Christmas holidays…

True to the older students' recommendations, Christmas at Hogwarts was a feast for the senses. Decorations were hung on nearly everything from enormous trees to the suits of armor dotted throughout the hallways. There were snowball fights to be held, hot chocolate to be drunk and festive feasts to be eaten in the Great Hall.

Harry had made sure ahead of time to coordinate with Hedwig and a couple of the other owls as well as the elves within the castle so he could get his friends' gifts to their respective homes in a timely manner. Hedwig had already berated him for even suggesting that he was bogging her down with too much work. He promised that come Christmas Day itself, the two of them would have some quality bonding time.

When Christmas morning arrived, Harry awoke to find a veritable mountain of gifts waiting at the foot of his bed. He quickly found the one from the Dursleys and ripped off the paper wrapping to find a photo album that contained the early life of one Lily Evans. His fingers traced the pictures of his mother and tears formed in his eyes as he read the humorous descriptions of what was happening within the images. The accompanying note said that the album was from all three Dursleys this year and thanked him in advance for his gift to them. 'I sure hope they like the animated decorative dishware and figurines. I also hope Dudley doesn't go and try to show off the ceramic dragons to his friends. Those things will try to bite anyone that tries to touch them.'

From Hermione, she'd sent him a set of pottery crafting tools like picks, scrapers, and rolling pins with decorative embossed or engraved images on the sides, sponges, and brushes. Neville had sent him a box that when opened, revealed a plastic wrapped block of a gorgeous red clay that looked like it had inclusions of some kind of glittering stones within. Draco had sent him some age-appropriate wizarding toys for boys while Vincent Crabbe had given him a highly decorative shelving unit made out of wrought iron and finished with gold filigree around the edges. His other gifts included the usual candy or small handmade things that really touched his heart.

He'd received a note from Riptooth that the analysis of the audit from his family vaults was complete and a report was being compiled to be sent to him so Harry could reroute it to Director Bones. The items recovered were being examined for any illegal alterations; Riptooth did mention that the Invisibility Cloak being sent to him had caused some in the Tailor's Guild to break down in tears. (Harry wondered about that, he'd ask him about it later.) He finished out by thanking Harry for the gift he'd sent and that it was a surprise, as wizards never sent Goblins gifts. Harry smiled as he imagined Riptooth trying to figure out how to work the mechanical calculator he'd found.

In addition to sending Riptooth a present, Harry had also sent out gifts to his friends and family.

To Hermione, he'd sent her a never-ending personal journal with an enchanted pen that would change the color of ink based on her mood. He'd also sent her a mug that was charmed to change shape depending on her mood and who was around her at the time. For example, if she were in a happy mood and her company was good; the mug would look brightly and cheerfully painted and glazed with a dazzling array of colors. If she were in a foul mood and the company was bad or annoying, the mug would look like it was made from the skull of her enemies. 'I better wear my heavy sweater when we meet up again, I'll bet that she'll whap me on the arm repeatedly for that mug.'

Neville was gifted a couple of muggle gardening books as well as a desktop greenhouse that didn't need electricity to operate. Harry'd written to a popular mail order seed company and requested a subscription to their catalog. In addition, he ordered their starter seed kit that would include a seedling tray, some pre-made soil inserts, and several packets of seeds for easy to grow vegetables and flowers.

Draco was a tough one because of the boy's wealth. Anything magical was assumed to be something he could've already acquired. It took a while but Harry finally found the right gift. It was a set of books that covered the history of the muggle aristocracy as well as the latest edition for muggle etiquette. At the last moment, Harry had also bought and sent Draco his very own copy of Monopoly.

For the Weasley twins, he'd sent away for an intermediate set of muggle pranks and jokes as well as a thick book on the history of pranking and pratfalls.

To Professor Sprout, he'd created several planters of varying sizes that were decorated with scenes of plant life in the Art Nouveau style and were charmed to let the gardener know that the plant within needed to be watered and fed.

Professor McGonagall had been sent a set of new containers for her yarn and knitting needles. Owing to Harry's snarky nature and simply because he could, he'd made it so the containers looked like silly faces with the yarn threads coming out of their noses. 'I wonder if I'm going to lose points for these things?' He chuckled to himself.

Professor Snape was set to receive a set of ingredient jars that would change slowly change color as the contents approached their expiration date. Harry also gifted him with a very large coffee mug painted in Slytherin colors of the Art Deco style. There was a line near the very bottom with an inscription that read, 'You may speak to me when the contents of this mug are below this line.'

