Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter.

::Mindspeech::

-Parseltongue-

Chapter Twenty-Nine: Christmas Chances

"Merry Christmas!" The voice, entirely too loud, cheerful, and close to his ear woke Harry up instantly. If the voice had belonged to anyone he didn't know, he would have been out of bed in an instant, wand in hand. As it was…

"Thought you weren't a morning person…" Harry mumbled, rolling over in bed.

"But its Christmas," Draco said childishly and bounced on Harry's bed.

"Stop it!" Harry said after the sixth bounce, having bounced nearly off his own bed, "Should I even bother to ask how you got up here?"

"I made the Gryffindor tower; of course I can go here whenever I want."

Harry opened his eyes blearily and wasn't surprised to see that it was still dark outside,

"Yeah, but it's not like any of the other Gryffindors would just let you walk up here."

"They must have been asleep," Draco shrugged, "There's only two of them. Anyways, come on! We've got to go drag Re'na away from her books."

"Is that even possible? And, anyways, what would you have done if one of the Gryffindors found you breaking into their common room?"

"Blame it on you," Draco said and shrugged. Bouncing impatiently, he demanded, "Get up!"

Yawning, Harry sat up reluctantly,

"Fine, fine, I'm getting up."

Harry got ready and the two of them made their way to Ravenclaw tower, Draco bouncing every step of the way. Once there, however, they ran into a problem,

"Uh…" Harry said, looking at the statue that guarded the entrance to the Ravenclaw common room, "I don't suppose you know the password…?" The statue remained motionless.

Draco shrugged,

"How would I know? I don't suppose you have one of your special Parseltongue passwords?"

"Nope; can't get into any place that 'Salazar' didn't directly make. How about…"

"How about you knock and see if anyone will let you in?" A voice interrupted them from the door. Harry turned to see Lisa Turpin standing where the statue had previously been, looking faintly amused. "You're looking for Lovegood, right? Wait here, I'll go get her."

"Creepy girl," Draco said, "If I didn't already know that Luna was Re'na…"

"Eerie resemblance isn't it," Harry agreed.

"Oh, I don't know…She's a lot smaller than me, isn't she?" Luna commented vaguely.

"Re'na!" Draco exclaimed happily, "We were just looking for you!"

Luna smiled,

"I'd noticed."

"Well, what are you waiting for, then? Let's open presents!"

Harry muttered something about Gryffindors but Luna said,

"Oh, but we can't open them here. Lisa's spending time with her boyfriend. How about the Gryffindor common room?"

"But we just came from there!" Draco protested

"Well, Slytherin and Hufflepuff are a lot farther. Not to mention that the dungeons are always cold and it'd be strange going to Hufflepuff without Ginny here," Luna pointed out sensibly

"Fine," Draco pouted.

They returned to the Gryffindor common room to find that the other two Gryffindors staying for the holidays were already awake.

"What're they doing here?" A fifth year asked grumpily, wiping sleep from his eyes.

"Don't be that way, Hooper," Harry said cheerfully, "It's Christmas! You can't turn 'em strays out and make 'em fend for themselves! Really, have a heart!"

Hooper squinted at Harry,

"Shut up, Potter. It's too early in the morning to deal with you."

Harry sighed,

"And here I thought all Gryffindors were nice and cheerful on Christmas."

"Hey," Hooper exclaimed, brightening, "It is Christmas, isn't it?"

"Presents," another boy agreed.

"I've never had a Christmas at Hogwarts before," Hooper said excitedly, "How does it work? I left my presents on my bed but…We can just open our presents whenever, whenever?"

"Yup," Harry said, "House-elves should put your presents wherever you want to open them."

"How do they know where that is?" Hooper asked wide-eyed.

Harry shrugged,

"Magic. Or something."

"Cool! Hey, Andrew, lets open our presents in the Transfiguration classroom!"

The fifth-years left quickly. As soon as they were gone, Draco pounced upon his presents, which had appeared under the large Christmas tree, courtesy the house-elves,

"Mine!"

