Disclaimer: All characters and ideas associated with the Harry Potter series are the property of J. K. Rowling and the following companies: Warner Bros., Raincoast Books, Scholastic Books, etc. Charles Dickens owns A Christmas Carol. No money is being made from this story and no copyright infringements were intended in its creation.
Chapter Four
The Last of the Three Spirits
Young Master Malfoy watched the approach of the hooded figure with a growing trepidation. However as it neared, his dread began to sink from his heart to his feet, soaking into the ground below him and leaving him completely. It was not a dementor as he had thought for the icy tentacles of fear had not gripped him as he watched its advance. For half a moment, Draco was tempted to believe this specter human enough, and black enough, indeed. He searched for signs of familiarity in the figure, curious to see who among the Death Eaters had been sent into his dreams to convert his mortal soul. But with each step the figure grew nearer and Draco realized that the spirit was no taller than he. Growing impatient, he sucked in a breath and drew courage enough to speak to it.
"You there," he said with more confidence than he felt, "Who are you?"
The spirit said nothing and Draco wondered if it had even noticed him standing in its direct path. He waved his hands, minutely at first and then with wider and more frantic motions. He debated bobbing his head and flapping his arms, clucking like a chicken. Instead he fell motionless, dumbfounded. He watched the mysterious figure continue past him. Turning around to follow the hooded specter with his glare, he heard the faint crunch of snow beneath his feet. He sucked in a startled breath as he saw the spirit approach a stone wall, frosted with an icy sheen. He blinked, not believing his eyes—he stood before his school, outside, in the cold wearing only his pajamas. He felt like a fool.
His curiosity turned to indignation. He planted his slippered feet firmly in the snow and stuck his elbows out sharply, his fists on his hips and a scowl on his face. "Answer me!"
The spirit moved one hand alone, a pale finger emerging from the folds of his cloak, beckoning the boy to come forward. Draco ground his teeth with anger, the creak of the friction sounding in his ears. He felt his face become hot even though he fought not to shiver. The figure turned its masked face away from the boy and toward a darkened window.
The crunch of impatient footsteps in fresh snow was the only sound in the still night. Draco marched up behind the black-clad ghost and was about to shout a demand to know its identity when, to his surprise, the specter raised its pale hand once more, as if in silent, omniscient anticipation of the boy's reaction. The slim fingers pointed to the panes of the darkened window and from the silent expanses beyond the frosty glass, Draco suddenly heard voices. He removed his angry glare from the cloaked figure and tried to peer through the darkness.
The light of a candle seemed to float just beyond the glass now that he looked, and the room was not empty he now saw. The quiet voices grew and the identities were unmistakable to his ears. Marcus Flint was speaking in conspiratorial tones to Sally Anne Perks and Millicent Bullistrode. At first he could not hear what he was saying but as he pressed in closer, it became clear. Marcus held something out for his classmates to see and it must have been somewhat impressive by the reflected surprise in the girls' faces.
"Are you sure it was his?" the taller of the two girls remarked with skepticism. Millicent always had reminded him of an American footballer. And now with her brow shoved down over her little squinty eyes in disbelief, he was left with no reserves as to his impression.
The smaller girl reached out with her tiny, spidery fingers toward whatever Marcus held out to them. She flinched slightly as Marcus snatched the object away with leery caution. "And you said it was from his parents?" Her eyes widened in wonder. "He must have treasured it."
Marcus shook his large, dark and rather apish head slowly. "I doubt he ever treasured anything. Huh," he tutted with an extra effort at irony, "probably just another thing to him." He shrugged his shoulders and released his tight hold on whatever he held. "Well," he said after a long pause, "what'll it be? I've got offers from at least five others…" He raised his eyebrows expectantly.
Sally Anne bit her lip and glanced up at Millicent, unsure. Millicent only nodded before turning out her pockets, revealing a Galleon and three Fillibusters Fireworks. Sally Anne reluctantly dropped three Sickles into Millicent's open palm.
"Pleasure doing business with you ladies," Marcus said with little pleasure in his voice. Millicent emptied her palm into Marcus' and quickly snatched at a golden chain he dangled before them. "Better luck with it than he had. Lot of good it did him." He pocketed his newly acquired treasure and slunk back into the shadows of the quiet room.
