The fire had been reduced to a few orange-white ebbing coals in the fireplace, providing a modicum of light in the dim room. Felix had awakened, as he used to when he and Claudia would sleep together just so he could feel her warmth and look upon her peaceful, sleeping visage.
She stirred, her hair and feet rubbing against him, searching for warmth. Gently he passed a hand around her caressing her hair and shoulder, removing a strand of her black hair from her in front of her eyes.
"I love you", he felt her toes touching his, as she hugged him closer in her sleep with a content sigh.
"H-hi…" she opened her eyes a few minutes later, stretching her hands above her head.
Felix leaned in giving her a peck on her silky lips. "Hello sleepy head, sleep okay?"
"Mhm...you?" She caressed his cheek.
"Yeah, always with you around."
"You spoil me", she bit her lower lip for a brief moment.
"I could stop…no more spoiling for you", he teased her.
"You wouldn't!" She whined in a groggy voice.
"No, I wouldn't", he chuckled.
She lay on him, placing her head on his chest. "I can hear your heart beating", she declared as if having invented the wheel.
"Yeah, it kinda keeps me alive, you know?"
"Smartass! I like it, nice strong, rhythmic pulse", she laughed.
"This feels good, I could just stay like this forever", he hugged her caressing her shoulders.
She hesitated for a moment, as if afraid something would go wrong if she replied instantly. "Yeah, it's nice."
Felix didn't say anything more until it was time to get up and get ready for the Christmas day celebrations, and the weather outside did not fail to provide them with the appropriate atmosphere with a blizzard dropping copious amounts of snow on and off for a fortnight dressing the school and grounds in a thick layer of fresh whiteness as far as the eye could see.
It was a lazy day, with them playing outside in the snow, talking, and laughing before and during the Christmas dinner.
After the Headmistress' speech they ate their fill from the stuffed turkey, roast ham, roast beef, mushed potatoes, gravy, and a variety of other options as food kept appearing as soon is a platter would empty, with Christmas pudding and custard cream and sponge cakes for desert.
"Look, mistletoe", Felix gave an impish grin at Claudia conjuring a small twig above their heads.
"Well, if it is mistletoe…because otherwise I'd not kiss you, you know", she replied slyly, meeting his head halfway.
Felix and his friends gathered with Alfred and William in the Great Hall after Christmas dinner was finished, feeling very full and lethargic, to exchange gifts.
Felix had gotten his nephews their own brooms and Claudia a silver heart necklace she had seen during their summer holidays. For Emerick he had gotten a wand case and for Uriel a peculiar-looking orb.
"What is this?" Uriel asked him, taking the cool glass in his hand.
"When you are ready, it'll help you as a friend should, even if I may not by then be around", Felix replied enigmatically.
Uriel did not inquire further but Felix's reply had only given him more questions, not answers.
"What is this?" Ethel asked taking hold of a wooden box wrapped in animated snow-falling paper.
"Let's call it a 'smuggler's SOS kit', and your Christmas present", Felix replied motioning her to open it.
Ethel tore open the wrapping paper, then opened the lid of the ornate wooden box. "Oh. My. God! Sneakoscope? Probity Probe? Secrecy Probe? Dark Detectors! Even I can't procure some of these! Where – how did you find them?" She asked him with wide unbelieving eyes.
"Well, you see…it helps having the Minister of Magic…'owe' you one", Felix replied impishly.
"I want your contacts!" Ethel exclaimed pocketing the items quickly.
Felix laughed without replying.
Alfred retrieved a package from his backpack, giving it to Felix who tapped his wand at it making it explode into black smoke in Alfred's hands. William burst into laughing, clutching his belly at the sight of his black-faced older brother.
"I- I told you-you he'd not fall for it!" He said laughing.
"Oi! I asked you and you said it'd be a laugh!" Alfred said, pretending to be upset.
"It is a laugh! I just never specified for whooooo…oi!" William dodged to avoid some of the viscous black ash, Alfred slingshooting it to him.
"Anyways", Alfred made a very indignant wave with his wand cleaning himself up before giving Felix his real Christmas present. Felix opened the wrappings to see a silver framed enchanted image of the three Blake Brothers and himself running and playing around in the beach. "If you open the frame from the glass in front there's also sound and smell…We've been working on this for a year and a half…" Alfred said blushing with a look of anticipation and hoping his older cousin would like his gift.