Harry sighed,

"Gryffindors…"

"Here!" Draco was eagerly sorting the presents, "This one's yours…mine…Re'na's…mine…yours…yours…Re'na's…where…? Oh, here it is…mine…"

In what seemed like no time at all, all the presents were unwrapped and they were sitting in a nest of wrapping paper. Fawkes and Serphenia had joined them, Fawkes taking delight in setting random pieces of wrapping paper on fire and Serphenia burrowing under all of the discarded wrapping paper.

Harry had been pleased to receive two heavy potions tomes and another thick book of modern spells that also had a whole section dedicated to pranking, as well as a set of nicely balanced throwing-knifes that weren't as flashy or easily identifiable as Salazar's daggers. From Neville, he had received a nice collection of home-grown plants that were useful in potion-making. He had also received a large box of prank items from Fred and George and a couple of cookies from Mrs. Weasley but not the usual Weasley sweater. There also didn't seem to be anything from Ron or Hermione, not that he had been expecting anything.

"Ooh, nice…" Draco had opened his present from Luna. Weapons seemed to be her theme of the year and, while Harry's new knifes were nondescript in appearance, the sword that Draco unwrapped was dazzling: gold in color and with ornate phoenixes in a subtly redder gold decorating the handle. A small pile of books lay at his side, forgotten.

"Gryffindors are flashy," Luna said quietly, her nose deep in the book of riddles that Harry had bought her (he thought that, since she was already buying herself all the research books she needed with his money, he might as well buy her a fun book), "At least this way I can appease his Gryffindor pride without decorating it with lions and rubies…I'm sure you, at least, can appreciate subtlety in your weapons." The last comment was directed at Harry.

"They're really nice," Harry said, grinning, "They'd be even better if I were into assassination."

Luna rolled her eyes,

"Yeah, yeah. I gave them to you with the sole intention of finishing Voldemort off once and for all," she said sarcastically and turned back to her book.

"C'mon, c'mon!" Draco said eagerly, pulling at Harry's sleeve, "I wanna try it out. Please?"

"No," Harry said flatly. Draco looked crestfallen. "Oh, come on…Fine, how about this: we go to the Room of Requirements and have the Room conjure you up an opponent and Luna and I can read our nice new books until we have to go to the Chamber?"

o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Excerpts from the Daily Prophet, December 25 1996, as written by Rita Skeeter

Today crowds of wizards and witches flock to the Ministry of Magic to see that justice has, finally, been done…

…The poor souls that have been locked away for nearly two months for, incredibly, crimes that they were not guilty of are today finally sent home to spend Christmas with their families. Already family, friends, and well-wishers have gathered at the Ministry to watch them receive full pardons from the ministry…

…In an inadequately touching movement, Minister Fudge has awarded each of these innocents a handful of galleons in a clumsy attempt to make up for the months of their lives now gone…

o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Approximately two dozen people appeared in the Chamber of Secrets over the course of an hour or so via the Portkeys that Harry had sent out. Once done with the lengthy process of interrogating each and every one of them with truth serum, they were all allowed into the area where about a dozen renegade Death Eaters now lived.

Smiling at the reunited families, Harry turned to leave, gently placing Serphenia on the ground as he did so. She would be able to make sure that anything didn't happen and, really, she didn't need to be there while Harry cut apart her old body. She probably didn't think any more of it then a shed skin but, still…

"So," Draco said, having yet to leave Harry's side, "Looks like you are putting this place to good use. And here I'd thought that it'd be all creepy and gloomy, like your dungeons."

"Well, this is what the Chamber was built for, after all."

"…Social events?" Draco guessed.

Harry rolled his eyes,

"Sanctuary."

"Oh," Draco said, "I suppose that makes sense."

"Well, go find your mom," Harry said, shooing the blond towards the middle of the room, "I've got a dead basilisk to clean up."

o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Ginny sat on her bed, her knees pulled up to her chin, staring out of her small window gloomily. She was really starting to wish that she had refused to come home for the holidays (well, she had at first, but it hadn't done much good). The…normality…of home was too much for her, after all that had been happening recently. She didn't belong any more.

