Chapter 15

-scene break-

It'd been the first of December when the Howlers had started to arrive en masse. It hadn't been a nice morning in the great hall, a few going off hadn't been an issue, but this hadn't been just a few, and what had followed had been a mad dash to get out of the hall before the screaming started to defean everyone. Even the mass of howlers though hadn't been enough to derail classes for the day, as the teachers had so cheerfully announced to the school.

It'd been Malfoy senior showing up that'd nearly been the last straw for some of the upper years, it had been McGonnagal that had frog marched the entire house up the stairs. Well most the house, she'd missed a few, but not enough to do something stupid. Lucius Malfoy was still a father, and in truth had been here solely out of concern for Draco's well being, and to pester Snape about watching over his son. He hadn't known when he'd first come about Snape's leg injury, and left Hogwarts with his interest peaked.

No one knew why the Death Eater faction had attacked several days priors, not even Lucius Malfoy, even he had had no idea what all the ruckus raised had been about. No one would believe that though, certainly none of the House of the Lion. Some of the lions thought they should have jumped Malfoy right there regardless of the costs, even with the whole of House Slytherin there. It was precisely the reason the house was scattered at the moment across the campus.

The ground was still frost covered today, despite being well into midday, Hagrid had said he expected perhaps the first snow of winter within the week. Harry adjusted his jacket, "Almost half the muggleborn are staying the year," He commented,

"What about you?"

He shrugged before prodding one of his spiders away, "Don't know yet," truthfully there was a lot he needed to do to patch up the old derelict of a castle, at least if he hoped to live in it come summer. In truth all this between the houses, and the book in the post they were all weighing on his mind. He tightened his grip on the piece of wood he was carving, Hagrid had been showing him some pointers on using the knife for whittling. "I might go back home, might should stay here." He wanted to llok around the castle more, Fred and George had said that there were all kinds of secret passages, and that was ussually how they spent their break.

"We should all go shopping," Tracy announced, "I mean you need new gloves, so best time," The Slytherin remarked, it was a tempting off, save Harry disliked shopping. It was a necessary evil of course looking for things to buy so you could do things with them later. "For now though Snape is all about ranting about avoiding fighting," That was the new twist, but Snape had good reason for it December first had seen a serious fight between Flint, and a Ravenclaw. Flint had nearly lost and eye, but the Ravenclaw was a worse mess. Nothing that Madama Pomfrey couldn't patch up, but still it was reason enough to yell at his House.

There wasn't all that long in class left before winter holiday, where normally everyone would be excited right now there were other concerns. Still it didn't mean people weren't looking forward to the break, "Shopping would be great," Katie agreed.

"I..." He could have told them all he wasnt going, but he was new to the magical world... and he really did need to go shopping. Tea could only do so much, he considered what all he'd jotted down in one of the dozen of composition books. His shopping list was starting to get extensive, it had broken three pages back at the end of october just from looking through potion books, and a herbology text book that Neville had left out in the common room before that whole troll fiasco had stirred up the school like a hornets nest. That'd been before the Weasley Twins had given him the book on 'famed Magical artifacts of Europe'. He'd finally gotten a chance to finish reading through, and a name had come up.

Nicolas Flammel, born thirteen twenty seven, and still alive till today. Harry's muggle book was right he was French Alchemist. Further research on the matter had turned up he'd been in and out of trouble for nearly break the statute of secrecy a couple of times by being spotted by muggles. The man's most famous achievement however was the item detailed in the book, the creation of the philosopher's stone, what it didn't answer was why Ron Weasley had asked who Flamel was.

"So we're all agreed then?" Katie turned to Su, the Weasley twins, who weren't here, had already been clear that they'd be staying at Hogwarts. Su as it was had in fact intended to go home for the holidays, but expected that she would be likely occupied with family stuff. That put a stopper on Katie being quite so upbeat, less so for Tracy, and far less for Daphne. Li's most descisive showing had been joining the group.

Katie had been the first one to join the group, yes, and she'd done it because of the Death Eater attack on the train station. Su had joined out of the desire to expand her own horizons, and Daphne had joined in the interest of strength. Fred and George tagged along because it had seemed like fun, and then it got useful. Tracy tagged along occasionally solely because Daphne was here more often than not.

