Winter Holidays

Outside the frost had taken over. It snowed regularly, and now that the final examinations of the term were over, many students spent hours outside, enjoying the winter wonder land. They build snow castles and fought epic snow ball battles. Often entire houses were involved, leading to snow ball battles of epic proportions. At other times, they sledded down the hillside from the castle to the lake. Others ice skated on a little pond. The big lake never froze.

Harry on the other hand was not done yet. Today was Friday, defense day. Tuesday was Occlumency day, which had gone rather well.

He was sitting in front of Snape again. His head of house had demanded that he continue his extra studies through the holidays. Thus, while he really rather celebrate the end of the term, by having fun in the snow, he was stuck here in his room.

He did not complain, it would not help. Snape would only get more annoyed then he usually was.

"Since it was the end of the term, I felt it was appropriate to check the standings, and your place in them. I think you will be rather pleased with them." Snape handed him a parchment. On it were listed his classes, his current grade and his ranking within his class. His year in Hogwarts had forty two students.

"You will note that you have significantly improved in all classes, even in potions, for which you have no talent whatsoever."

"… Wow, in Transfiguration, I moved up to ninth." Harry exclaimed.

"A dramatic improvement. But look at the last class."

"Number two in DADA!" Harry looked up and down, between Snape's always expressionless face and the parchment.

"And you should be number one, if we only looked at practicals."

"May I ask who is number one?" Harry suddenly realized that there was at least a trace of competitiveness in him.

"It is my understanding that in all classes, that she takes, but Herbology and Potions, Hermione is number one."

"Watch out Hermione, soon enough you will be number two in three classes." Harry grinned.

"That is the response I was hoping for." Snape drawled. "Since we can see that our time together has had positive results, I thought it would be good to give us both a little rest."

'Do wonders never cease?' Harry marveled.

"Provided you promise to continue your routine during the holidays, and keep up in your studies of Occlumency, Transfiguration, Charms and DADA, I would propose that we will not meet in the next two weeks."

"That sounds reasonable, sir."

"Keep it up." Snape got up and left the room. His expression could not be described as joyful, but somehow it was more pleased then normal.

Harry darted out of the room, barely stopping to pick up jacket, cap and gloves. He had yet to learn how to ice skate.

HPU

The end of the term had stirred up the halls of Hogwarts an unusual amount. Ordinarily, the students were wild for a day after the last examinations, and then most boarded the Hogwarts Express, and left. This year almost all fourth through seventh years, as well as a sizable group of third years had remained at the castle. And instead of calming down with time, the stir had only intensified in the past three days.

Now on the first Tuesday of the Holidays, the hallways had calmed somewhat. Instead, the stir had moved to the dormitories, where wizards and witches alike fretted over last minute nerves.

Harry was fairly calm. He did not worry too much about his robes. Having to do the opening dance, however, was a bit unnerving. He was now waiting for the Deputy-Headmistress to let them enter. The other Champions and their respective dates had already arrived. Fleur hand he were a pair, Krum had brought a Beauxbatons girl, that Harry did not know, and Angelina had brought Fred Weasley.

They just nodded at each other in greeting, as they had little time.

"Champions, you will process into the great hall momentarily …" Professor McGonagall explained.

After a quick explanation, the three pairs processed into the great halls. There were some cheers, and a few flashes, but Harry was relieved that it only lasted a moment, until they got to their table, and dinner was served.

Harry and Fleur talked at first talked about random topics, small talk one could say. How the snow was beautiful, one thing that Beauxbatons did not generally get, and how the end of the term had rushed upon them. Then they shifted the conversation to the upcoming task.

"Do you have any idea what the second task could be?" Harry asked.

"Really, I 'ave non idea. Zey 'ave not given us a 'int. I looked at my ring. Zere 'ase to be a reson for it, non?"

"I guess that is the only clue we have. Not that it tells us much. Mine has what could be a stamp with various symbols. A Slytherin snake, Hogwarts cress and the Triwizard Wand emblem. How about you?"