That warm glow of cheerfulness downstairs…she couldn't stand it, though she knew she should have been able to. She loved her family dearly but she hated Ron and everything he had done and Hermione with him (a stranger, not actually family, didn't belong). And Ginny couldn't look around the table without noticing the spot were Percy had used to sit, where Hermione sat now. Percy who had betrayed his own family (and Harry) for the Ministry.

All in all it seemed like her other family at Hogwarts must have had a more enjoyable Christmas than Ginny. She smiled in fond remembrance of the gifts that they had sent her, the only bright point of the holidays. The Hufflepuff founder had received several useful things from her friends (books on pranking, books on Herbology, various enchanted knickknacks…) but by far her favorite present was the beautiful quarterstaff that had been a present to her from Luna.

Made of dark wood, the heavy weapon had definitely been specially-made; the swirling patter of inlaid silver and handful of imbedded gems emphasized this fact. It was not the sort of last-minute thing to have been slapped together with magic. No, this was a thing created to last, and a piece of art in its own right. It must have cost a small fortune; but then the Lovegoods were an old, rich family, if not particularly respectably by modern pureblood ideals.

Of course, the Weasley family had always done well without money, making up for it with love and loyalty. But Ginny felt that all of that was breaking up. Percy had left and it seemed as though Ron was taking bribes (if not of money, of reputation) from Dumbledore to alter his loyalties. And then the horrible, horrible suspicion had started to spread through her mind. If two of her brothers could be made to do such things, what of her other family…?

"Knock knock," came a quiet voice from the doorway. Ginny started, having not heard anyone approach or, indeed, the door open. She looked up to see Fred and George enter the room stealthily, closing the door quietly behind them.

They each gave her a huge grin and the one on the right started (Ginny still couldn't tell them apart reliably, though she thought it might have been George),

"What's the matter, Gin-Gin?" Ginny didn't answer, staring determinedly at the wall just right of the speaker's ear.

"You've been hiding again, sister dearest."

"We know something's bothering you."

"Why don't you tell us?"

"Nothing's the matter," Ginny said firmly.

"Don't lie to us," Fred (or was he George?) wheedled.

"Remember when you were seven?"

"And you had your birthday party ruined when cousin Mafalda went and insulted your favorite robes?"

"And we came over to cheer you up?"

"You're acting just like you were then…"

"All alone in your room…"

"With your lights out…"

"And all the rest of the family downstairs…"

"And some wondering where you've gotten off to…"

"Except that time you were crying…"

"Shut up!" Ginny snapped, angrily flinging your pillow at the twins. Immediately afterward she regretted breaking your silence.

"Now, I don't know what you have against Ronniekins," Fred (who was possibly George) said seriously, "But that's no reason to go around ignoring the rest of us. I know Bill and Charlie are really missing their baby sister, even if Mum and Dad are usually too busy dealing with the fuss that Ron and Hermione are kicking up to count one less Weasley."

"Don't hog the monologue," the other twin complained, swatting Fred (who possibly wasn't), "Anyways, what he means to say is that you can tell us what's wrong…"

"And I swear, we won't laugh that hard at all…"

"Just tell us."

Ginny frowned, still not looking either twin in the eye,

"I don't…Ron is being…" The twins watched patiently as Ginny struggled with words, "He betrayed Harry!"

"Ah," the twin who she thought was George said wisely, "So that's what this is."

"Young love," the twin who she thought was Fred sighed.

"No!" Ginny protested angrily, "See? That's not what this is about at all! It's because Harry is a friend and practically family. Ron was Harry's best friend! How can anyone do that?"

"So how exactly has foolish Ronniekins wronged your charming prince?"

"What I did or said when I was younger has nothing to do with this. Nor does who I liked when I was younger," She put a firm emphasis on the past tense, "What Ron did was sell out his best friend for a couple of galleons and prestige in Dumbledore's eyes; enough to get him a bit of extra training with some of the Order." The last part was spat with a vicious triumph; she knew that the twins liked Harry just as much as she did.

George (who might have been Fred) raised an eyebrow,

"Ronniekins did that?"

Fred (who might have been George) frowned,

"That's not right."

"Aren't they friends?"