"Oh my god…" Felix's voice trailed, his eyes watering as he impulsively hugged the brothers close. "Thank you."
"I feel so full…I think I'm going to lie down in the common room…thanks for amazing time and the gifts", Uriel told them an hour later, departing with Ariana.
Ethel also left, but her excuse seemed dodgier than Uriel's with Felix suspecting she had different plans in mind than lying on a sofa for the rest of the afternoon.
"Claudia, William and Alfred…follow me", Felix told them standing up from the Hufflepuff table.
"Where are we going?" Alfred asked, following Felix out of the empty Great Hall.
Felix did not reply at first, getting them to the third floor landing. He got his wand out tapping its tip once on the base of Helga's statue there. "Ignio."
The statue made a sound of stone grinding on stone as it slid over to reveal a trap door. "You had a proper Hogwarts Christmas, but you've not had a proper family one in years, and you deserve one. So, follow me", Felix descended the sharp steps.
"Wicked", William went in after him with a grin.
"Of course you know this…" Claudia wasn't as annoyed or nearly as surprised as her tone would indicate.
She and Alfred went down the trap door and twenty minutes later she came out of a vaulted exit in Hogsmeade.
"Yeah I know, spend a few summers and winters in Hogwarts and you learn a trick or two…" Felix told her after the fact.
"How many secret passages do you know, cuz?" Alfred asked him, slyly as if the question was also indicative of a request and an entitlement that by relation Felix should tell them all of the secret ways he knew in and out of Hogwarts.
"A few let's go", Felix stared walking past Hogsmeade's main square and through the main commercial street.
"How does your mother handle living in a wizarding village?" Claudia asked him, seeing the repaired house across the road.
"She still does a lot on her own as she would in any muggle village, she has Professor Jordan and some of the village folk who help her out and she's making friends here", Felix knocked on the door to his house, doorway and porch covered in snow, and Christmas decorations with blinking lights of various colours covering the windows and door. Smoke rose lazily from the chimneys and various smells of cookies and roast came from within.
"Felix!" Hope uttered surprised. "What are you lot doing here?" She stepped aside letting them in the house warmed by the fire burning bright in the old stone fireplace.
Everywhere around the hall and living room garlands of white and red and decorations hang from the walls and ceiling and a large Christmas tree stood next to the fireplace and by a window.
"Well, seeing everything everyone's been through the last few years I thought kids and adults alike would relish a family Christmas and since I knew uncle and Aunt would be here…well, here we are!" Felix explained with an impish shrug.
Helen and Peter had stood up from their chairs, holding a glass of warm brandy each.
"I'm willing to bet any money in Gringotts that you hoped I'd have left by now", Professor Jordan told him with cheek and an amused voice.
"No, sir. I'm hoping that like with me asking you a certain personal question last year you'd be willing to not 'wear' your Professor's robes for a while…"
Professor Jordan's scanned the room of hopeful eyes looking at him. "Ah, what the heck, it's five if by ten you lot are back in Hogwarts then my Professor's robes can stay 'off'. How does that sound?" He asked Felix.
Felix nodded with a warm smile. "Where are you going, sir?" Felix asked his Professor seeing him stand from his chair as if to leave.
"You said family…I thought…"
"Yes, I said family. Until ten you are not my Professor, so…you and mum have been dating a while, why not stay with us? You may not be my father, and thank Merlin's behind for that, but…please, stay?" Professor Jordan looked at Hope from the corner of her eye who nodded her approval before taking his seat again.
"Okay, then, a family Christmas it is."
"I'll bring everyone plates and glasses. Help yourselves to the cookies and malt wine", Hope told them making her way to the kitchen.
"I'll help you", Ives and Felix said simultaneously following her as Alfred and William forgot the tons of food they had consumed earlier descending upon the table of cookies, scones, and deserts.
"We were going to play some cards you lot up to losing some quid…galleons?" Helen asked the room happy to see everyone gathered for Christmas.
"Oh, muggle money, I've never seen any before!" Ives announced his excitement. "I'll take both off your hands."
"Wishful thinking, I'm afraid", Peter teased him setting down his glass to pick up the deck of cards.
