Ch 37:- Fun and Foreboding

As they appeared in the driveway leading to the Burrow, Harry was suddenly aware of the damp cold wind that had been blowing all day. It stung his eyes and redoubled the tears, giving him a good excuse for having to dry his eyes when Moody gave him a strange look.

He'd been insulated from the wind in Grimmauld Place, and was wishing he had a bit more insulation in his coat.

It was also almost dark, and he was ideally placed to appreciate Arthur Weasley's attempt at making this a muggle type celebration to remember.

The Burrow was lit up like a Christmas tree – several Christmas trees, in fact.

It looked like Mr. Weasley had appropriated every set of Christmas lights in Devon, though without electricity at The Burrow, there had to be a pretty good standing spell taking power out of the magical continuum to run the display

The whole house dripped with a fine mesh of tiny flashing multicoloured lights. The lights were every colour of the rainbow and a few outside it and they flickered and changed to some pattern or beat that was completely incomprehensible.

To cap it all off, Father Christmases, sleighs, trees, almost every other shape associated with Christmas was outlined in lights and flickering away like a bad light show for the Weird Sisters.

It was about the tackiest exhibition of bad taste Harry had ever seen. Still, he thought to himself, that's wizards for you. If you've got it, flaunt it – especially if what you have is bad taste.

Harry and Moody hurried towards the house, past the garage and Mr. Weasley's work-shop. Both were tightly closed and locked. Harry wondered if Mr. Weasley had ever managed to get another car to replace the Ford Anglia that was apparently still inhabiting the forbidden Forest.

Beyond the garage, they went through the gate in the low wall around the house itself and turned left into the higher walled kitchen garden behind the house. Nothing much was visible in the light from the decorations, just a few scrubby fruit bushes and the dug over patches where the vegetables had grown, but Harry knew that in summer the herbs and vegetables would have been battling for space in the beds and battling for bees to pollinate them.

At last they came to the kitchen door and Moody pushed it open. Harry followed him into the kitchen, dropped his bags on the floor and undid the buttons of his coat. Mrs. Weasley was standing at the kitchen table waving her wand over three mixing bowls and watching something bubbling on the stove. As they entered the steamy room, she looked up and smiled.

'Harry! Alastor! Happy Christmas! It's so good to see you both.'

'Afternoon, Molly,' growled Moody

Harry looked round warily. Half of him was longing to see Ginny – the other half wanted to hide in the nearest cellar. 'Hi Mrs. Weasley.' he croaked. 'Er – Happy Christmas to you too – um – for tomorrow – er - '

Moody turned to look at him. 'Touch of hoarseness there, Harry.' He turned back to Molly Weasley. 'Got any hot soup for Harry here, he sounds like he's getting a cold.'

'Bless you, Harry, of course I have.' She exclaimed, bustling around to get plate, spoon, soup from a pan simmering on the cooker, another plate, a slice of bread (which sliced itself) and butter then plonking both plates down on a corner of the kitchen table.

'There you are Harry,' she said, giving him a quick hug, 'Cream of vegetable soup, Drink it up!'

'Er –thanks, Mrs. Weasley' he said wanly, as he sat down. He began to eat – slowly.

Meanwhile Molly Weasley had returned to her cooking and was bustling even more. She added preparation of vegetables to the spells she was keeping active in the kitchen. Soon several knives were peeling, dicing and slicing at least six types of vegetable, including sprouts, Harry noted disgustedly. He hoped she knew the spell to make them taste good..

Alastor Moody pulled a chair out and sat down. Immediately, a cup of something hot and steaming appeared in front of him.

Mrs. Weasley chattered on as she worked.

'I was so worried that Albus wouldn't give his permission, you know, Harry. I was at him for weeks, but he only decided a couple of days ago. He had Ron, of all people tell me – Oh, you know that don't you, Ron said. I'll be forgetting my own head next. We've got a few other visitors as well as you Harry, - Nymphadora Tonks – and Fleur Delacour.'

'Don't they have family?' asked Moody.

'They do, but not close by. Nymphadora's not ready to apparate and she's not really up to travelling long distances yet, and Bill is going over to France with Fleur for the New Year.'

Harry was still wondering where Ron and Ginny were. He was listening carefully and looking round surreptitiously, but there didn't seem to be anyone but Molly Weasley at home. At last he decided to ask – about Ron at least.

