Chapter 13 – Christmas

In the week leading up to Christmas, Emma realised she would have to get some presents for Hermione, Harry, Ron and Hagrid. Never having had to buy presents for anyone, it took her a little while to decide what to get them, especially as money was tight. She decided that for Hermione, she would make an elaborate thread bracelet made with the Gryffindor colours of red and gold. She also used a charm spell on it that she found in the book Hermione had given her that would protect the bracelet from wear. For Hagrid, Emma remembered that he really wanted a dragon, so she got a piece of parchment and made an origami bird with it. After taking some scissors to it, she managed to make it look a bit like a dragon and then charmed it so that it could fly by itself.

While Emma thought that Hermione and Hagrid might quite like something hand-made, she didn't think the same thing of Harry or Ron. Instead, she sent an owl to order two boxes of Bertie Botts Every-Flavour Beans.

When Christmas morning arrived, it was a surprise for Emma to find four wrapped presents sitting on top of her trunk, not least because she wasn't expecting any. She had just returned from roaming the castle as for the past few days she had been spending all of her night hours exploring and all of her daylight hours reading books in the common room looking for mentions of Nicholas Flamel, or spending time with Harry and the Weasley's. The days had simply begun to blur together and she had lost track what day it was.

The first present was a box containing a new quill and some ink pots from Hermione. Emma was very happy with this as she was nearly running out of her own, and it was a very Hermione-ish present.

The second was a present along the same lines as the one from Hermione. It was from Harry and it turned out to be a box of potion ingredients. Emma was running out of those too, and she knew Hermione and Harry must have collaborated.

The third present was very roughly wrapped in thick brown paper with a note written in the very familiar scrawl of Hagrid's handwriting. Inside was a small wooden figurine in the shape of a cat. It looked like Hagrid had hand carved it. He must have remembered that Emma loved cats.

The fourth present, from Ron, was a box of chocolate frogs. Emma was going to have to give them to Hermione when she got back, or find a discrete way of giving them to Harry.

Emma put the frogs, quill, ink and potion ingredients into her trunk, put on her dress, grabbed her Defence Against the Dark Arts book and went down to the common room. The others were there already, making a lot of noise. Emma sat down beside Harry and Ron, who were currently playing Wizard Chess and thanked them for their presents. They both seemed appreciative of her presents too as they were already scoffing their faces with every flavour beans.

Emma was about to start reading when Ron declared checkmate.

'Your turn.' said Harry looking at Emma.

'Uhm, ok.' said Emma tentatively. 'How do I play?'

They both started explaining the rules, and Emma learned them very quickly, however, putting them into practise was something else altogether. She played a few games against Ron, but after the third game, she gave up. She learned how to read Ron's expressions while he played, more than she was learning the game. She knew the moment she saw him grin, she'd already lost. Emma decided wizard chess was not for her, just like sports.

When it was time for the others to go down to Christmas dinner, Emma made an excuse to put her book away and get changed, and that she would catch them up. She refused to let them wait for her. Of course, she had no intention of following them though. She knew they would forget about her quickly enough. Instead, Emma curled back up in one of the big cushioned chairs and kept reading her Defence Against the Dark Arts book.

Emma was still reading when a group of very bedraggled Weasley's and Harry came in through the portrait hole. Emma noticed that Harry had to look around the room four times before he saw her, and then she was sure it was because she moved. Her invisibility, or whatever was causing it, seemed to be getting stronger.

'There you are, Emma' said Harry.

'Where were you?' asked Ron.

'Sorry,' feigned Emma, 'I couldn't get up the courage to go.'

'We guessed as much,' said Harry smiling and handing over a large bag with one hand and holding out a red sparkly cylinder in the other. 'We brought some back for you.'

Emma thanked Harry and took the bag, gingerly from him. Like all normal food now, it smelled pretty bad. Then she just eyed Harry and the cylinder he was holding with confusion.

'What's that?' she asked.

'You don't know what a Christmas cracker is?' asked Ron, incredulous.

Emma just shook her head, feeling a bit stupid.

Harry explained what they were, and that they contained things, however he left out one important detail. Emma grabbed the end Harry was offering as he indicated and pulled.

Emma jumped when the cracker exploded with a loud bang into a large cloud of smoke that enveloped them both.

'Merry Christmas' they all shouted and laughed. Emma couldn't help laugh with them.