Felix, Ives, and hope returned with plates, glasses, napkins and more wine and tea for everyone.
It was hours later with a starry sky above when Felix returned to his common room to see Ethel waiting for him in the otherwise empty circular chamber, poorly lit by the dying fire and a moonless night outside.
"Where were you? Someone broke into the common room and the dorms!" She told him worryingly.
"Anything stolen?" Felix asked concerned.
"No, but they weren't interested in anything else other than the Head Boy's room", she barely had time to finish her sentence when Felix shot up the stairs to the dorms.
He entered his room with Ethel on tow.
His room was a mess with stuff thrown about, furniture upturned and yet his chest locked.
Felix retrieved his wand and pointing at the floor he cast a nonverbal spell, turning once around his axon full circle. A bronze-orange dust covered the room and a ghostly shape formed, entering the room, locking the door behind them, and searching about.
"What are you searching for?" Felix whispered before casting another spell.
"Where are they? Where would I keep them if I were him?" A muffled voice said emanating from the ghostly orange-coloured figure. "If I can find the Armour he can't defeat me for sure, not that he can otherwise, but I need to be sure. At least I found his Quidditch notebook…" the voice trailed as the spell faded.
A wide self-assured and quite amused grin covered Felix's face. "So much desperation…" he mumbled with a chuckle.
"So? Was anything taken?" Ethel asked him as the figure continued searching the room and his chest before re-locking it.
"Yes, and no. They were searching for the Old Gods' items, these are of course not in here, in this room, so they locked the trunk again, trying to mask their movements, and they did steal my Quidditch book…"
"Do they have your strategies, then?" Ethel asked, now truly worried.
"No, I've coded it as if it does contain them, but it only contains Quidditch history that ought to waste valuable time for them, and depending on the level of their desperation some notes that may appear to be like strategy but are in fact complete hogwash…" Felix couldn't stop grinning.
"So, was Lisa behind this?"
"Yes, and no. I think I'll turn in for the night, I'm feeling rather tired", Felix motioned her to leave.
"I may or may not talk to you again!" Ethel whined, not really upset.
"Okay", Felix closed the door behind her.
The morning after Felix woke up feeling as cheerful as the day before and after changing from his pajamas he made his way to the Great Hall, not really hungry for breakfast but wanting something to chew and drink to wash the sleep away.
"Why would Sebastian want to break into the other Houses' Head Boys' rooms?" Emerick was asking when Felix sat next to him and Claudia in the Ravenclaw table.
Felix's room was not the only one that had been broken into, as all three had been except Ravenclaw's.
"You have been my friend long enough to formulate a better question", Felix told him fist bumping him.
"Professors are questioning him…" Emerick said unsure of what his friend meant.
"Ah, well in that case if you'll excuse me, I need to eat something and go study for NEWTs revisions", Felix replied with a nonchalant shrug.
"What better question, Mr. Enigma", Uriel teased him.
"Nothing was stolen, he's inconsequential, an expendable pawn in a much larger strategy game. What starts in a week?" Felix took a sip from his coffee.
"The term?" Emerick replied with uncertain eyes.
"And two weeks after that?" No one replied.
"Dueling finals with Hufflepuff versus Ravenclaw a week after that, and someone ought to be feeling a great deal of pressure weighing down on them the closer that first date is approaching", Felix explained eating a crumpet.
"I don't get it…"
"Say you've done something bad, criminal even. Say that you are unsure of if the other person you wronged knows you have committed the deed, you want to know so you try to pry the information from their mind, twice. That goes horribly awry and then you concoct a second plan to have them commit a crime, get them in prison so the inescapable fate is averted, and you don't have to face the consequences of your actions. That fails miserably as well, and now you find yourself the subject of a criminal investigation by the ministry and still having to face that person in a duel. You then remember them having in their possession an item that can make you invisible in battle, no physical or magical harm can come to you for as long as you have in your possession, it. So, what do you do next?"
"Break into every House's Head Boy's room, except one to throw guilt their way by deduction and mask your real purpose. So, the traitor is a Ravenclaw?" Claudia asked.