'Oh, Arthur took Ron and Ginny over to the shop, this morning,' replied Mrs. Weasley. 'He finally forgave Ginny for that business with Slytherin.' Harry glanced at Moody, who glanced back. 'Who forgave Ginny?' said the look.

'They'll be back in an hour or so.' continued Molly. 'They were going to all meet up in the Leaky Cauldron before getting back here by portkey.'

'Sounds like they could be a bit late then,' opined Moody.

Mrs. Weasley put a batch of mince pies into the oven.

'They'd better not be' she muttered.

Harry's heart had turned over at the news of a few extra guests. Dora and Fleur made two; Harry wondered if there were any more – such as a friend of Ginny's? He'd also breathed a rather grumpy sigh of relief at the news they were all in Diagon Alley. At least he could stop listening so hard.

- o -

Harry began to fall asleep in the warmth of the kitchen as the time passed. He was jerked back to wakefulness by a chime from the large clock, on which the hands for most of the family suddenly moved from "Diagon Alley" towards "Home"

Harry's heartbeat rose again, and he stared fixedly at the table. He was telling himself that he was behaving like a third year, when he heard steps and singing in the kitchen garden. Ron, Ginny, and the Twins were singing some sort of muggle song – loudly.

It sounded like they were drunk.

The door crashed open and the four of them fell through it and sang the last chorus of the song whilst piled up on the floor

' - The boys of the NYPD Choir were singing "Galway Baaayyy", and the bells were ringing out for Christmaaaassss Daaaayyyyyyy!'

There was a short silence then sporadic applause began outside the door and a series of shouts.

'Get on with it!'

'It's cold out here, hurry up.'

'Give us another verse!'

'Nnnnoooo! Not another verse!'

The pile of bodies began picking themselves up from the floor as Molly Weasley looked on with mounting anger on her face. Eventually the whole group were inside and they were all talking to each other ten to the dozen, with the voices of Ron and Ginny by far the loudest. Not one of them had look across the kitchen at Moody and Harry.

Moody winked at Harry and put a finger to his lips.

Molly finally exploded. 'ARTHUR WEASLEY! HAVE YOU BEEN GIVING OUR YOUNGEST CHILDREN FIREWHISKY?'

Arthur suddenly looked stricken with conscience.

'Well, just a small one each' he said apologetically. 'We all had some.'

'We all had quite a bit,' volunteered Fred. His father winced at the revelation.

'Oh, how could you?' Molly complained. 'And here's us with so much to do and more guests as well!'

'More?'

'Who?'

'Eh?'

They all looked round.

Harry was watching Ginny's face. First there was the look of recognition, then the look of abject shock, then it lit up with a huge grin and her eyes sparkled at him with what looked like a mixture of joy and devilment.

'HARRY!' she squealed.

Then she seemed to remember herself. Her eyes took on an embarrassed look and she stopped smiling and looked down demurely.

At the sound of Ginny's squeal, the others had stopped talking and stared at her, then at Harry and Moody.

Now they too were adding their barrage of hellos.

'Hi Moody,'

'Hi Harry,'

'Great to see you!'

'Cheers'

'Wotcher!'

'Good to see you Harry old boy, so that's what Dumbledore was doing in the shop.'

''Allo 'Arry! Bill ees still keeping eet up!'

There was a sudden stunned silence, with the odd muffled snigger from Fred and George.

Ginny coughed apologetically and tried again.

'Erm – Hi, Harry.' she said in a monotone, 'I'm really glad to see you, –er – I just didn't think – when – um –'

Then Dora's voice rang out:-

'Oh for Merlin's sake Ginny, don't just stand there stammering. You've been going on about the way Harry got you out of Slytherin dungeons all evening! Go and give your saviour a hug!'

Harry could see Dora's face beaming from inside the circle of Charlie's arm as Ginny lurched forward from what looked suspiciously like a prod in the back. As he got to his feet, Ginny stepped very slightly unsteadily round the table and stood before him, then pushed him backwards away from the table.

She was looking up at him now, with a little smile on her blushing face, and the shine was back in her eyes.

'Thank you so very much for saving me from Snape and that animal Malfoy, Harry' she said quietly and rather formally. - Then she looked upwards.