"Just ze same, with Beauxbatons crest instead of 'ogwarts."

"How do you prepare, for the unknown?"

"Hoho, using our date to spy on me, sneaky, mon ami." Suddenly Fleur's competitive side flared up.

"Fine, I won't share my secrets either then. Not like you need them, going by the first task."

"I zink it is time for ze first dance." Fleur abruptly ended the conversation. Indeed, they had to open the dance floor.

Harry and Fleur, together with the other Champions had the first dance, and then the party really started. Harry danced with many different girls, from all houses. He did not regard the regular relationships, so he even shared a dance with Parkinson and Bulstrode.

After a while, Harry went to the corner and took a breather, he had been dancing continuously for at least the last hour. It was time to rest for a moment. Besides it was kind of fun watching the other dancers.

Harry looked over to Hermione. She had only danced with Ron Weasley tonight. That had been the only blemish of the night. He had hoped to just get one dance in with her, but she had only had eyes for Ron, as far as he could tell.

As he was thinking about this, an older Hufflepuff student came by. Harry had never spoken to him before, he didn't even know his name.

"All going well, mate?" the Hufflepuff asked.

"More or less." Harry would rather not talk to the guy.

The Hufflepuff nervously looked around, checking if anyone was watching them. Then he shoved a small clear flask closed with a cork to Harry, "Here, this will give you the craziest trip ever. First one's free. Find me if you want more."

Without another word, the guy vanished into the crowd. Harry took a closer look at the flask and noticed a neon blue almost glowing potion inside. The flask was tiny, there could only be a table spoon at most in it. Harry did not know what to do with it, so he just put it into a pocket and went back to watching the dancing crowd.

A few minutes later a exuberant Cho Chang approached him. Harry was happy to let strange questions fade, and asked for a dance with her. This led to another hour of dancing for him.

Around eleven, the great hall began to empty. Many of the couples went to more private locations. Harry and Fleur decided it would be a good time to call it quits. Fleur thanked him for a delightful time, and they had wished each other 'Marry Christmas and a good new year.'

Harry walked back to his room. It had been a good day. After all the dancing lessons in the Slytherin house classes, Harry felt like a fish in water on the dance floor.

But he was also relieved that the dance was done. It meant that his regular quiet time over Christmas would finally start. In the morning an special run of the Hogwarts Express would allow most students to return to their families, just in time for Christmas.

Now it was only a matter of hours until the castle would be empty, and then he could again search for Mafalda.

HPU

It was a bit unnerving at first, flying alone in the dark. Even with the light Harry used, there were shadows behind every rock, and the light only went so far, until it faded into the darkness. While Harry's lumos was bright enough, that he could rely on it alone, but without a second wand free, he did not want to. So, during the last Hogsmeade trip of the year, he had discovered a small wizarding light. It looked like an old petroleum lamp, but did not need petroleum or a wick. You lit it with a lumos but once it lit, did not require a wand to keep going. There were some convex mirrors attached to it, that made it into a good search light.

He had hung it from his broom. He could not fly as fast as he would have liked. Otherwise he would have run in danger of hitting a wall or something, but he could still go much faster then walking. This way he could reach the last spot in an hour and a half, instead of the three hours it had taken them to reach it last time, when they had walked.

It would not do to search like this, but since he needed to go down to where they had left off from the last search, he did not need to be too careful until then.

It was also good to have a broom with him to avoid the traps that were triggered by stepping on them.

After a little while he reached the end of his last search with Theo. He had to really slow down at that point. He tried to fly slower then walking, and started to examine as much of the nooks and cracks as he could. On occasion he would stop and cast different revealing and unlocking spells he and Theo had found since their last excursion.

If he found a door he would take a peak into the room behind it. Usually only stopping briefly. He would use the revealing and unlocking spells in the rooms too. For the most part the rooms were empty. Sometimes there were various amounts of furniture in various states of repair, but usually it was not much.