"Or someone who wants to throw sChapter 12: Blossoms
Claudia found the seasonal change between winter and spring the most beautiful if not also the most annoying as pollen penetrated her nostrils and perforated her senses, the very flowers that made spring so beautiful, that created such pleasing aromas also made it insufferable at times.
And while the sunshine was nice it was not warm enough yet to not be chilly at dawn and night. Her season was the summer when she could wear shorts and a t-shirt, her hair on a bonnet and bask in the sun.
Now, though, she had an additional reason for being annoyed walking down the corridor searching for Felix.
She found him trying to get to the Herbology greenhouses trailed by a crowd of demanding First and Second years.
She followed behind them, almost amused at the sight, and also curious as to why a group of younger students were so adamant in their pursuit of him.
Felix looking quite irritated stood in front of the Greenhouse's glass-metal wireframe entrance, holding the door frame with one hand and the door with the other pivoted around to look at them, eagerly waiting.
"Guys, I said no! I'm honoured you think so highly of my teaching skills, but I haven't the time. I'm not negotiating here. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have revision to do", he closed the door behind him, locking it from within.
When eventually the First and Second years left she took out her wand and unlocking the door entered the Greenhouse. Felix sat by one of the work benches with a cauldron, his wand and various textbooks opened with a pot of wolfsbane and hellebore in front of him, the sunlight casting shadow plays from the plants hanging from the Greenhouse's metal and glass lattice ceiling. An enchanted breeze waved his hair slightly back and forth.
She walked in, stealthily behind him, placing her hands around him chest from behind, hugging him and placing her head on the curve between his neck and shoulder.
"So, I hear you are a good teacher?" She teased him playfully.
"Apparently? Remember that Defense against the Dark arts class Professor Jordan had had me cover for him at the start of the year? They liked my teaching style I guess and learned stuff…then I indulged them a time or two more and now I can't seem to get them off my back…every First, Second and Third year seems to want me to help them with Defense against the Dark arts and transfiguration. And I'd really want to be able to help them, but I just can't! I have Quidditch training, and dueling training and NEWTs revisions, electives, Seventh year Electives, extra lessons I picked up this year like Arithmancy, Alchemy, Ancient studies, apparition test studying, runes study…I just don't have the time…" Felix huffed.
Claudia chuckled, kissing his neck. "I'm amazed you have the time to sleep. And what's that I hear about you mending people's wands? Even for people outside the school?"
"It's why I'm taking alchemy, wand lore and advanced post-NEWTs transfiguration. Muggle tech can work with Magic if transfigured and wands can be repaired. I'm in constant correspondence with Mr. Olivander since the early summer and two other wand makers from Asia and America", Felix explained with a surplus amount of enthusiasm.
"Such enthusiasm", she caressed his hair. "Technomagy? I love your energy and desire to learn", she gave him a kiss on his cheek before sitting next to him. "What are you revising? Looks…complicated", she asked him getting her Herbology books out of her backpack.
"Impact of aconite and hellebore on runic-based cures for acute organ failure caused by love potions and other poisons", Felix replied returning his attention to what he was writing.
"That's not in NEWTs for potions!" Claudia exclaimed.
"It's not, but it'll help me secure an Outstanding in Ancient studies, Runes and Potions", Felix nodded.
"How…?"
"By writing an essay on how runic-based remedies and potions can not only help prevent and cure organ failure, but also reverse the damage done up to fifty percent if not more, to be published in "Potions Today"."
"Is there a subject you're not writing a publishable essay on?"
"No, that reminds me I must consolidate my research on reversing lycanthropy through cross-species and human transfiguration", he said making a note in another textbook.
"That can be done?" Claudia's jaw slacked.
"No, not permanently. But it can greatly reduce dependency on wolfsbane potion and even create possibilities for the person-werewolf to retain human consciousness during lycanthropic switch on full moon."
"Are you sure you're not a Ravenclaw? I guess I'll study for 'normal' NEWTs", she teased him poking her tongue at him with a grimace.
Claudia spent the next two hours revising her Herbology notes, asking Felix questions here and there when she wasn't sure about something or had forgotten and her notes were not of help.
"You know what day it is, today, yes?" She asked him, expectantly packing her things in her backpack.
"Hmm?" He looked up. "Yes, Wednesday, I know", he tilted his head back over his notes.