"You've been out of contact with the Hogwarts grapevine for too long," Ginny said, "And Ron's been censoring his letters home; out of embarrassment, I bet. Harry had a big falling out with Ron and Hermione at the beginning of the school year. Went and sat himself at the Slytherin table and refused to speak a civil word to either one of them."

"With the Slytherins?" George (who mightn't have been) looked alarmed, "Is he…"

"He's still Harry," Ginny said, annoyed, "He's just fed up with the way Gryffindor's been treating him. And with good reason."

"Huh," both twins seemed to be rolling the idea around in their minds.

"Doesn't matter, I suppose," Fred (who mightn't have been) declared carelessly.

"At least we know that he has an opportunity to put his Christmas present to good use."

o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Severus Snape wasn't a friendly person. As such, he didn't have many friends. And because he didn't have many friends, he never got many gifts for Christmas. Thus, he didn't bother with the normal excitement that came with the holidays and instead dedicated his time to potions.

True to usual standards, he had stayed up late on Christmas Eve with his potions and hadn't woken up until late the following morning. Awakening finally, he stumbled out of bed and went about his usual morning routine. It wasn't until he left his bedroom and saw the rather gaudily decorated Christmas tree that the House Elves had put up that he realized what today really was.

It wasn't a ground-breaking revelation by any means (what did it matter to him what day it was?) and the only thing that happened in result of this discovery was that, eating breakfast, he walked over to the tree to relieve it of its meager boon. There was a somewhat obscure potions book that he hadn't ever bothered getting for himself as a combined present from the rest of the Hogwarts staff (with a decorated card from Minerva) and a present from his godson, as usual. How strange; Draco's gift seemed to have two cards attached.

Not concerning himself overly much with the abnormality, Snape opened the first card, which was a dark green bordered with gold and with a gold snake centered on the front of the card that was enchanted to move. It was standard pureblood stuff and he was sure that this was the card from his godson.

Merry Christmas, Professor!

I wasn't sure if this gift was okay but I was assured that it was a good gift, so I'm not to blame. Anyways, Luna and Ginny asked me to pass along a 'Merry Christmas' from them.

Draco

Satisfied (though with a feeling of foreboding from the first sentence of the card) he moved onto the other card. This was striped diagonally with large bars of red and green and had a Muggle logo on the back. It was an ordinary card (though Muggle) and a few quick magical scans also indicated nothing out of the ordinary. He opened it carefully. It was blank.

Slightly unsettled, he peeled the wrapping paper away from the box and then stopped, shocked. Inside the wrapping paper was a glass box and inside the box was a brilliantly orange and black striped snake with three heads. Dimly, Snape became aware of a hissing conversation.

-What have I told you,- The head on Snape's right was hissing, -About being stupid?-

The snake in the middle was hissing angrily.

-Remember, he told us that we couldn't harm each other,- The snake on the hissed said calmly, -He said it makes us less valuable.-

-He said we were valuable,- preened the head in the middle.

-And He told us not to speak of Him so shut up!- The head on the right hissed irritably.

-Why does it matter; none of those stupid humans can understand us, except for the Stained one and Him.-

-Wouldn't it be wonderful if we were found by a Speaker?- The middle head asked in a dreamy voice.

-Stop talking!- the right head snapped, -Haven't either of you noticed the human in front of us?- As one, all three heads froze, then all burst into hissing exclamations.

-He's just some stupid human!-

-He might be one of those nonhuman Speakers you hear about sometimes…-

-How can you be so stupid so as not to notice?-

-You only just noticed, you…-

-Or he could be one of those, uh, snake people…-

-That's a legend!-

Snape could feel a headache starting. Still, Runespoors were rare and valuable in potion making. A mixed blessing of sorts. He picked up the box and moved it to a table; he'd find a better place for it (He? She? Them?) later, maybe even talk to it. For now…Well, he still had a couple potions to work on.

o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Now that his friend had left, Draco wondered around the Chamber aimlessly. Well, that was not technically true; he did, after all, have some sort of aim but as he was avoiding that at the moment…He glanced around cautiously, all-too-aware that many of the people gathered around him were the same people that he had expected to stab him in his sleep at the beginning of the school year.

"Draco?"

