(A/N Harry Potter and Rowling's other characters do not belong to me, they belong to J.K. Rowling. Characters not seen in Rowlings books do belong to me, however, so paws off! Oi, I'm getting tired of saying this all the time! -_- Allright, on with the story, and someone go wake-up my ghost writer!)
Harry Potter and the Staff of Time
chapter 16
Boxing Day Blues
Harry awoke from his nightmarish vision shaking and drenched with sweat. His pajamas and the bedclothes were soaking wet. It was 5:30 A.M. and Harry knew that getting anymore sleep now was a pipedream. He wished there were someone else awake whom he could talk with, but the house was silent.
Harry changed into a dry set of clothes while he thought about what he would do to occupy himself until some of the others woke up. He recalled seeing an extensive library when Savana and he had been exploring yesterday. He decided to go there and find something to read. He specifically wanted to find information on Merlin and the Staff of Time and he suspected this could be the best place in the world in which to find it. So, Harry grabbed his wand, to provide some light, and off he went in search of the library.
Harry thought he remembered where the library was, but the house proved to be large and confusing. Soon, Harry realised he was lost. He was now in a section of the house that appeared to be unoccupied and was used mainly for storage. Harry sighed. This was not how he had planned to spend Boxing Day.1
Harry opened a door which he thought might lead to another hallway, or some stairs. Unfortunately, it only lead to a large room which was empty except for a few pieces of furniture which were covered with sheets. Harry shut the door and walked down to the next one. The room only contained more furniture in storage. He sighed. After trying several more doors, Harry reached the last one at the end of the hallway. He opened it and looked inside. It lead to a stairway, but the staircase only went up to the third floor. There was no corresponding stairway which led to the lower floors.
Harry thought about simply closing the door and trying to retrace his steps back to the main portion of the house. Unfortunately, he had already made so many turns that he wasn't even sure of his present location. So, he decided to climb the stairway and hope he found a way down once he reached whatever was at the top of the stairs.
Harry cautiously mounted the stairway and climbed to the top of it. The stairway opened into a large, cavernous room...an attic of sorts which was used as a storage area. Harry saw piles of boxes, trunks, old furniture, tapistries, etc., piled neatly along the eves for as far as his wand illuminated. All of the items were covered with a thick layer of dust. Cobwebs hung from every convient spot. Four small garret windows were high on one wall and let in the anemic dawn light.
Harry suddenly realised how late it was and just how long a time he had been wandering through the house. He needed to find a way back to the main section of the house. Harry decided to climb up to one of the windows and look outside. Maybe then he could figure out where he was and how to get back to the main house.
Harry piled several trunks and boxes ontop of each other, then climbed on top of them and looked out the window. The early morning light bathed a portion of the formal gardens and the ruins beyond them. Harry could tell from the view that he was in the backside of the west wing. He was about to climb down when he saw something curious in the distance; a circle of enormous standing stones. He stared for a minute, then realised exactly what he was looking at...it was Stonehenge!
As interesting as this discovery was, it didn't change the fact that the sun was climbing higher in the sky and he hadn't yet found his way back to civilization.
Harry climbed down from the stack of boxes and as he was stepping down onto the last box, he heard the ancient wood groan and crack. The surface began to give away under his right foot. So, Harry quickly lept off of it and onto the floor. He examined the damage he had inadvertantly caused to the crate. The wood had caved in to create an opening roughley 1/2 meter in diameter.
Harry saw the ends of several parchment scrolls through the opening and, out of pure curiosity, he carefully reached inside and withdrew one of the scrolls. Its case was covered with a fine coating of dust. Harry gently released the case clasp and withdrew the scroll and partially unfurled it. His eyes widened in suprise as he read the first few lines penned upon the ancient manuscript. It read: "Spell for Awakening the Dragon..."
Harry found the reading a bit difficult because the handwriting was spidery and faded. He did learn one thing just from the title though, this manuscript had been penned by the wizard Merlin himself! Harry knew this because during their studies of Merlin in The History of Magic class, Professor Binns had told them there were some spells which only Merlin had been able to cast. The most well known of these spells was Merlin's Spell for Awakening the Dragon.