"Yeah, Wednesday", she left trying not to look the measure of her annoyance.
"So predictable", he suppressed a chuckle.
He found Ethel later after dinner behind one of the statues in the fourth floor corridor. "Got it?" He asked looking anxiously left and right for anyone eavesdropping on them.
"Yeah, but this one's gonna cost ya. This ain't just in the school's forbidden items list, this is illegal if you're not a Ministry employee…we could both go to jail for having it", she warned him retrieving a pouch from inside her robes.
"And it'll allow me to apparate anywhere in the world I want without either Ministry or School knowing I left and returned to school?" Felix asked her retrieving a pouch from his backpack.
"Yeah, but just once. It'll self-destruct into ash after you return", she handed him the item.
"Good, thanks. This enough?" He handed her the Galleons' pouch.
"Holy crap! I've not seen so much gold before!" She wolf whistled at seeing the gold coins. "Claudia's angry at you, by the way."
"Oh, I know. As if I'd really forget her birthday. See you later", Felix pocketed the item, and left.
"You and your plots…" Ethel eyerolled, amused.
Felix found Claudia studying in the library. "Come with me, please", he whispered to her, taking hold of her hand.
"I'm not done with…" she started saying but he cut her off with a wink.
"You can finish it later, I've a surprise for you that I don't think can wait, nor you'd want to wait if you knew what it was."
"Humpfh…fine", she grabbed her things standing up from the wooden desk and chair but refused to take his hand. "Where are we even going?"
"Surprise", he walked them out of the library and around the corridor.
"The janitor's closet? We are too…"
"Just get in there…" Felix eyerolled pushing them inside.
The door closed behind them leaving them in the dark, Felix took hold of Claudia's wrist and the item as well as his wand.
"Now, whaaa…." They apparated away and outside by a river.
"Where are we?" Claudia asked, mystified.
"Japan. I've a surprise for your birthday", he told her letting go of her wrist.
"My birthday? You remembered!" She yelled, her annoyance at him forgotten. "But why Japan?"
"Cherry blossoms."
"You remembered! But it's the wrong season", then all the cherry trees along the river's edge blossomed at once as if time had been sped up for them and them alone.
"Seasons?" Felix said with a smirk.
He then proceeded to conjure a blanket on the soft grass and a picnic basket on top of it.
"My lady", he offered his hand to help her sit down on the white and red squares blanket before casting a spell making music sound all around them and the atmosphere to grow a tad warmer with another spell for a gentle breeze to blow all the cherry blossom petals slowly onto the river below.
He sat next to her, giving her cheek a kiss. "As if I'd forget", he whispered in her ear.
"This…this is…thank you, it's the best possible gift you could have given me", she said teary-eyed.
"Then I can assume you don't want this?" He gave her a wrapped up rectangular box.
Claudia opened it to see a pair of silver and emerald glass earrings. "Oh! But how? I saw these during our summer vacations."
"And Alfred distracted you perfectly while I went and bought them for this occasion", Felix grinned wide.
"You've thought of everything…" she put on the earrings before kissing him, cherry petals falling all around them and on them casting a pink carpet on the river's surface.
"How is it we apparated out of the country without anyone knowing?" She asked him, pulling back from the kiss.
"I had Ethel procure me an item usually used by the Ministry that hides apparition from…well everyone", he replied, hugging her across her waist.
"Right, forget I asked", she snorted returning to kissing him.
Hours later spent talking, eating, and laughing under the Cherry trees and listening to music they returned to Hogwarts to find William looking for them as they exited the Janitor's closet.
"Felix! Been searching for you! Dueling tournament's finals have been postponed until after Easter Break!" He told them trying to catch his breath.
"Bugger", Felix retorted, annoyed.
uspicion away from the real House. So, the traitor is anything but a Ravenclaw." Felix said standing up. "They want everyone including me, in the case I don't already know who they are, to believe a Ravenclaw is behind all of this, but they are shit out of luck."
"But why steal that Quidditch book, then?" Emerick pondered aloud.
"Disorientation and perhaps they think that they can cost me the Quidditch cup as well, two victories in the price of one."
"If there's no strategies in there…where are they?" Ethel asked.
Felix tapped his right temple twice with a wicked grin and left with a confident, slow stride.