Harry's eyes followed her gaze to the little sprig of green and white tied to a piece of ribbon above their heads. His heart was suddenly sinking and trying to fly, both at the same time. Ginny had to be more than a bit drunk to do this, in full view of her parents and almost all her siblings, in fact he could smell the firewhisky on her breath. He hesitated fractionally, but a little voice was telling him to take what she wanted to give, even if it wasn't all he wanted.

What the heck, he thought, he really had saved her from Malfoy and Snape, so why not? Even Arthur and Molly couldn't complain.

Harry gathered his courage and looked down. There was doubt and entreaty in Ginny's eyes now. He smiled fondly at her and put his hands on her shoulders, then he slowly lowered his head and, as she raised her chin and closed her eyes, he gently kissed her lips….

For all of three seconds there was absolute silence - then everyone cheered. Ginny jumped like she'd been goosed and broke the kiss, but before she could retreat, he hugged her fiercely to him. He felt her hug him back hard for a second or two then let go.

Harry immediately let Ginny go as well. He watched with tumultuous feelings as she scuttled back to the safety of the group and joined in another song that Fred, George and Ron were just beginning. She didn't look back.

The others were spreading out now and they began to disappear to other parts of the house while Molly got back to the cooking and Arthur spoke to Moody.

Harry just stood still and let the noise and bustle wash over him, until a tap on his shoulder brought him back to reality.

Dora was smiling happily at him.

'Hi Harry.' she murmured. 'Do I get one of those too? It was almost as good as the one she gave you before you went back to school!'

The kiss he got from Dora was almost chaste, but not quite. He remembered so much and he knew she was remembering it too, but he could see Charlie's amused grin over one of her shoulders and Ginny suddenly glance at him over the other.

The past was the past.

'Happy Christmas, Harry,' she said, and then she smiled and turned to return to Charlie's side.

'You too.' he said softly.

Harry's thoughts were interrupted by Moody's growling voice from behind him.

'I'm off, Harry.'

'Oh, - right, - er - have a good Christmas, Professor, and thanks for putting up with me.'

Moody grunted. 'The holiday isn't over yet, Harry. There's another week to go after New Year.'

'Oh - yeah.'

Moody's lips twisted into a smile for a second. 'Have a good time.' he said, and then made his way out of the kitchen to a chorus of goodbyes.

Harry felt slightly lost for a second or so. He was with friends, in fact the Weasleys were the closest thing to family he had, but he still felt an interloper, and Ginny was still behaving oddly. He suddenly found himself sort of wishing he was going with Moody after all.

'Here Harry, drink this.''

Mr. Weasley - with a small glass of smoking liquid.

'Arthur!' Mrs. Weasley was glaring at her husband.

'Just one, Molly, it'll do him good. I can't be leaving Harry out of the fun, now can I?'

Molly Weasley looked ceilingwards and sighed, then she turned away shaking her head.

Arthur Weasley grinned. 'Drink up,' he said.

Harry drank.

- o -

The rest of Christmas Eve passed in a riot of shouting and singing. Most of the songs were of muggle origin, since they seemed to have far more songs suitable for yelling out at the top of your voice whilst slightly drunk. Molly Weasley had bravely borne the burden of getting food, and clearing up, with help from her husband, and was eventually persuaded to join in with the rest of the family - her versions of one or two of the songs suggesting that she had spent more time amongst muggles than she let on and furthermore the muggles she had known were probably members of a rugby club.

Ginny had wilted first, finally curling up and going to sleep on the settee, next to Harry; a position she had appropriated early on, but then used as a base from which to chat to every one but Harry himself - though she seemed to make a point of talking to Dora more than anyone else.

The group broke up slowly, Molly helping a drowsy Ginny up the stairs, and the others making for their rooms in ones and, in the cases of Charlie, Dora, Fleur and Bill, in twos. Harry watched Dora and Charlie heading up the stairs arm in arm and sighed. He had been wondering what kind of headaches they would all be suffering from in the morning, but after helping Ginny upstairs, Molly Weasley had brought everyone else a clear fizzy drink that tasted slightly acidic and glittered in its own diffuse white light.

'For your head, Harry.' she said.

'Better take Ginny two glasses, then.' he replied.

Mrs. Weasley sighed.

'Make that three.' she muttered.

As he lay in the spare bed in Ron's room, Harry's mind ran back over the evening.