He decided to spend the quiet Christmas afternoon in his trunk and do a bit of general maintenance and some light reading that he'd been putting off. He lay on his couch with one of his favorite fantasy books propped up on his stomach. A glass of orange juice was conveniently placed next to him on the coffee table. He quietly read and was just about to turn the page when he heard his name being called.

"Mr. Potter? Are you in here?" came the voice of Professor Sprout. Holding his place with a finger, he rolled off the couch and walked over to the ladder and looked up.

"Hey, Professor! Hi, down here. To your left. Your other left, Professor! Hi!" She finally spotted him with his head poking up from the bottom of his trunk.

"Wow, a traveler's trunk, Mr. Potter?" He nodded happily and asked her what the problem was.

"Just doing a headcount. I couldn't find you at your studio nor did I see you in the Common Room. If you hadn't alerted me to your presence, I probably would've gone to check in the library."

"Well, here I am. Did you want to come down and see my set up here?"

Cocking her head, "If you're offering, then yes I would." Harry moved back and let Pomona clamber down. He gave her the Knut tour and grinned when she commented on how modern and comfortable it appeared to be.

"It was a lucky find, to be sure. I had just found out about my vault in Gringott's and needed to pull some money out. This was sitting up against a wall so I figured that I'd be able to use it for school. My uncle and I spent nearly all of August cleaning it out and refurbishing it. The prior decoration and furniture were 1970s horrendous." He shuddered theatrically at that last bit.

Pomona laughed lightly at his antics, "I received your Christmas present and I love it. I decided to place them in my private office for the time being. Such a beautiful style of design; what's it called?"

"Art Nouveau. It was popularized during the early part of this century around the 1920s."

"Stunning work, as usual Mr. Potter. Well, thank you for showing me around and just remember not to be too anti-social."

"Never a problem, professor."

Hedwig appeared through the magical owl chute about twenty minutes later and settled down on the arm of his favorite chair. She beamed happily as only an owl could and hooted softly at him.

"Happy Christmas to you too, my dear. Did you enjoy my gift to you?" She bobbed her head affirmatively. "Well, I have one more gift to give you. An afternoon of cuddling, grooming and pampering by me!" She fluffed up and bounced on her talons as he picked her up and headed to the bathroom.

"I'd thought that we'd start by giving you a nice long soak in the bath with scented soaps followed concurrently with a little bit of a wing massage…"

The look on Hedwig's face was priceless…

The Christmas Feast was a gastronomic delight. There were platters of turkey, chicken, meats and vegetables of all kinds. Then there were the desserts…

"My god, I think I'm going to explode if I eat one more bite," Harry grumbled to a fellow Puff who'd elected to stay at the castle this year.

"I know what you mean. My first year here I ended up in the hospital wing because I ate too much. Not something I recommend. Madam Pomfrey will give you a right scolding before giving you some relief. Even then I swear the potion must be diluted because it seems to take forever for it to work."

Harry burped then chuckled, "She probably does it that way so you learn your lesson."

After dinner, Harry was wandering around the empty halls of the school while wearing the Invisibility Cloak. While it wasn't necessary to wear it while most of the school was away, it made him feel better knowing that his father had once worn it when he'd attended. As he explored the various abandoned rooms on the fourth floor, he found some interesting bits of junk piled up in one room though nothing really held his attention after he discovered an ornate golden mirror with strange writing on it. He pulled the hood off his head and concentrated on trying to read it before it dawned on him that it was written backwards. 'Idiot. Mirror writing…'

He gazed into the mirror before he let out a gasp of shock at the sight of a man with messy black hair and wearing his face standing next to a woman with beautiful dark red hair and his eyes. Puzzled at this, he looked behind him but he was alone. He gazed once more at the ghostly image before it dawned on him whom it was he was looking at. 'Mum? Dad? Huh, just like the photo album that Aunt Petunia gave me. Strange that I'd be able to see them here. What was it that the inscription said? Something about my heart's desire?' He stood there and pondered what it meant by 'his heart's desire.'

"Hello, Mr. Potter." Harry jumped at the sound of the voice and his name being called. He whirled around and spotted the headmaster leaning up against a desk.

"Headmaster," he replied warily.

Whether or not he noticed the tone of Harry's voice, Albus continued his questioning. "I take it that you've figured out the delights of the Mirror of Erised?"

Harry cocked his head in thought as he glanced back at the mirror but didn't reply.

Albus peered at him over the top of his glasses before continuing, "I'll give you a hint. The happiest man would only see himself while a man who wished for the one thing missing from his life would see him with that one thing."

Harry slowly nodded in understanding, "So…it shows me what I want and only what I want."

"Yes and no. It shows only what your deepest desires but gives nothing in knowledge or truth."