Harry carefully replaced the scroll in its case. He was about to put it back where he had found it when he decided instead to bring the scroll with him and show it to Savana and Alex.
Harry made his way to the far end of the chamber. He was very happy to find a stairway there which descended all the way to the first floor. Harry quickly found his way back to the main house and, from there, to his room. Once he was in his room, he put the scroll on the mantle. Then he quickly washed up and went down to join the others at breakfast.
Harry was more than a bit suprised to find the house elves sitting at the table in Gavin, Fiona and Christina's places.
"Harry, we were about to go up and get you!" Sirius boomed.
"Have a seat." Alex said grandly and indicated an empty chair with a sweep of his hand.
"Ummm...where are your aunt and parents?" Harry asked in confusion as he took a seat at the table.
"In the kitchen. It's Boxing Day." Savana said as though this should all make perfect sense to Harry.
"Please, pardon my ignorance, but I thought Boxing Day simply meant we boxed-up the Christmas decorations. I fail to understand how that would explain why your parents and aunt are in the kitchen." Harry explained.
All of those assembled turned their eyes toward Galen, who had cleared his throat to gain their attention. "At one time, it was common practice in the United Kingdom for those in charge to change places with their underlings on Boxing Day. This family has not indulged in this Boxing Day tradition for many years. This year, however, the adults decided it would be amusing to try it once again." He piped.
The door to the kitchen swung open and the adults in question entered baring various platters of food or beverages. They began to serve the items to everyone who was seated at the table.
"Um, just out of curiosity...who did the cooking?" Alex asked with suspicion as he eyed the charred piece of bread that Gavin had just put on his plate.
"We all made at least one thing, but we aren't going to tell you who made what." Fiona explained as she filled Savana's cup with coffee, or rather, something that was supposed to pass for coffee. It more closely resembled liquid tar and Savana gave it a dubious look. She wasn't sure she wanted to expose either her taste buds or her stomach to the nasty looking, and smelling, stuff.
Harry gulped as Christina spooned a scortched smelling, lumpy gruel into his bowl from a large tureen.
"O.K. everyone, enjoy!" Gavin said heartily. "We've got alot of cleaning up to do in the kitchen, so if you need us, just give a holler."
"Eating this toxic sludge could prove to be hazardous to my health!" Savana thought loudly.
"I heard that!" Fiona thought back at her daughter. She gave Savana a look of disapproval and arched her eyebrow, a sign of irritation, for good measure.
"So-rrr-y!" Savana thought back. Then she pretended to take a sip of the foul concoction in her cup. She pressed her lips together and fought not to retch at the smell issuing forth from it.
As soon as the breakfast crowd was certain that the 'cooks' would not make a suprise return, Alex looked at Sirius and Remus. Then he hissed at them in a stage whisper, "Quickly...one of you...please, make this 'food' disappear!"
"Galen, could you and the other elves get real food for yourselves?" Galen nodded. "Then you are on your own for breakfast. The rest of you, meet me in my room in 15 minutes. I'll see what I can liberate from the pantry and bring it up for us." Alex continued as the toxic substances that masqueraded as their breakfast vanished.
They all nodded a grim acknowlegement to Alex's plan and dispersed.
Remus, Sirius, Savana and Harry reassembled in Alex's room and discussed what they might do to contain any further collateral damage until the Boxing Day exchange ended at midnight. They had just decided that Remus and Sirius would try to supervise the errant cooks after they had eaten, when there was a banging at the door.
Remus opened it and Alex staggered in with his arms full of food. He quickly deposited his booty on a table. Then he began to remove utensils, napkins, etc. from his pockets while Savana began to lay out the food. Once he had emptied his pockets, Alex disappeared back out the door and returned with some dishes which he set upon the table.
"Sorry folks, I wasn't able to pilfer any coffee or tea. Those are under guard in the kitchen." Alex explained while the others began to help themselves to the food. "I don't understand how our parents and aunt Christina ever passed potions class with the way they cook. You need the same skills to make a potion as you do to cook food." He continued while shaking his head in disbelief.