The muffled gasp behind him almost failed to catch his attention. In fact, he wouldn't have noticed it at all if he hadn't been hypersensitive to the imagined danger around him. Turning, Draco gave an awkward grin,

"Hi mum."

Narcissa Malfoy had her hands over her mouth and her eyes were filling with tears. Draco silently appraised her and realized that he had never seen his mom looking so thin or tired. It was new, this way of looking at this woman (his mother) coldly, appraisingly. He supposed that since Godric had had a separate set of parents, his mom wasn't his only mom any more, even if he loved her dearly. She had her flaws, he was finally able to acknowledge, and one of them was that she had allowed her husband to disinherit their only son during the previous summer.

"I…" Draco's mom cut herself off with a strangled choke-sob, "How have you been?"

"I've been pretty good. Professor Snape took me in for the summer and I made friends with Harry Potter," he gave a casual shrug, "I suppose that in some way I've never been better."

"I…I see. I'm glad that you found yourself a strong friend. You…You were never quite as adept at politics as…your father was."

"Life's not about politics," Draco said; a hint of coldness in his voice.

"No, I suppose it isn't," Narcissa agreed softly and then she suddenly burst out, "I'm so sorry Draco!"

Unnerved at the way his normally stoic mother was acting, Draco hastened to say,

"There's nothing to be sorry about."

"But there is…So much…" And with that, Draco's mother completely lost herself to sobs. More unnerved than ever before, Draco attempt to pat her on the back. Though the end result was awkward and weak in the extreme, it seemed to calm his mother somewhat. Was this the position that Harry fount himself in, time and time again? But in his case, Godric had seriously wronged Salazar…

"Uh, Merry Christmas?" Draco hazarded.

o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Moody took a long swig from his hipflask as he watched the proceedings from his seat at the teacher's table of the Great Hall. That is, he watched the ceremony from the back side of things. The normally impressive Heir Crowning ceremony of Hogwarts (this, he suspected, was made up entirely within the last few generations of Headmasters) was presented towards the student body which, in this case, was less than twenty students spread thin about the four huge house tables.

Needless to say, the grandeur of the ceremony was somewhat lost. Even the main characters in this little play (Potter and Malfoy) seemed bored to death. The majority of the reduced student body seemed more interested in when their grand Christmas feast would begin than the ceremony itself. Moody suspected that if Dumbledore had decided to have the feast laid out during or before the ceremony itself (which was the usual plan), the ceremony would have not been noticed at all by any person in the hall but the most active participants in it.

The ex-Auror took another long swig, cursing himself for not having filled it with alcohol beforehand, as he had taken to do for most Ministry events. As it was, only water met his lips. Cursing himself again, he turned his mind inward, away from the ceremony. What was his current most valued puzzle? Why the enigma Evan, of course. That would make a good distraction from the matters at hand, anyways.

Moody himself had gotten a present from the kid. Pure cheek, though Moody flattered himself to imagine that a bit of admiration had played its part there. It was a little metal orb of the type that he could easily hide on his person and did the work of about half of Moody's various Dark Arts detectors combined. It detected potions in food, magic being performed, specifically Dark Arts being performed, Dark creatures, animals that were animagus in disguise, and a whole slew of other things, not to mention that it had half a dozen powerful protection charms woven into it; and those were just the functions that Moody had already discovered in the few hours that he'd had the thing!

The only downside was that it probably didn't work at all against Evan (or any of his associates). Also, the gift was untraceable, as it was entirely made of magic, so there were no purchases to trace, and the maker's magical signature itself was entirely gone due to some twisting of magic that he knew Evan was entirely responsible for. The only clue one might gain from it was the mentality of the gift-giver.

What motive could there be for such a gift? Evan was either worried about Moody's safety or he wanted to make Moody's equipment so obsolete that he discarded some of them. Perhaps Moody had some Dark Arts detector that was of particular effectiveness against the enigma? Yet he couldn't bring himself to believe it. Was the boy honestly worried about him? Moody made a noise of distaste; he wasn't so old that he couldn't take care of himself. Yet that was probably it; cheeky in the extreme, perhaps, but the boy was of the type that could be said to have a 'good heart'. What use that would be to him, Moody didn't know.