Harry hummed in thought, "I can understand that. Well, nothing for it. Have a good night, headmaster." With that, he flipped the hood of his cloak back over his head and disappeared.

Albus stood there surprised at Harry's reaction to his explanation of the Mirror of Erised. 'His behavior should've been one of longing for more time with his parents. He's acting like seeing his parents' reflection is not a big deal. Then there was his forehead; I could've sworn there used to be a scar there from that Halloween night. Something's not right here…'

When Harry returned to his dorm, he let out a determined growl as he pulled out a sheet of paper and began to write a letter. 'Director Bones needs to know about this. She'll know what to do next.'

Director Bones;

I've some disturbing news regarding Headmaster Dumbledore. It seems he has placed a mirror he referred to as the 'Mirror of Erised' and it's my belief that it was intentionally placed to get my attention. For what purpose, I don't know but I feel you should be made aware of it in case others within the school come across it. I don't know if it's a characteristic of the mirror but it felt like something was probing into my mind like the Sorting Hat did at the start of the school year then it shows you things. The more I stared into it, the longer I wanted to stay. Whatever it is, it's probably too dangerous to be in a school full of kids and the Weasley twins.

On top of that, I feel the need to inform you of some rumors regarding another large creature on the closed off and forbidden third floor corridor. I have not witnessed it myself (and I have NO desire to see such a creature!) but there've been others who've gone down this corridor thinking it's part of some kind of obstacle course. They've also said that the creature that was originally there is now an enlarged version of some kind of cat.

I hope that whatever is going on up on the third floor will be resolved soon; everyone will be coming back in a few days and I'd hate to hear that someone got hurt.

Sincerely,

Harry Potter

He finished the letter and headed up to the Owlery where Hedwig spotted him and glided down to the window ledge.

"Urgent but not super critical message for Director Amelia Bones at the Ministry DMLE, Hedwig. Take your time on the way back, okay?"

She preened his hair and nuzzled his cheek as he tied the letter to her leg before taking flight.

Later in the day in the Headmaster's Office…

Albus was sitting in his chair and extracting memories into a pensieve he'd received many years ago from an acquaintance. He frowned as he thought about the invisibility cloak he'd seen young Harry wearing when they encountered each other in that abandoned classroom with the Mirror of Erised. 'I know that I didn't give it back to him. For the life of me, I can't even remember when it was taken from me. I looked all over the place for it but it had vanished somewhere around the middle of August! In addition, my sources tell me that the other items and properties I'd appropriated from the Potter vaults were retrieved. Such a shame, they weren't doing the boy any good and it's for the Greater Good that they were safely in my possession. If it were anyone other than the Goblins then I'd have done something about it but I dare not go against them. Then there were the boy's answers about what he saw within the mirror. It's disturbing but I'm hoping that a trip down memory lane will jog some sense into them.'

When he returned from his sojourn into his memories, he leant back and gently stroked his beard in contemplation of what he'd seen.

'I was right that Harry's scar is missing. I have no idea when or how it was done but it's definitely missing. I wonder what that'll do to the prophecy? So far, Tom hasn't made his move to the Stone and Harry shows zero interest in investigating the third floor. If anything, he almost seems to fight against the very idea of going anywhere the least bit interesting or adventurous.'

Damn that Bones' woman for making me get rid of the Cerberus. I was lucky that Hagrid managed to find that Matagot. I hope that with that creature and the other addition in the room, it will slow Tom down long enough so I can try to redeem him from the Darkness.'

There was a soft pinging sound, which caused him to look up at the charmed mirror that alerted him to whoever it was that interacted with the stone gargoyle guardian and paled drastically. 'Well, speak of the devil, look who it is.'

Director Amelia Bones along with a veritable battalion of Aurors, Unspeakables and other ministry workers was at the door and she didn't look happy…

Eight hours later…

Albus eased himself into his bathtub in hopes of scrubbing and soaking away the aches and pain that had accumulated after the little adventure he'd been forced into by Amelia Bones and her entourage. He had the faintest hope that when she had arrived all angry, it would've been something simple like her niece had fallen down a set of stairs and was lightly hurt. But that was in vain, the reality was someone had sent an anonymous letter to her about the traps that had been set up on the third floor corridor. When he tried to bluster his way out of it, stating that the beast had been removed, Bones had ordered him to take everyone there to prove its validity.

