- CHAPTER TWELVE -
Christmas at Hogwarts
Harry started running before he'd even had time to think. It was all very well for Remus and Hermione to warn him about keeping away from trouble, but he knew for sure that he was better able to defend himself than almost anyone here but the teachers. What was he supposed to do, leave other people to get killed just to make sure he didn't get a scratch?
Wand drawn, he burst through into the next corridor, and found himself faced with the source of the commotion.
At first he thought it was a Dementor, but then he realised that what he'd taken for ragged robes were in fact horrible tattered, leathery wings. The creature was like a skeletal pterodactyl, its ragged skin the grey of dirty water. It had a wide, gaping mouth, but it was toothless, and where eyes ought to have been there were only hollows in the skin.
A wide eyed girl was cowering behind a statue. Harry vaguely recognised her as a second year Ravenclaw. She shrieked as the creature's claws swiped uncomfortably close to her; for all that he couldn't see any sensory organs at all, it seemed to have no difficulty tracking her.
Harry had no clue what the thing might be, so he followed his first impulse and cast a Patronus. They drove off other things than Dementors, sometimes, and it might at least attract the creature's attention. "Expecto Patronum!"
To his dismay, all that came out of his wand was the formless silver smoke that was all he'd been able to summon when he first learned the charm. It drifted painfully slowly towards the winged beast... and then disappeared as abruptly as if it had been sucked away by a vacuum.
However, as a non-consolation, he had succeeded in attracting its attention.
The creature wheeled around and spread its wings, opening that toothless maw in a screech that made no sound but seemed to make his brain ache. Harry sought desperately for another spell. "Adhaereosum! Restringeo! Er... Maxum Horrero!" Nothing was working. He wasn't sure the spells were even being cast at all. He scrambled backwards hastily as it swooped towards him.
A defensive charm, a defensive charm... Why was it all of a sudden he could only think of ones that reflected curses?
"Caecus Murus!"
By all rights, the creature should have been stopped in its tracks as it thumped into an invisible wall... but if the wall was even there, it passed straight thought it without slowing. Harry backed away, met a stairway he hadn't been expecting, and tripped, crashing into somebody coming up it behind him.
"What d'you think you're playing at, boy?" It was Filch. He raised his lantern, and blanched. "What have you been doing up here?"
"It's got nothing to do with me!" he retorted indignantly.
Filch stepped towards the beast, swinging the lantern threateningly, and - incredibly - it retreated.
"It must be frightened of the light!" Harry said. Filch swung the lantern towards it again, and it reared back, giving another of those soundless screeches. Harry wondered if it was ultrasonic - Filch didn't seem to register the same pain that shot through his own head, so perhaps his hearing wasn't good enough.
As he scrambled to his feet, the creature pulled its wings in and escaped through a high arched window, taking off into the night. Harry ran to the window, but not fast enough to see where it had gone.
The Ravenclaw emerged from her hiding place and cautiously came towards them. "What was that?" she asked, still shaking slightly.
"An excellent question," said a very familiar voice from behind them. Harry turned slowly to face Professor Snape. "Mr. Potter, would you care to explain yourself?"
It was the girl who stepped in. "Please, Professor, he was just trying to help me. I was just coming back from the library when that... thing... appeared out of nowhere and attacked me."
The Potions master sneered. "I see. Heroically charged to the rescue again, did you, Potter?" Only Snape could make that sound like a crime.
Harry coloured, and looked at the floor. "No, sir," he admitted, embarrassed. "None of my spells worked against it. It flew away when Mr. Filch came up the stairs with the lantern."
Filch looked marginally surprised to be given credit for anything; Snape's expression didn't twitch. "Quite. Perhaps next time, it will occur to you to think with your brain instead of your ego. What's this?" Snape was bending down to pick up something from the steps. Harry realised with a sick flash of horror that he must have dropped Neville's book when he skidded down the stairs.
"Er- Professor, I was just taking that back to-"
"Maximise Your Mastery of Magic." Snape didn't smirk, but Harry could feel the expression radiating out from him. "An excellent idea, Mr. Potter. Might I suggest you read up on defensive spells, since you are clearly so woefully inadequate at casting them. Twenty points from Gryffindor for thoughtlessly endangering the safety of others in the course of showing off. Now return to your dorm, and try to refrain from any further displays of heroism along the way."
Harry accepted the book stiffly and stomped off in the direction of Gryffindor Tower, fuming.
"What do you think it was?" Ron asked, leaning forward. The three of them had retreated to the library to talk; there were only a couple of days until Christmas, and it was all but completely deserted.
Harry shook his head and shrugged. "I've never seen anything like it. I'd swear it was blind, and it didn't have any ears that I could see, but... it knew we were there."
"Strange that the light would scare it off, then," Hermione murmured. She was already on her third book of magical beasts since he'd given his description.
"Yeah, that is weird," mused Ron. "D'you think it could sense the heat?"
"Maybe," Harry agreed. "Maybe it wasn't the light at all - it could have just been Filch arriving. I don't think it considered me or that girl much of a threat, but perhaps with three against one..." A thought occurred to him. "Or, hey - we were both trying to use magic. Filch actually physically attacked it."
