CHAPTER 11: OUTRAGE!
Christmas came about pretty quickly in Harry's opinion. It was the 20th before he had realised that it was even December.
'OK. Who forgot to tell me it's December already?'
Several people in the common room raised their hands slowly.
'Well, thanks a lot!' shouted Harry.
He went upstairs to his dormitory and collapsed on his bed. Ron followed him up there and perched next to him.
'You realise I have to do all my Christmas shopping in like, three days now, don't you?'
'Yeah,' replied Ron. 'But there is a good point.'
'What could that possibly be?' spat Harry.
'Well, you get to eat 20 chocolates from your advent calendar in one day.'
Harry looked at Ron with an extremely blank expression for around three seconds. All of a sudden he bounded to his feet and started leaping around as though his puppet master had gone insane.
'Woohoo! Lots and lots of chocolate! And themed chocolate, too! You can have traditional Christmas shapes; Disney shapes, groovy chick shapes and of course Barbie shapes! –'
Harry carried on naming all of the different advent calendars he could (which took an extremely long time as his cousin, Dudley had had twenty four calendars one year) until he noticed Ron standing in front of him wearing his coat, gloves, scarf and his new pair of ear muffs Hermione demanded he and Harry wore. The earpieces were gold and tinselly and when your ears got below freezing they began to vibrate slightly to warm then up. Ron's were indeed vibrating.
Harry gave him a look of disgusting coated with a look of 'what the bloody hell are you wearing?' and Ron simply answered with a look of 'yeah, I know'.
'And look,' he said. He reached up to his left earpiece and pressed it. The edges flashed red and green in turn and then the muffs started humming Jingle Bells in a very high-pitched tone, which caused Harry's ears to surrender and try to jump off his head. Harry had to reach to his head and hold them in place for at least two minutes after the hideous noise had stopped. 'Think what that's like for me!' demanded Ron. Harry replaced his hands over his ears.
In Hogsmeade, snow was fluttering around them and settling on their feet in an attempt to smother them in the cold.
'Fucking evil snow!' said Ron.
Harry bought Hermione a wand cleaning kit, or he made one out of some tea towels that were on sale in Tea Towels 4 You and a wooden box he found next to a drainpipe. He bought Ginny an enchanted teddy bear who was holding a heart that said 'I Love You' and Harry could send it messages that it would read aloud to the person who owned him, and he bought Ron a nice new pair of Converse All Stars. They were red and had gold laces. He also bought some wrapping paper after a long discussion with himself in That's a Wrap!, he decided on the red roll with pictures of himself all over it. The Wizarding world wasn't half obsessed with him.
Harry left the best thing till last: his advent calendar. Harry found a 'My Little Pony' one; a 'Dennis the Menace' one; a 'Spiderman' one and a 'Wallace and Gromit' one but none of which took his fancy. After a few minutes consideration, he picked up the 'My Little Pony' one but behind it he saw a different one. One he'd never seen before. The most fabulous advent calendar Harry had ever seen. His own face was staring back at him plagued by numbers on doors and writing on his head. 'Contains the most high quality chocolate in the country and has chocolate shapes relating to Harry Potter himself.' Harry could scarcely believe his eyes. He picked up the advent calendar and went to pay for it.
Back at the castle, Harry fixed his calendar on the wall above his bedside table. He carefully opened the door marked '1'. Behind it was silver foil, keeping in the freshness of the chocolate behind it. He gently punctured the aluminium and gasped as the smooth brown delight was revealed. He hesitated a moment and then removed the chocolate from it's plastic holder. There, behind the plastic, Harry could see a picture of himself when he had just caught the snitch during a game of Quidditch. He smiled. He looked at his hand that housed the chocolate and turned it over to expose the front. There, on the chocolate, was a picture. It took Harry a moment or two to work out what it was, but then realised it was a candy cane.
'What the-?' exclaimed Harry. 'That's got NOTHING to do with me!' Harry ate it and then opened door number 2. There was a picture of the card of him and Ron pretending to be secret agents. But the chocolate was a candle.
'This is an OUTRAGE!' bellowed Harry. 'Why do chocolate makers not love me as much as I love me? OUTRAGE!' He ate the rest of the chocolates up until door number 20, and then threw the rest of what he'd bought under his bed and went down for dinner.