Whenever he stopped at a room, he would pull out his parchment on which he would note down the new passages and rooms he found. He tried to store as much as possible in his Occlumency structured mind, but knew that he needed a physical aid.

On occasion, he would have to turn around. Causes for this varied. Some tunnels just ended in a cave in. Others were entirely flooded or became too small to be a viable route. Harry was cautious to not go into spaces that he would have a hard time to come back out of. It would not do to be stuck and lost in addition to Mafalda.

Several times the tunnels looped back, or he chose a fork that led back to an already explored passage. After just half a day, Harry's map showed a complex system of tunnels.

For the most part the tunnels were dry, but on occasion they were very muddy. In some instances they were even flooded. Sometimes there were regular streams. They would come out of a hole in the wall, follow the tunnel for a while, and then disappear again in the wall. Harry was very glad to be using his broom then, because otherwise he would have to wade through the water.

Harry noticed a very pretty effect from the puddles of water. When his light shone onto the puddles, it reflected all over the walls, making strange shapes, in a rainbow of colors, on the sometimes very rough walls.

For them most part, Harry spent his time flying and exploring very similar looking tunnels, and finding little variation in the rooms or tunnels themselves. Despite this, Harry was never bored. He felt a weird excitement of being so far underground.

Then there were of course the truly exceptional caves that could only be found in a magically saturated environment.

At one point in the first morning of the first day underground, Harry noticed a faint light come through a door he just reached.

He dismounted and placed the broom to his right, next to the door. He held the lamp with his left, and pulled out his wand with his right.

He used the spells he now always used, before entering an unknown room. The spells flowed out like a little stream. Moody would probably not find too much to complain about this spell chain.

The spell chain did not give any warnings of danger. With his right hand, still holding the wand, he opened the door, and peaked into the room. His wand ready to fight any danger.

For a moment, his eyes had to get used to the brighter light inside this cave. He looked up and saw, hanging from the ceiling, countless little stars. It reminded him a bit of a children's bed room ceiling, where glow in the dark stars had been glued to it. But these were no glow in the dark, plastic stars. These here were never in the light to recharge. No their source was entirely magical. There was so many that it was bright as in the morning. Not as bright as a sunny noon, but bright enough to let a lush mountain meadow, grow in this cave. Lots of natural and magical flowers were sown throughout the grass. The wall was more like a cave, then a cut out room. All in all, he was reminded of the cave that Theo and he had discovered the last time they had gone searching.

There was one big difference however. In the center of this cave, there was a fairly large pond. Close to the door, a small waterfall came out of a hole in the wall. On the other end of the pond a small stream left it, and disappeared into the downward sloped cave.

Around the pond, he saw what appeared to be rabbits, but some grew horns like reindeer.

Harry decided to cast a couple more search spells, but came up empty. He took his broom, and flew down along the stream, but after only a few hundred feet, he found that the stream ended and went down a hole.

Harry had an early lunch in this strange cave. The horned rabbits did not bother him. They moved away from him, but did not panic at the sight of a human. He made sure to mark the cave into his map.

After lunch, Harry continued on.

After this the tunnel Harry had followed, went down a spiral staircase. After what must have been several stories worth of turns, the stone stairs changed into metal. The staircase was suddenly not encased by solid granite walls, but by air. It went down several more stories, and ended on the floor of an enormous cave. This was mostly a regular cave, with stalactites and stalagmites forming at the ceiling and the floor respectively. It did contain some stars in the ceiling, but far fewer than in the small cave Harry had just been in. Here, instead of making the cave as bright as the morning, it was more like the stars of the milky-way in the desert, away from light pollution. Denser then most patches of the night sky. Harry could make out the contours of the cave in the faint light.

Here too, Harry searched again, but again he came up empty.

He continued searching for the remainder of the day, but apart from regular rooms, he did not find anything worth noting.