"Because he's a Squib," Ron filled in.
"So... what if it's immune to magic?"
They both looked at Hermione, whose frown was just visible over the weighty tome she was flipping through. "Natural magic resistance? It's possible - there are some creatures that have a powerful resistance to most spells, but they're usually larger, like dragons."
"This was more than that, though," Harry insisted. "It wasn't just that the spells didn't do anything, it was almost like I couldn't cast them at all. I barely managed the Patronus, and it disappeared as soon as it got near the thing."
Hermione closed her book, looking pensive. "Was it definitely reptilian?"
"Sort of," he hedged. "I mean, I didn't get a clear look, but it didn't have feathers or fur or anything. It just had this disgusting saggy grey skin."
"Like Snape," said Ron. "And it tried to kill you - also like Snape. And then he appeared behind you right after it flew out of the window. Coincidence?"
Hermione bounced a screwed up ball of paper off his head. "Sorry, Harry, I can't find anything that even sounds like what you saw," she admitted. "I've been looking at winged serpents, but none of them match up to the other stuff you told me. We'll just have to keep looking."
"Oh, joy," said Ron. "More research. Is this any way to spend the Christmas holidays?"
"This is how we always spend our Christmas holidays," Harry pointed out.
"I wonder if it's related to the Curse of Durand," Hermione pondered. "I mean, if magic is behaving strangely, and there are suddenly magic-immune creatures hanging around..."
"It must have been the same kind of creature that attacked those two Slytherins down in the dungeons," Harry said. Neither of the two had shown any signs of external injuries that he'd seen, but he remembered how that ultrasonic screech had made his head throb.
"D'you think that shield would have protected you?" Ron wondered.
Harry shrugged. "It's not as if I could have carried it around, anyway. Fat lot of good it would have done me if Snape had come along and confiscated it."
"I still say Snape's got something to do with this," Ron grumbled.
"Yes, but you always say that, and you're always wrong," Hermione reminded him. "It's been five years - why do you keep suspecting him of everything when he's never ever guilty?"
"Because he's a complete git!"
"You can be nasty and still be a good person, Ron." She considered. "Or at least, a not actively evil person."
"He took five points off me last week for getting out of my chair - because my robes were on fire! That's not actively evil?"
"It's quite reassuring, really," Harry said, and was met with twin incredulous stares. "It's one of the constants of the universe. The Daily Prophet can't decide whether I'm a hero, mad, or evil, everybody else seems to change their mind about me every five minutes... but Snape will always hate me."
Just then, a breathless Hannah Abbott ran into the library and made straight for their table.
"Harry! You were right!" She held out a rather battered scrap of paper. "Another one of those poems appeared in our common room last night. Laura Madley saw it this morning, but she reported it to me and I managed to convince her it was nothing important. I covered it up with one of those illusion spells like you showed us."
Hermione smacked her forehead. "Of course! Yule is the winter solstice, not Christmas Day - we should have been ready for it to appear yesterday."
"Was yesterday the winter solstice?" Ron asked cluelessly.
"Aren't you taking a NEWT in Astronomy?" Harry asked him.
"Yeah, but not by choice!"
Hannah spread out the abused parchment on the library desk. "I copied it down, but it's all Gobbledegook to me. You should look at this, Hermione, you're the one who's good with word puzzles."
Harry leaned over her shoulder to read it at the same time she did.
Hard work will end what plot begins
And dig the secret out
Walk from the home of golden wins
But not quite in a shout
The three of nines is where it ends
Of sinister beware
Look for the tree that never bends
And does not show the air
Observe the line to find your goal
Its ending you must know
Then press upon a noble soul
To show you where to go
"Well, that bit's obvious."
Everybody turned and stared at Ron.
"The 'home of golden wins'. That's the trophy room, right?" He spoke as if he'd expected everybody else in the room to have worked this out ahead of him.
"Brilliant, Ron!" Hermione squeezed his arm, causing him to go distinctly pink.
"But how can you walk in a shout?" Harry wondered.
"Well, we don't have to, do we?" Ron pointed out.
"Maybe it just means quietly," Hermione said, seeming rather unconvinced by her own reasoning.
"Well, come on! We can go up there and try to figure it out." They all leapt to their feet... and then remembered Hannah's presence. "Er, you can come too, if you like," Harry offered uncertainly.
"No, that's all right." Harry couldn't tell if she was reluctant to waste her Christmas holiday trying to solve frustrating riddles, or just uncomfortable intruding. "I'd better get going."
As it turned out, she was probably wise to refuse, because they reached the trophy room only to be baffled about what to do next. They wandered the area aimlessly for some time, trying various combinations of shuffled footsteps, tiptoeing, flying leaps... Finally McGonagall turned up, and chased them out.
"Really, you've all been told about wandering the castle unnecessarily. I know you're all suffering from cabin fever, but you really must stay where the staff or your housemates can keep an eye on you. And that goes doubly for you, Mr. Potter."
Grumbling slightly, but perhaps more than a little relieved to be given an excuse to give up for a while, they returned to Gryffindor Tower.