Remus and Sirius both began to turn red and gave each other knowing looks.
"Ahhh..., they had a little help..." Remus stuttered. "...fortunately for them, they were all in the same potions class and a potions geek had a huge crush on Christina."
"Thank the powers that be for that happy coincidence. Otherwise, they probably would have blown-up the school." Sirius added with a mysterious twinkle in his eyes. "That's all we're going to say about the subject." He added as Savana sought to get more information on the topic.
Alex sat down by Orion's open cage with a large bowl of yogurt and stirred in some strawberry preserves. Orion appeared and scampered up onto Alex's shoulder where he sniffed curiously at the bowl of yogurt in Alex's lap.
Alex lifted a spoonful of yogurt to his mouth and Orion stood-up on his hind legs, leaned forward toward the spoon and sniffed at it. Alex ate the spoonful of yogurt and Orion sat back down with a disgusted look. Then Orion leaned forward sniffing again. He lost his balance and scittered down Alex's chest landing with and undignified 'SPLOT!' in the bowl of yogurt.
The group began to laugh heartily as Orion sat-up with a large dallop of yogurt dripping off of his nose. He began to move toward the edge of the dish and toward Alex.
"Oh no you don't, yogurt boy! It's bath time for you!" Alex said as he picked up the yogurt bowl, which still contained the rat, and headed for the bathroom. The laughter of the other's followed him.
"Well, on that entertaining note, we're going to take our leave..." Remus said with a laugh. "...and go supervise our comrades before they destroy something more than our lunch."
Sirius and Remus left and Alex came back into the room carring a very soggy Orion wrapped in a fluffy towel. Orion did not look very happy about his present situation.
"Now that we're alone, I've got something I want to show you." Harry announced. "Wait here."
Harry ran into his room and grabbed the scroll off of the mantle. Then he returned to Alex's room with it and told them the story of his early morning adventure.
Harry left out the parts about his vision and the conversation he had overheard the night before. He still wasn't sure about whether or not he should tell Alex and Savana about it. Deep down inside, Harry hoped the situation would resolve itself if he waited long enough.
Savana carefully opened the case's clasp and removed the scroll from it. (Alex was still trying to dry Orion.) "Woah! Merlin's spell for awakening the dragon! Look at this!" She shouted gleefully while she shoved the parchment in front of her brother's face.
"Where did you say you found that?" Alex inquired. He had finished drying Orion, who now closely resembled a static charged puffball with a rat head and tail stuck on it. Orion stalked indignantly into his hidey-hole.
"In an attic, in the other wing of the house. I'll show you. I'm sure I can find my way back there." Harry offered.
"Let's go exploring then." Alex announced as he jumped up and headed out the door with Savana following him and Harry taking the lead.
Harry looked at the portrait that he thought he'd seen Orion in the night before as they passed it. Then he stopped short. The rat was there again! Harry could see the tip of its nose sticking out of the wizard's pocket for a brief moment. Then the rat scrambled down and disappeared from the picture.
"Am I going bonkers, or did I just see Orion just in that portrait?" Harry asked the other two.
Sir Percival, the man pictured in the portrait, laughed and said, "If it's my pet rat you are asking about, sir, he is in my portrait because it is the height of fashion. Now, where did you get to? You little rascal..." Sir percival wandered off in search of his pet.
"What was that all about?" Savana asked and shook her head in confusion.
"It was fashionable in the Victorian era for people, even muggles, to sit for portraits with their pet rats. You see, pet rats, especially white ones, were all the rage in England at that time." Alex explained to them as they started off for the attic once more.
"What are you, the walking animal and Native American trivia king?!" Savana inquired sarcastically.
"I'm just a very well educated individual." Alex teased in response to his sister's dig. Then he ran up the stairway as Savana swatted at him and chased after him.
They were as excited and amazed at Harry's discovery as he had been earlier that morning. They began their explorations with the box of scrolls Harry had accidently discovered. Most of the scrolls contained Merlin's spells and some of them proved impossible to understand because they were written in another language. They couldn't tell, without further research, whether the language was Celtic, Middle-English, Latin, or even Norman, all of which were used in Briton during Merlin's time.