When his internal clock, and a tempus spell told him that it was getting time to sleep, he was in another one of these ordinary rooms. This one had a table and a bare bookshelf, and even a sink. Harry did not test if it would work.

But Harry did not remain in the room for the night. He did not trust the silence that spread throughout the tunnel system. Even though he only had come across the horned rabbits and some reptilian like animals, there was no telling what was in the many dark corners down here.

Instead, Harry cast detection and warning spells thirty feet in both directions of the tunnel. They would wake him up if anything was coming towards him in the night. Then he prepped a little area for the night. His bed was the floor, but he brought some blankets and even a pillow. It was not going to be a five star hotel, but he could make due.

After dinner, he had asked Dobby to give him some things from the kitchen, he reviewed the map. He hoped that doing so would reinforce the map he made in his mind. Then he laid down at tried hard to relax. He had a hard day behind him and so he quickly fell asleep, despite the strange surroundings.

HPU

The precautions proved unnecessary, at least for that night. In the morning, Harry woke up, rested enough to tackle the new day.

This new day turned out to be almost the same as the day before. He ended up not going much deeper into the tunnels. There were many more tunnels, leading further down. And Harry noticed that the lower the tunnels, the more they turned into caves, or at least they were less finished. But instead of going into these sketchy looking headings, Harry decided to focus on the levels he had searched the day before. There were yet countless miles of unexplored passages on those levels.

There was one strange moment in the late afternoon. Harry had found nothing, and was getting rather tired, when he came upon something unexpected.

The tunnel he was just in had been without fork or room in probably half a mile. Then Harry hovered over a bottle of butterbeer. A moment later he saw another one, and another. He stopped and in a corner of the tunnel, saw a small pile of butterbeer bottles, and even two bottles of fire whiskey. On the wall he saw twelve names carved into the stone. He did not recognize any of the first names, but noticed several last names. Among the names were a Greengrass, a Bulstrode, a Rosier and two Crouches. At the top of the list it was titled, 'Slytherin Class of 1953' and bellow the list, 'BEST CLASS EVER!' Harry had to smile. Going by the amount of waste that they had left behind, the class of 1953 had had quite a bit when they wrote that last bit.

Harry looked at the carving for a moment, and decided to place a new inscription below it, Harry Potter, 1st January 1995.

Harry noted the spot with amusement on his map, and left the piles of bottles behind.

After a few more hours of searching Harry settled down for another night in the dark. He followed the same procedures as the first night, placing alerts in both directions of the tunnel and studding the map of the day.

HPU

After the second night, Harry set out to return to the dorms. He was still searching, looking into new headings and passages, but he headed slowly up.

Very early in the morning still in the deepest parts that he had explored, Harry found the last memorable room of this trip. In a way it was the most unusual.

Harry stepped into a room, and immediately noticed that it was completely round, and that its roof was a perfect dome. The dome was a particular bright white, and it reflected a good portion of Harry's light. It made the room brighter then most.

The room contained no furniture, but the floor had a strange drawing. In the center of it, there was a big circle, roughly a dozen feet across. Or rather it was seven concentric circles. Their diameter varied by roughly a foot between the largest and the smallest, with the smallest being about twelve or thirteen feet in diameter. In the center of these circles, a big pentagram was etched.

Harry stepped into the circle, and he could for the first time in his life feel the magical potential of a place. His hairs were raised, and his wand started to send sparks. A faint shudder went down his back, but then his body started feeling a pleasant warmness.

Harry's lamp started to flicker, and he quickly took two steps back. He did not want to be stuck down here without light.

Once he was outside the mysterious room, his lamp resumed to operate as it should, and Harry decided to turn around. He would come back down here again with Theo. This room needed further investigation. But right now it distracted from his main mission: Mafalda. So, he noted it down on the map, and went on.

Harry then spend the rest of the day slowly heading upwards.

Nothing of note occurred, and so around ten thirty, well after bed time, Harry made it back to his room. He took a quick shower, and crashed hard. He would worry about studying the next day. Now, only his comfortable bed called.