"Well, that was a waste of time," sighed Ron.
"It was a good idea, Ron," Hermione assured him. "I'm sure the trophy room must be the starting point - now we just need to figure out what to do when we get there."
There was little more figuring out done in the next few days, however, because Christmas took precedence even over solving mysteries and trying to find out about strange monsters. After all, Harry had to deal with tons of those in the average year, but he only got one Christmas. After all his years with the Dursleys, he'd never quite grown out of the seasonal glee that his classmates all wanted to pretend they were too mature for.
However, the pretence was quickly shattered when a dismayed Ron shook him awake on Christmas morning. "No presents!" he said, in tones of horror.
Harry fumbled for his glasses and looked around. Most of the others were awake already, and milling around looking rather confused. Normally there would have been owls carrying parcels swooping in all over the place by now.
"Did the dome go back up?" Harry asked worriedly. He'd spent plenty of Christmases himself without a single present, but he knew his friends' relatives would never forget them.
"No, and the owls are here - I'd swear I saw Pig flying towards the Great Hall, but he wouldn't come to me when I called him."
"Does he ever?" wondered Harry. He scrambled out of bed. "Come on. Let's go and see what's going on."
The mystery was soon solved when they reached the Great Hall. The four house tables were gone - and in their places were four enormous Christmas trees, each surrounded by a huge pile of presents. Only the Slytherin tree was actually green; the one for their own house was bright red and hung with golden baubles, to match their house colours. The entire room was filled with snow, and it was falling gently from the enchanted ceiling; when Harry reached down to scoop up an experimental handful, it had the texture of ordinary snow, but it was only cool instead of freezing, and it didn't melt away into water.
"Welcome, welcome!" Dumbledore beamed benevolently at them all, seeming the very spirit of Father Christmas in a bright red robe with a fluffy hood that he must have acquired specially for the occasion. "Pull up a log! Help yourself to a snowflake!" Curious, Harry caught one out of the air, and found that the falling 'flakes' weren't snow at all, but tiny hexagons of white chocolate.
Teams of house elves were making the rounds on little sleighs, loaded with food and drink and more presents. "Harry Potter is having a wonderful Christmas at Hogwarts!" Dobby called from one of them; he was festooned with brightly coloured socks for the occasion, while all of the other house-elves seemed to be wearing sparkly red and green drapes.
"Yes, Harry Potter is," Harry agreed, smiling.
Tiny reindeer the size of cats were running around through the snow, locking antlers and wrestling with each other. An animated snowman in the middle of the Hall was throwing snowballs; whenever anybody caught one, the snow melted away to reveal packets of sweets or small magical toys. There were ice fountains everywhere, each one dispensing a different kind of drink. Harry had a suspicion, judging by the slightly lopsided smile that Professor Sprout was already wearing even this early in the morning, that the little one at the teachers' table was probably alcoholic.
"Harry! Ron!" Hermione appeared in the doorway and beamed at them both. "Isn't this wonderful?" Ron immediately threw a snowball at her, but she only laughed and ducked. "Come on! Let's go and open our presents!"
Rooting through a huge pile of literally hundreds of gifts, trying to find your own and passing the others out whenever you spotted someone who was standing nearby, seemed to Harry to be the absolute best way to get Christmas presents. Even the Slytherins looked happy for a change, eagerly digging through the snow beside their own tree. He wished the whole school could have had a Christmas like this at Hogwarts every year.
"Here's one of yours, Harry!" Hermione levitated a soft, squishy package towards him. It was another Weasley jumper, this one with a Golden Snitch on the front. Either Ron had reported back how much he'd grown or Mrs. Weasley had predicted it, for it was actually a little too long for him. He pulled it on over his robes anyway, ignoring the snickering from Draco Malfoy's direction. Nothing was going to bring him down today.
That held true even when Ginny unearthed another present of his that turned out to be from Remus. It was a simple but beautiful wooden photo frame, in which a very familiar big black dog barked and chased around a Quaffle and shamelessly played up to the camera. A small note, tucked into the back, read: Tell him what you'd tell to the map. Harry, checking carefully that no one was watching too closely, tapped the picture with his wand and whispered "I solemnly swear I am up to no good." Immediately, the dog transformed into a grinning Sirius, looking little older than Harry himself, who waved madly at him.
It was heart-breaking to look at... and it was the best Christmas present he could have asked for. Harry tapped the corner of the frame, and murmured "Mischief managed." The beaming boy in the picture frame transformed back into Snuffles, and immediately ran back to where he'd left off, worrying at the Quaffle. Harry tucked the picture frame into his robes, close to his heart.
"Come on, Harry! You're missing all the fun!" He turned around to find that Ron and Dean had somehow managed to alter the flow of one of the fountains, and were using it like a water cannon to shoot Butterbeer at a squealing Ginny. Neville and Justin Finch-Fletchley were duelling with trick wands that they'd got out of the flying snowballs, which caused the person you aimed it at to turn a variety of unnatural colours.
Smiling, Harry forgot all of his worries for a while, and ran to join his friends.