Sally Anne and Millicent stared, wide-eyed and silent. "Oooo." Sally Anne spoke in hushed tones as if she was afraid to be overheard. "I've never owned something that belonged to a dead person."
Millicent dangled the chain over the candle and smiled. The tooth of a dragon hung limply over the warm and solitary glow.
"Hey!" Draco shouted, banging his hand flat against the window. The girls did not flinch. "That's mine!"
He turned in rage to the cloaked spirit. "What the hell is this?" He waited.
The hood turned to him with recognition of a question, but still no voice issued forth.
"Answer me!" Draco said, forcefully shoving the spirit's shoulder.
The pale hand reached up to its hood and slowly pulled it back. "Damn it, Malfoy!" The likeness of the worst of his trio of rivals was revealed as the hood fell over his shoulders. Black hair and glasses, very green eyes behind them. It was sodding Harry Potter. "You're ruining the effect!" he continued despairingly.
"This is bollocks! You're making all of this up." Malfoy sucked in a breath to fuel his rage. "Flint is my friend. He wouldn't hock my things. And no one in Slytherin House would dare to buy them even if he had gotten hold of them."
To Draco's continued annoyance, Harry didn't argue. He shrugged and turned, walking away from the school.
Malfoy stood in the snow a moment longer looking after the image of his rival that was growing smaller as more distance was put between them. He looked back at the frosted wall of the castle and then at the figure leaving him here in the snow. He sighed. "I hate Christmas!" he affirmed, shuffling through the snow to catch the spirit.
He knew his footfalls in the snow could not have gone undetected, but the spirit neither slowed its pace to allow him to catch up, or turn to acknowledge his coming.
"What else have you got to show me, Potter?" Draco spat vehemently.
The boy continued to look straight ahead at the growing blackness of the night just before the break of dawn and slowly reached up to cover his head once more with the hood. Draco thought he would pull more of that silent as the grave crap, but to his surprise his companion spoke.
Harry said in tones that communicated no feeling, "You don't have to come along. I could take you back to your dorm room and we can leave it at that."
Draco opened his mouth to protest.
Without turning to see this, Harry interrupted his comments. "You're not going to like what I have to show you. I don't mind if you want to turn back."
Narrowing his eyes and favoring the spirit with an incredulous glare, Draco thought: reverse psychology. "No," he said. "I'm not afraid of anything you want to show me."
The hooded figure nodded once and the scene of the school shifted abruptly to a bleak field with a sloping hill. Gravestones and sad trees were all that dotted the sorrowful hillside. Suddenly the figure stopped at a freshly dug grave, gaping and awaiting its inhabitant. Draco only saw the hole as he almost walked into it. He stumbled backwards, a bit off balance and fell heavily backwards.
The spirit turned to favor him with an expressionless gaze.
"You could have warned me about that!" Draco spat, still sitting on the cold soil of the fresh grave.
"I am warning you about it," Harry said matter-of-factly.
"Wh—," Draco started, following the finger that the spirit extended to indicate a lone figure traversing the far side of the lonely cemetery. "Who is that?" he said, altering his first question without his eyes leaving the small shadow of a visitor that came to stand beside an equally small stone.
"You know him," the spirit answered. "He keeps your rooms warm, makes your bed, prepares your meals. It's a thankless job, but someone's got to do it, right?"
"Who is he visiting?" Draco said, suffering a chill at the realization that he knew that answer too.
"His friend," Harry's voice said without feeling. "I think you met her earlier in the night."
Draco felt a sinking. It startled him and then faded, leaving embarrassment and anger in its place. "What the hell do I care about house elves? Are you going to show me something pertinent to my future? You are the ghost of Christmas future, aren't you?"
The hood turned on him and he felt cold eyes peering at him, but he could not see a human feature at all. Only darkness pervaded the hood and cloak and Draco got the feeling that the cloak and hood were the only tangible things about this frightening spirit of fog and cold.
Again a draped arm was extended and the spirit indicated the stone above the fresh grave at the foot of which Draco sat.