In deference to his earlier half-truth of admission, the dog was gone but in its place was a matagot, a demon guardian cat that he'd gotten on loan from the Ministry of Magic, Beast Control Division. The Division workers that were there were not the ones he'd contacted and therefore were not happy that some of their security creatures were being used in a school full of children! While the cats were being removed, the other security feature in the room was discovered, quite painfully too. One of the Unspeakables had headed directly for the trapdoor in the center of the room only to smack its face into an invisible wall. After a spat of grumbling and a wave of their wand to fix their face, the Unspeakable ran a diagnostic to ascertain what it was that they'd run into.

The invisible maze was ingenious and rather creative though anyone with a lick of sense would've just conjured a cloud of sticky opaque particles to coat the walls thereby rendering the maze easy to figure out. Hardly a challenge when seen in that light…

"An O for effort, Albus but a D for execution." The Unspeakable remarked amusedly.

One by one, the assembled team made their way through the so-called 'traps.' A nest of Devil's Snare, a rickety broom and a room full of charmed flying keys to unlock a door which then led into a life-sized version of wizarding chess. A quick and powerful finite incantatum took care of the keys and chess room as Amelia glared at Albus and the other staff that had accompanied them.

"We will be having a long discussion about what was used here!" she growled menacingly. Minerva, Pomona and Filius all looked properly chastised. Severus held his tongue and his head up high, as his trap hadn't been reached yet.

After the chess room, came another mountain troll similar to the one that had gotten into the castle back in Halloween. Unlike the other one though, this one didn't seem as enthusiastic to attack them. In fact, it seemed downright lethargic.

One Beast Control officer summed it up after a brief examination, "The poor creature is practically starving! No fresh air, no food, barely any water; we need to get it out of here immediately." Amelia gave her permission to create a Portkey to send the poor creature back to the mountains.

Severus' challenge was up next and even he didn't escape the on-the-spot tongue-lashing the other staff had received. He nodded his head in embarrassment and a bit of shame that if by some horror a child had gotten this far, they'd have been poisoned by the contents of the bottles after they'd gotten frustrated by the puzzle and just sampled everything in hopes of getting past it.

The final room contained an ornate mirror; the same mirror that Harry had described to her in his letter. The lead of the Unspeakable team approached it and confirmed that it was indeed the Mirror of Erised. Amelia whirled on Albus and demanded to know what it was that he'd hoped would've happened.

Albus put on his best grandfatherly mien and stated that he'd hoped that the thief would've been so entranced with what was seen that it would've given him enough time to apprehend the culprit.

Amelia took a slow deep breath and shook her head, trying to calm her mounting frustration and anger at the old fool. "Just what was the prize at the end of this idiotic obstacle course? There had to have been something used as bait to lure said thief into this corridor!"

Minerva cleared her throat, "Amelia, we were told that Nicholas Flamel's Philosopher's Stone was going to be used as the bait. According to Albus here, it was his idea to place it within the mirror and only those who wished to find the stone but not use it would be able to retrieve it."

Amelia stared at Albus for a long moment; not saying anything but what was promised was a long and painful 'discussion' as evident by the fire in her eyes. She swiftly turned and faced the mirror and thought long and hard about what she wanted. A minute, two minutes yet nothing appeared. She slowly faced Dumbledore again and tilted her head in unamused expectation.

Albus was shocked! No one should've been able to get in here and remove the stone so quickly and without his knowledge. He stepped up to the mirror and tried to remove it from the enchantments but also to no avail. The look of panic grew on his face as he frantically tried to recall it.

"B-but…it's here! I know it's here! I placed it here myself!" he bellowed in fright and a bit of anger.

Throughout all of the proceedings, there were two people who'd hung back and observed what was going on, one had delight dancing in his eyes. Quirrel was secretly amused by what was going on with the old coot. 'Foiled by his own grand plans.' He thought whilst chuckling to himself. His companion was also mildly amused though also angered that someone else had retrieved the stone before they could. As Quirrel headed back to his apartment, his companion, the wraith of Lord Voldemort had started ranting at his follower's stupidity and inability to follow simple commands to get the stone at all costs. Quirrel tried to calm his Master, the fear evident in his voice and in his thoughts. His body had been slowly failing since the possession and soon it would be too late to save himself.

The other person that'd hung back to watch the so-called 'Leader of the Light' get dragged over the proverbial coals also chuckled to himself. He hummed a light and airy French ditty from back in the old days and proceeded to exit the castle unnoticed. The stone was safely tucked away in his pocket as he apparated away from the grounds. When he arrived at his destination, he was greeted by his wife of many, many years.

"Everything go as planned, my dear?"

The man nodded, "Yes, my brilliant wife. You were right, Albus never suspected that the stone we gave him was a fake nor my presence as I retrieved it from the mirror."

Smiling, she led her husband back inside for a home cooked dinner of French Onion soup and a roast beef.