a doll to cuddle and hold like the one a neighbor child had.  Afraid to approach Uncle Vernon for nearly anything he really wanted, he'd appealed without much hope to Aunt Petunia, who had laughed scornfully and told his uncle anyway.    The end result was a long, loud lecture in which Harry was angrily told that, one: dolls were for girls, not for boys, and he shouldn't be asking for one in the first place, and two:  Harry was not worth the money it would take to buy a gift.  Harry had been cowed by this and had never brought up the subject of toys again.

Small Harry tore through the wrapping on the box and stared.  Through the plastic window a doll made of soft molded plastic lay nestled in its flannel blanket.  It had wide brown eyes and dimpled cheeks, came with two changes of clothing and its own bottle, and was exactly the right size for cuddling.  The little boy said nothing and sat silently. 

Older Harry became worried.  He knew his younger self liked the gift.  What was the problem?

"Is something the matter, Harry?"

Small Harry tentatively put out his hand to touch the plastic, and then pulled it back.  "Uncle Vernon says…"  He didn't continue.

Oh.  The pieces fell into place: Little Harry and his uncle had already had that conversation, apparently.  Older Harry sighed for what seemed like the umpteenth time in the past two days.

"Remember what I said yesterday, Harry?  Your uncle is wrong about a lot of things, and this is one of them.  Lots of little boys have dolls, and there's nothing wrong with it.  In fact, it can help you practice to be a good daddy some day.  If you really don't want to play with the doll, you don't have to, but if you want to, go ahead."

Little Harry thought about this for a few seconds before his troubled face melted into a wide grin. He ripped off the plastic wrap and yanked the poor baby doll out of the box so quickly that he would have given a real child whiplash.  He immediately stuffed the bottle in its mouth a couple of times, and then held the doll to his shoulder and pretended to burp it. 

He didn't put it down as he unwrapped his next few presents.  There were a penlight (Older Harry had remembered how dark it was in the cupboard), some of Mrs. Weasley's fudge (older Harry had graciously decided young Harry could have it) and some paper and crayons.

Little Harry next unwrapped a squishy package, which turned out to be a pillow.  Predictably, the little boy was not as excited about this, but in older Harry's opinion it was the best of the lot.  He had charmed it so that whoever slept on it would dream of forgotten memories – nice memories only, of course.  It could be easily switched with the pillow little Harry already had.

Then the child moved on to the largest package.  Older Harry had spent an unaccustomed amount of money on it – extravagant considering it was only going to be used by the little boy for one day.  It was a wizard plaything Harry had seen in a little shop in Diagon Alley, so there was no way at all this one could go back to the Dursleys house.

Small Harry took off the paper all at once and jumped back as tiny white objects flew out of the toy and over his head.  He sat down abruptly.  "Ohhh…It's magic!"

Indeed it was.  A two-foot high model of Hogwarts Castle stood on the floor. Around it, little owls flew in and out of the owlery in one of the turrets.   Older Harry took what looked like a blue scroll from the side of the castle and unfurled it onto the floor.   The blue "parchment" turned into the lake by Hogwarts, realistic in every detail; a giant squid reached one tentacle out of the liquid water and waved it at them.  The older unlocked a little mechanism on the side of the castle and it sprang open into two pieces. 

Little Harry peered inside.

The castle wasn't equipped with anywhere near all the rooms at Hogwarts, but a couple classrooms, like the DADA room and the potions room, were clearly visible, and so were the great hall and the headmaster's study.  All four turrets could be turned so that you could see the dormitories of the four houses inside, and one of the turrets held a "secret" passageway.   The interior of the castle was filled not only with furniture but also with figures of people.  Eight students sporting uniforms with house crests walked around the castle at random.  Figures of McGonagall, Snape, Binns and Dumbledore were busy at various tasks.

Recognizing Snape at once as the man who had been rude to his older friend, little Harry took one of the chairs from the potions room and seized the Snape figure (who squawked with surprise) and sat Snape facing the corner.

"Bad man," muttered Harry.  "You need a time-out."  The tiny Snape muttered and glowered and folded his arms, but stayed put.  Older Harry was highly amused.

While Younger Harry played with his toys, Older Harry opened his own gifts almost absently.  The usual sweater from Mrs. Weasley, the book from Hermione, a box of joke candies from Ron. 

And a paperclip from the Dursleys.  Somehow, it didn't matter so much this year.

---

Breakfast in the Great Hall was fun.  Younger Harry was understandably taken with the snow falling from the false-sky ceiling, and nearly as much so with the stack of pancakes Harry loaded onto his plate.  The Slytherins were sitting at their usual table.  They looked askance at Harry's little friend but nobody said anything.  Snape rolled his eyes, but he didn't interrupt them, either.

"C' w' d' smagicnow?"  Piped up little Harry, through the huge bite of blueberry syrup-laden pancakes in his mouth.

"Eh?"

Younger Harry swallowed.  "Can we do some magic now?  Like you said this morning?  Pleeeease?"

It took Harry a minute to remember what he had promised.  He snapped his fingers. "Oh!  Yes, I had an idea about that.  We need to go upstairs and get some things first."

"Yay!" shouted the little boy, knocking over his pumpkin juice in his exuberance.

Older Harry had his wand out and was cleaning up the mess before he'd thought twice, but younger Harry had covered his face with his hands again.

Harry took a few moments to reassure the little boy.  "It's all right: it's just juice.  No big deal."


"Uncle Vernon-" began Small Harry.

Uncle Vernon is an idiot," emphatically repeated older Harry as he magically cleaned the juice away.

---

Half an hour and a struggle with one slightly-too-large blue snowsuit later, both Harrys were standing on the Quidditch field with the older boy's Firebolt.

"So, Harry, have you ever wanted to fly?"  the older boy asked casually.

The younger boy watched, spellbound, as older Harry demonstrated riding on the Quidditch broom for a few seconds.  Then he landed and put the broom on the snow-covered ground next to the little boy.

"Okay, Harry, time to do some magic on your own.  Hold your hand out over the broom like this and say, 'up!'"

The little boy tried, but succeeded only in making the Firebolt wiggle a little. 

"Hm.  Try again, and this time, know for sure that the broom wants to do what you say." 

The little boy tried again, and this time the broom flew straight up into his hand.  Little Harry hopped up and down in the snow.  "It came to me!"

"Great job, Kiddo!  You're pretty good at this, you know that?" Older Harry took the broom and straddled it, then pulled the little boy in front of him.  "How about we fly around the field a few times?"

In the next couple hours, both Harrys had a wonderful time flying around, doing dips and rolls, and chasing a large, slow-flying "Tot-Snitch" that Harry had acquired for them.  A couple times Older Harry made the little boy squeal and giggle by going into a fairly steep dive and then swooping upward unexpectedly.  Eventually Older Harry even taught the little boy to steer.

Finally, sensing he had tired his younger self, Older Harry took the two of them inside again.