Indignantly Draco peered at the stone until the etching came clearly into view. The name was his own.
The temperature dropped several degrees in that instant and Draco looked over the lettered stone many times hoping that he had been mistaken by some trick in the letters.
He was not. This grave was his.
At last he felt mortal. He felt human and ached for the humanity that he had, for so long, lived in want of.
"Spirit?" Draco asked, now with the respect that he had lacked before. He turned to ask the spirit if these words could be changed. He remembered his classmates dealing in his possessions that he had left behind. The spirit was no longer at his side. He was in fact alone.
He was truly alone. He had no friends, no friendships to boast about. No one. These three visiting spirits tonight had been, indeed, better friends to him than those he had had in life. Draco stared into the expansive hole at his feet, pushing himself up off of the cold soil. The scene faded and he in turn felt the burden of unconsciousness as he sank forward into the widening hole of black.
With a sudden falling feeling, Draco threw his arms and legs out trying to catch himself before the grave swallowed him completely.
To his surprise he was caught in a tangle of bedclothes. He sat upright, looking around at his familiar room, familiar curtains, familiar clock on the bedside table.
Draco threw on a robe and stood fast to look out the window. The sun was coming up. It was Christmas day!
He felt his slippered feet, squashy from a night of walking in the snow. It had not been a dream. He had really been visited and shown the things he had thought took place in a dream.
Draco threw open the door and raced past the common room. Out in the hall he rushed in the direction of the Great Hall. They would be there. He knew they would be.
Through the large oak doors, Draco pushed past some merry revilers with poppers and festive hats. They shot exasperated looks at him, all of which he ignored. He was of a single mind at the moment.
Harry Potter, Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley were all three sitting at their house table looking over a book that might have been a Christmas present to one of the three.
"Granger! Potter! Weasley!" Malfoy said harshly. Hermione spun, astonished at the address, the tone and the breech of enemy etiquette. Ron and Harry looked up, not surprised in the least.
"Malfoy!" Ron said in a mock gruff tone that was meant to mimic Draco. "Now that we've all been introduced, Malfoy, what can we do for you?"
"I know what you were trying to do last night. I just wanted to show you that it didn't work."
"What didn't work?" Harry asked, perplexed.
"You didn't save my soul." Draco demonstrated by sticking a leg out and tripping a lower year Hufflepuff effortlessly. He smiled at the loud clatter of dishware that hit the floor along with the small girl.
"Are you feeling all right, Malfoy?" Hermione said favoring him with a look of genuine concern.
"Fine," Malfoy answered. "Where is that petition. I'm feeling in rare from this glorious Christams morn!"
"Glorious Christams morn?" Ron repeated dubiously. "What in the hell has gotten into you? And now you want to sign that stupid petition?"
Draco grinned at him as Hermione scowled in rebuke. She handed Draco the H.E.L.F. petition.
Malfoy made a show of searching his pajamas for a pen and then resorted politely to asking Hermione for one of hers. Fishing in her bag, Hermione actually smiled at Draco. He endeavored to keep a straight face.
As soon as it was handed to him, Draco lifted the page, quill in hand, scanning the list of names he suddenly tore the list in half, then in quarters. As Hermione looked on horrified, Harry and Ron stood, hands spread out on the table in front of them. Ron was turning a ghastly shade of red. As Draco made a sort of rudimentary paper doll pattern out of the ruins of the H.E.L.F. petition he felt grateful for the table that Harry and Ron would have to jump before they could actually pummel him.
As he sprinkled the remains like snowflakes on the floor at the feet of his enemies and wannabe saviors he felt a triumph and a sort of festive warmth. "Merry Christmas," he said with a cheery smile and exited the hall with more that just the eyes of the offended party on him.
Now it could be said that this was a horrible Christmas tale with no presence of morals and no warm Christmas theme. Maybe somewhere in someone else's Christmas Carol there is a Tiny Tim to deliver the final line, "God bless us everyone". Though this is not that tale, our Christmas Carol succeeded in the feat of all feats: Draco Malfoy kept at least some semblance of Christmas in his heart. After all, he did utter the words Merry Christmas in the final scene, didn't he?