What was it with Ginny? he asked himself. She was a mass of contradictions at the moment – one minute giving him a kiss then virtually ignoring him for hours. His brain was dizzy just thinking about it. In the end he put it down to the firewhiskey and cleared his mind, as he always did, ready for sleep...

-- o -

He was in a forest, and he was being followed. He knew it.

There was snow on the ground, patchy where the trees had partially caught the fall, but still deep enough in places to make tracking the unicorn easy.

It was tiring fast.

He kept moving, in a peculiar twilight beneath a leaden sky, almost floating over the snow and tangled roots and broken branches of the forest floor. Occasional drops of silver blood could be seen, burning their way through the snow and glistening on root and stone.

He didn't want it to bleed to death.

A shuddering crash reached his ears from the distance ahead. He increased his speed, hoping against hope that this was the end of the chase. Over another heap of rotten trunks and brambles, round a boulder and there it was.

Success; the animal was down.

The unicorn was half leaning against a tree, trying to rise, a soundless scream of pain seeming to issue from its gaping muzzle as its lips stretched tight across its teeth. He approached slowly, warily. This animal was still dangerous. Its horn, though broken at the tip, could still do untold damage to a human; rip flesh, break bone, make a cat's cradle of entrails.

Better to wait, better to be safe, though the blood pooling beneath the hideous wound in the neck called out to him – 'Drink.'

Slowly the animal sank, flanks heaving, limbs trembling.

Slowly the breathing grew shallower, grew still.

The beast was dead - now to feed.

He scurried towards the dead animal, hands cupped to gather the precious fluid, to drink his fill and restore some semblance of life to his body, to keep the abyss at bay.

There was something in the way.

Four legs, so like those of the dead unicorn, but dark haired and mud spattered.

A torso, naked but for the mane of hair down the spine.

A bearded face, screaming at him, cursing him.

He turned and fled, desperate and weak, floating over the snow and dead branches and the detritus of a thousand years of neglect...

And now it was hot - he was sweating. Beads of sweat trickled down his face and neck. The trees were now huge and old and festooned with creepers and lianas.

Sunlight filtered through the layers of leaves from straight above, dappling the leaf mould and rotten tree trunks littering the ground. Strange plants with bizarre flowers and even stranger insects pollinating them were scattered about on the rotten logs.

The air was never still. The chirping and buzzing of a billion insects, the calls of the strange animals in the trees, the screams of the multicoloured birds – a never ending wall of sound.

There was his quarry.

Or was it?

Huge, silent and deadly, a shape stalked slowly through the trees. Now visible, now not, its peculiar markings rendered it singularly difficult to see clearly.

A rotten branched cracked soggily beneath his foot and it turned its head.

Eyes like the twin pits of tar, teeth dripping a corrosive slime, huge and evil, a Nundu stood facing him, poised with one paw raised.

He was the quarry now.

He wanted to run, to hide, but he couldn't. Creepers tangled round his legs, rotten branches and leaf mould gave way beneath his scrabbling feet!

The animal had taken a step towards him.

He fell, but the leaf mould was hard – and cold?...

Harry woke with the sheets wrapped round him, slick with sweat and freezing, on the floor of Ron's room.

It was still dark, though that didn't surprise him; the fact Ron hadn't awoken did. He must have been shouting his head off - at least he thought he must have been; he could still see the eyes of the jungle beast and hear the scream of the Centaur from his dream - but nothing in The Burrow stirred.

'Lumos minimus!'

Harry's wand gave out a faint light from the bedside table it was resting on. He unwound himself from the sheets and blankets, threw them back on the bed and climbed back beneath them. He wondered what on earth that had been all about. The dream could have been Voldemort's, but his scar didn't hurt. There was no headache, no voices, nothing.

Odd.

Still, now he remembered the word he'd been trying to recall for a week or so.

Nundu.

But how did he know what it looked like? The description in Fantastic Beasts had been sketchy at best...

As he drifted off to sleep again, Harry realised it was Christmas Day.

Happy Christmas, Harry! He murmured to himself.

Happy Christmas, Harry! He replied.

- o -

Rustling and tearing noises woke Harry the next morning. Ron had decided to broach his giant Christmas packet of Chocolate Frogs but he looked up guiltily as Harry blearily raised his head and blinked myopically at him.

'Wha's th' time,' he muttered.