From her cracker she got a white beret hat that she put on immediately. It went really well with her little black dress. She also got a pack of exploding snap cards and a number of small live white mice that scurried away as fast as they could.

When Fred and George saw the exploding snap cards they asked to play, and soon they were all, including Percy, sitting round a table in the middle of the common room. It was quickly evident to them all, however, that Emma was very good at exploding snap. Her reflexes were so much faster than all of the others.

After a few games they all crowned Emma the winner and started playing other games. Emma watched as Ron played Harry at more wizard chess and as Fred and George ran around the Gryffindor tower being chased by Percy as they'd stolen his Prefect badge.

It was definitely the best Christmas Emma had ever had.

At one point in the evening, Emma excused herself to go upstairs, under the pretence of eating the food Harry had brought up for her. Instead she put it in the bin in her room and grabbed the bottle of blood that was sitting in her trunk. While she was warming the bottle up, she found a note from Dumbledore attached.

'Merry Christmas.' it said, simply.

After feeding and putting the bottle away, Emma took one of the books Hermione had suggested reading to find Flamel and went back downstairs. As she had done for the previous few days, Emma read in the common room until the boys had all turned in for the night, then she ran her hand through her hair, tidying it, put her beret back on properly, and then she was up and out of the portrait hole. Normally she'd go to a part of the castle she didn't know as well as she would like, and start looking around, for new areas or for secret passageways, however, this time she had a specific place in mind.

Having gone through every book Hermione had suggested she read, she thought she'd go explore somewhere she'd never been but could also read. That meant going to the restricted section in the library. Having never been in there for fear of Madam Pince, she saw an opportunity that hadn't occurred to her until now.

It made some sense to check the restricted section as Nicolas Flamel probably wasn't even in any of the normal library books, especially if he was supposed to be some big secret. Also, being the part of the library to contain information on the dark arts, it was more likely to have some information on vampires.

It took no time at all to reach the library, even though she had to take a detour to avoid Peeves.

Once in the restricted section, she started browsing the book titles one by one. A lot of them were meaningless to her as they weren't in English, probably Latin or other ancient language, and other books had no title at all.

When she was about to start pulling books out at random, to see the covers, she heard quiet footsteps approach her. They sounded like they were trying to be stealthy. Did they know Emma was here?

Emma immediately slinked into a dark corner between two isles and crouched stock still. As the footsteps got closer and closer, she saw the path in front of her slowly get illuminated by a lantern, dazzling her.

She kept watching, her eyes squinting against the bright light, until she expected to see a teacher walk into view, but she was surprised to see the lantern floating in mid-air. At first she thought it was Peeves, but he didn't make footsteps when he walked. This person, whoever it was, was invisible, and not in the way that Emma's fake invisibility seemed to work.

The invisible person walked right passed Emma's hiding spot, oblivious to her presence, until the lamp was set on the floor and something silvery started shimmering.

'Harry...?!' exclaimed Emma quietly, poking her head out of her hiding spot.

Harry jumped, nearly knocking his lantern over, before recovering himself, and the lantern.

'Emma?' he whispered breathlessly. 'What are you doing here?'

'Same as you, I guess.' replied Emma, creeping toward Harry. 'Looking for Flamel.'

Harry nodded and gazed around at the books.

'What's that you were wearing?' asked Emma, eyeing the silvery material Harry was holding.

'It's an invisibility cloak. It belonged to my father.'

'Wow. It's beautiful, and it feels like water.' crooned Emma, sliding the material over her hands.

'We should probably hurry,' whispered Harry. 'Filch could be here any moment.'

Emma nodded and they took a side each, looking for any useful books. Still not finding any of the titles useful, she started taking out books that looked interesting, to see their covers, but they were just as useless. She had just put a book back onto the shelf when behind her, she heard an ear-splitting screech that made her turn toward a threat, and hiss instinctively. She saw Harry slam a book shut and shove it back onto the shelves. Luckily he hadn't noticed Emma's outburst and she quickly regained her composure.

The screech didn't seem to stop with the book being closed though, it was still echoing around the library. Emma and Harry took one look at each other and knew they had to run. She watched as Harry threw on his cloak hastily, knocking his lantern over and then he disappeared. She listened for his footsteps running away and bolted in the opposite direction, heading back to the dormitories.

That had been too close a call and a really bad idea. She decided she'd had enough of the restricted section and wouldn't go back any time soon.