"Well, this is just another mystery to unravel." Savana muttered.
"Maybe Hermione could give us some help when we get back to Hogwart's." Harry suggested.
"That's a good idea, but let's worry about it later." Alex suggested. "Maybe something else up here will explain them."
The others agreed and they decided they would make better use of their time if they explored seperately instead of together in a group.
Savana opened a trunk which contained several old robes, hats, and a bunch of books. Savana dug through the books, most of which were old text books, but a small stack were not labeled so, she pulled one out and began to thumb through it.
"Hey, you guys, I found someone's old diaries!" Savana crowed.
"Did they belong to Merlin?!" Alex and Harry both asked hopefully.
"No such luck...the handwriting looks feminine...there are comments about Hogwarts in here...but I don't see anything that states who wrote this...I think I'll bring these down to my room for a little bedtime reading...the light's better there..."Savana informed them while she continued to skim through the journal. Then she set it down on the floor, removed the others from the trunk and set them ontop of the first book forming a neat stack. Savana replaced the other items in the trunk, closed the lid and pushed it back against the wall. She went on to the next trunk and they all labored in silence for a time.
Harry was looking through a batch of portraits and tapestries, stacked against another wall, when he made a discovery which caused him to yelp in suprise.
"Alex, Savana, come and look at this tapistry I've found!" Harry called with excitement after he had laid a large tapistry out on the floor. "I wish the light in here was better,...I can't make out several of the details..."
"I may be able to do something about the light." Alex said, "I don't know why I didn't think of it earlier. Luminerous incandessa!" He intoned along with a wave of his hand above his head. Several globes, which gave off a bright, blue-white light, appeared and floated above their heads.
"Much better!" Alex said with a smug, self-satisfied air. He strolled over to where Harry and Savana were examining the tapistry in question.
"Wicked!" Harry breathed. "It's Merlin and someone named Nimaway. Who is she?" He asked as he studied the names woven into the tapistry under the portraits.
"We appear to be discovering more questions than answers." Savana said. "Maybe one of the adults knows the answer to this one."
"If I didn't know better," Alex said as he studied the tapistry, "I'd swear this is the Phantom Forest..."
Alex's speculation was cut short by a blood curdling scream that sounded like it was coming from the main house! It was soon joined by other, similar screams.
"What is that?!" Harry and Savana shouted in unison over the ear piercing shrieks.
"It's the smoke alarm!" Alex said dourly, as he ran to a stack of boxes piled under a window and climbed on top of them. "Aunt Christina has screech owls roosting throughout the house. They serve as smoke alarms." He explained.
Alex looked out the window and saw enormous clouds of black smoke belching from the direction of the kitchen.
"...of all the...!" Alex said heatedly as he jumped down from the boxes and extinguished the extra lights. "It looks like they've managed to blow-up the kitchen!"
"You're not saying that seriously, are you?!" Harry demanded as he clattered down the stairs behind Savana and Alex. "We left Remus and Sirius in charge of them and the kitchen, that should have been enough to prevent any catastrophies."
"I don't think that even Professor Dumbledore could help them learn to cook properly!" Alex panted as they tore down a hallway.
They were not able to approach the kitchen through the house because the smoke was so thick that they couldn't breath without a gas mask, or something similar. They went outside and approached the kitchen door on the backside of the house. The sight which greeted them when they reached the disaster sight would have been hysterically funny if the cause had not been so serious.
The five adults were all smoke blackened and covered in soot. Fiona held a roasting pan that contained something that looked like a large lump of coal.
"Oh, my lovely roast!" She wailed. "Maybe, if we scraped off the black parts, we could still eat it." She said hopefully.
Then Fiona showed the burnt offering to Gavin. He studied it thoughtfully then shook his head in resignation.
"Sorry love, it appears to be a total loss." Gavin said and gave her a consoling hug. The he had a coughing fit and belched out a puff of smoke. "Oops, excuse me." He muttered contritely. Then he began to cough again.