'Er – 'Ron consulted his digital watch. 'It's about half seven.'

'About?'

Ron squinted at the watch again. Instead of batteries, Mr. Weasley had modified Ron's watch with a tiny power pack that converted magic to power.

'Yeah. About. The power supply's running a bit slow - so the numbers are a bit dim.'

Harry bit back the obvious retort – it was Christmas Day after all.

'A bit early for chocolate though, surely.'

Ron grinned, 'Nah, just right – and you'd better stop calling me Shirley.'

Harry threw a pillow at him, before hauling himself out of bed and staggering off to the bathroom.

- o -

Once dressed, the two friends spent a good fifteen minutes unwrapping presents and yarning about the evening before.

'Your mum knows some really good songs, doesn't she?' enthused Harry, as he opened the present from Mr. and Mrs. Weasley.

Ron simply sighed and shook his head in resignation. 'She certainly gave Ginny a shock. Did you see her face?'

'Yeah.' Harry remembered Ginny had also almost choked on her butterbeer. He'd received the worst of the results. He finally managed to free the present from the wrapping. As usual, it was a woolly sweater, in Gryffindor stripes, with what appeared on closer inspection to be a quaffle incorporated in the knit pattern. Obviously Molly had heard about the last match from Ron and Ginny.

Harry considered the finished article carefully. On the one hand, he was extremely grateful that Molly had bothered at all – even though she only had to programme her knitting needles and tell them to get on with it. On the other hand, it would be a cold day in hell before Harry would wear that in public.

A thought struck him –.

'Hey Ron! What about the team wear sweaters with their quidditch positions on?'

Ron looked up. 'Eh?'

'Yeah, you know, me and Ginny and Katie wear jerseys with quaffles on them, the beaters can have a bat, you could have a hoop and Alison could have a Snitch embroidered in gold on hers!'

Ron considered for a moment, then picked up his own Christmas knitted sweater and showed it to Harry.

'I reckon you and mum are on the same wavelength, mate.' he murmured in awe. The sweater had a hoop on the chest.

Ron had finished and was about to head off downstairs by the time Harry opened his present from Ginny. He'd left it till last on purpose. Again he was surprised Ginny had bought him anything at all but here it was, in a small box. Opening it revealed a plain silver ring that seemed too small to fit on any of his fingers. He tried it on the little finger of his right hand and it immediately grew in size to accommodate his finger snugly.

Then it started to change colour - and continued changing.

The colours followed no particular pattern of repetition, though Harry realised that waiting a lot longer might show something, but the best thing about the colours was that they were very, very, subtle; a hint of rose; a hint of apple blossom; hint of golden barley. The last thing he wanted on his finger was a light show! He remembered his astonishment a few years ago at first seeing Lee Jordon's heavy gold neck chain start to glitter and sparkle, and he had noticed some of the other students at Hogwarts, both boy and girl, with jewellery that changed colour, or glittered in some way.

In fact, by wizard standards, the ring Ginny had given him was exceptionally restrained; the sight of The Burrow pulsating with light the previous evening made Harry's skin crawl, even now.

'Wow!' breathed Ron.

'Yeah. Wow!' echoed Harry. 'It's not the sort of present I'd have expected from Gin, that's for sure. It must have cost her a small fortune.' He turned to Ron, 'Where would she get that sort of money?'

Ron laughed. 'Working for Fred and George.'

'Eh?'

'Working for Fred and George, mate. As a consultant charms developer'

'What? - When? - 'Harry was lost.

'Last term, in between lessons; she was doing a bit of development on their jokes. Seems they needed her charms abilities'

Harry grinned. 'Does your Mum know?'

Ron grinned back, 'No chance. Why, you thinking of a bit of blackmail?'

'Not likely. A face full of batbogies doesn't really tempt me.'

Ron stood up and began tidying the wrapping paper up at the end of his bed. He glanced at Harry out of the corner of his eye.

'You could try and blackmail her into giving you another one of those kisses.' he said nonchalantly.

Harry laughed. 'Double batbogies is even less tempting.'

Ron opened his mouth, then hesitated, 'You never know, she might be in a good mood.' he said finally. He headed for the door.

'See you downstairs.' he called, over his shoulder.

Harry sat down on the bed. What the blazes was Ron on about? Didn't he remember what Hermione had said?

- o -