Lupin, too, had received a similar present; a small piece of amber set in gold with a loop in the metal that obviously indicated that it was to be worn with some type of cord or chain. Moody could put that one down with utmost certainty to worry for the werewolf's wellbeing. A gap in one's memory, no matter how small, did tend to make one vulnerable to some extent. And whoever Evan had been in Lupin's past, he now had some responsibility (if not friendship) towards Lupin.

He dimly noticed that Potter and Malfoy had duly received their medals (each with some amount of distaste on his face when the Headmaster wasn't looking) and then made their way over to the Lovegood girl, who was sitting at the Ravenclaw table (as was her place; though not theirs).

o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Christmas was over, Evan acknowledged with a sigh. Well, it had been fun while it lasted. The humans hadn't really acknowledged the spirits over the holiday, too busy in their own holiday cheer to bother trying to drag the nonhumans into the celebrations for more than a couple minutes. Not that any of the spirits had really minded; they'd set up their own celebration of sorts in an obscure classroom.

Though there was technically two hours of Christmas left, the Luna and Claire had both decided to get back to their research and so both factions of Founders had further split up. Evan, still in good cheer from the earlier celebrations, had offered to grab some books for the Ravenclaws as they went through the books they already had, as only Harry and Evan really knew what they were researching (apart from the researchers themselves, obviously).

Harry, being human, couldn't get through the wards to the Restricted Section without alerting the Headmaster. Old though they might have been, Rowena's wards (unlike Godric's) held against the force of time; strengthened by countless generations of librarians who each had known truly formidable curses. Harry could probably get through them with some little difficulty but not without risking a limb or two unless he went and tore them all down (and he really didn't want to do something like that).

Consequently it was Evan who was walking through the dark and deserted hallways, in his arms a stack of books so tall that he walked with miniscule steps so as not to send them all crashing to the floor. Without magic, of course. He was still too young a spirit for using magic to be such a small thing. Still, old books were as heavy as new ones and even with inhuman strength it was tiring work. He also happened to know that amongst the many books in the stack, there were several cursed to make a racket if opened before he could get them to a Ravenclaw. If he dropped one of those books…

"What are you doing will all of those books?" The voice was obviously amused.

Evan just barely stopped himself from whirling around with the reminder that dropping the large pile of books would be very, very bad. Some of the books wobbled slightly and he cursed fluently in Parseltongue as he tried to steady the pile. He was successful but his cursing merely grew more colorful when he realized that the person standing behind him could understand said curses.

Finally, done swearing, Evan remarked coldly,

"Stealing them, obviously. Anyways, I've nothing to say to you," and continued down the corridor, wishing that his steps could be just a bit longer. He had no doubt that he looked ridiculous and wanted to be as far away from Snape as soon as possible.

Snape for his part watched Evan leave but just as Evan was rounding the corner called out,

"Evan!"

Evan stiffened and stopped, this time managing not to disturb the pile of books he carried,

"I think you should know that I'm not Harry Potter."

"I know that," Snape said, sounding frustrated, "I think. But you're Evan, even if he is still…I don't know. Maybe I would know if you'd just tell me something!"

"That's not about to happen," Evan said unemotionally, "Now if you're done harassing me…?" He started his slow progress again.

Snape sprinted a couple feet to catch up, so that Evan didn't leave his sight,

"Isn't there at least anything I can do?!"

"…Yeah, sure. Can you put a spell on these books so they can't fall down? And make them lighter while you're doing that."

Snape did these things and then, sensing the spirit's mood, left without another word. Evan watched him leave, slightly impressed.

::You know, Harry, I think Snape's getting pretty sincere…::

xXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXx

So to elaborate on my most recent plea for prank ideas: I was wondering if you had any songs that you found particularly fitting in some way or another. Like my Dumble-bee song and my adoption of Davy Crockett…I was wondering if there were other interesting ideas floating out there. Or other pranks; the more ideas, the better. But it's not that important, so don't feel bad if you've nothing to contribute or if you don't want to :D

I'm…Really behind. Eek. Lets see if I can make the last several thousand words…