"Oh dear! Now what will we serve for lunch?" Fiona inquired mornfully as she dropped the crisp-fried roast on the ground, pan and all.
"I vote for Mac and Don's Supper Club!" Alex said as he approached the bedraggled little group. "What happened here, or need I even ask?"
Remus and Sirius grinned at the 'kids' sheepishly and gave them a half-hearted wave of greeting.
"Umm...Fiona...?" Remus stammered.
Fiona sighed and impatiently swiped at an errant lock of hair that kept falling into her eyes. Then she began to explain, sounding more like a child caught up to mischief than the mother of two children. "The cookbook said the roast would take three hours to cook at the temperature which they recommended. That meant it wouldn't be ready untill half an hour after lunch was supposed to be served. So, I decided to help it along and cooked it at a higher temperature...so it wouldn't take as long...then it began to smoke...it burst into flame..."
"Mo-om! I can't believe you did that...again! Don't you remember the turkey incident six years ago?!" Savan demanded and rolled her eyes in exasperation.
"I thought your job was to prevent this from happening." Harry whispered to his godfather.
"There's only so much a fella can do, Harry." Sirius whispered back to him.
"...still need to clean up the kitchen. You can't leave this mess for the house elves. It's supposed to be their day off." Harry heard Christina saying.
"We'll make a deal with you," Alex suggested. "We'll help you clean-up this mess if you'll agree to get take-out for lunch and dinner."
The adults nodded in resignation, then went to their rooms to bathe and clean-up.
Harry, Savana and Alex went into town to get lunch for them all and were happy they would not have to eat anymore of the adults' cooking.
...`~*~`...
That night Savana curled up in bed with some of the journals she had found earlier. The Boxing Day Exchange was almost over and she was thankfull they had been able to avoid any further catastrophes. It had taken most of the afternoon and evening to clean up the mess in the kitchen.
She checked inside the first journal to see if she could discover who the writter was, but there was nothing written there, not even the year. She skimmed the entries but they didn't contain much of interest to her. It appeared to have been written by a pre-teen and most of the entries were about what she had done in class that day, etc. The next book she skimmed was much the same except there were several segments complaining about how difficult potions class was.
"Now I know this was written by mother or aunt Christina." Savana thought wryly as she went onto the next journal.
Savana's jaw dropped in disbelief as she read the third journal. An entry of particular interest to her read: "...the nicest boy offered to be my partner in potions class. He's in Slytherin, but that doesn't matter...he knows how much trouble I have with potions and he's a genius in it! I might actually pass the class with his help...Severus said he's sorry he can't help Fiona and Gavin, as well as me..."
"No way!" Savana thought with delight. "Snape is the potions geek who helped them! I've got to tell Alex and Harry!"
Then she realised how late it was. She would have to wait until tomorrow to tell them the news. Savana yawned. She was getting sleepy, but she wanted to skim just one more of Aunt Christina's diaries.
"Oh, this is just too good!" She thought a short time later. "I can hardly wait to tease Aunt Christina about this!"
Savana had just read the entry about the infamous levitating rowboat! She re-read the last few lines of the passage with decadent delight.
"...Severus is furious! It took half an hour to climb down out of that tree! (And I tore my robes on it!) He's sure James Potter and his friends are the culprets...I overheard Gavin and Fiona in the common room, though...it seems that James was involved, but the whole stunt was Gavin's idea!...I'd shoot him at sunrise, but he doesn't know I was the other person in the boat...if he did, he'd never cease to tease me about it..."
Savana yawned again and set the book aside. She would have loved to have read some more, but her eyelids were getting heavy and it was too hard to fight sleep any longer. She smiled as she laid down and closed her eyes. She knew her discovery tonight would blow Alex and Harry away!
1. Boxing Day-the day after Christmas many nations with roots in the United Kingdom celebrate Boxing
Day. The name is derived from the fact that this was when most Christmas decorations had to be
taken down since they were fresh and didn't last much longer than a couple of days. The Boxing Day
exchange idea actually came from the military. Officers would change places with enlisted men on
Boxing Day to help raise morale.