The conversation progressed really from there, Katie was a little disappointed that Su wouldn't be able to make it, but things went on. "So what next?" It was Su that ended up asking. Katie had been the one to figure how best to integrate fire creation through wand magic, it had its draw backs, but using a wand drastically amplified the magic. Su though had been the one to take the initiative when they'd started water, and gotten it to become ice.

"Figure out," Harry squeezed the wood, sending match into the block, and watched as it started to bud and develop new growths. You couldn't use acid to etch markings on wood, the magic interfered, and the same was true with fire, so while iron wasn't the best elemental solution it worked, simply because Harry just didn't have the fine control needed to use water.

It was Daphne who had more of a problem with that response, and posed the question she had asked more than once. "Can we move on to lightning then?"

"Can you make a spark?" Lightning was harder than fire after all. He focused, and bluish white crackling glowed around his bare left hand for a minute.

-scene break-

The last day of classes before break was rapidly approaching, and with it anticipation was building for the holidays. Gryfindor was all abuzz too, by this point 'everyone', figuratelively speaking, was sure that Dumbledore had to be hiding something on the third floor. Ron had made sure that he thought for sure Snape was trying to steal whatever it was, and had probably let the troll in.

Malfoy though, Malfoy had taken the chance to one up Nott and start stirring trouble amongst the First Years. Malfoy picked the easist link to provoke in Gryfindor's chain, Ron Weasely. It hadn't been hard for the blonde prat to get a rise out of the red head. He'd chosen to do it in potions class. A week before McGonagal had come around making a list of everyone staying through the Holidays.

There was a clang as the cauldron went over, and Snape abruptly swilred around, but by this point it was too little too late. "Weasley," Partially brewed potion hit flame, and maybe, just maybe if it'd just been Weasley's cauldron, or just Neville's cauldron it wouldn't have been such a big deal, Snape went for a tumble sliding over slick stone. Malfoy was screaming as his cauldron tipped its contents to the burning stream, and he was already grabbing for his wand, but Ron hadn't gotten on top of him. That was went the potion cooked off and exploded.

The bang was smaller than that first week of school's, it did kick up a lot of thick green smoke. It was as bad if not worse than the smoke that Ron's brother had conjured up in the Hallway fight almost a month ago. Then there was a shout amongst the voices, and another bang.

Not that anyone saw it, but Nott had gotten his wand out first, and he'd fired blindly into the thick noxious green smoke. The spell had gone high, failing to hit anyone, but it did manage to hit something. The electric blue spell hit another cauldron, which tipped over, and then spilled into the mess. That was when the panicing started. Some of the first years went for their wands, though only a few of the purebloods really knew anything worth casting while others rushed for the door. A couple dozen first years were running one way while the others were shooting sparks, and worse around volatile ingredients, while choking on magic smoke.

Snape ducked behind a desk, and glowered at them. "Well?" Huh, was the most eloquent response Harry could respond with. "Its Weasley's fault how do you suggest it get fixed Potter?" Snape snarked irritably, "and if you say magic fire it'll be detention, I swear it."

"I wasn't going to say that," Harry didn't like getting exploded more than anyone else did, "Getting out is probably the best idea?"

Snape shrugged, good as any at this point, "Two points to Gryfindor, best idea all day." He was going to regret this, the professor flicked his wand, and blasted the door to the class room off its hinges and down the hallway, "I'll deal with cauldrons make sure everyone gets out Potter or its detention."

"Come on Harry," Daphne remarked, on the plus side everyone already at the door was now running down the hall, and Snape was yelling at everyone to get out of the room even as he was banishing cauldrons down and away from the rest of the class.

That must have been an advantage to teaching, seeing as he seemed to know where all the cauldrons were. Harry kind of regretted running down the hall, after them, because Malfoy and Ron had apparently decided they weren't finished.

"Come on Malfoy," Crabbe stepped forward and Ron shouted something nearly undistinguishable and the bigger boy went flying... this had to be Fred and or George's fault, "Right here wizards duel you want to start something come on then!" And Ron was irate.

Harry took a step back, "Does anyone not want to be involved in this?" A couple dozen hands went up, thats what he thought, "Yeah lets go." Snape would probably be fine, he was a wizard, and a teacher they probably had stuff like this happen all the time, and besides Harry didn't even like Snape, but he'd probably be fine all the same.

Nott, Pansy and some of the other Slytherins stood there around Malfoy, likewise Dean, Hermione and some of the Gryfindors also made the choise to stick around. Harry started walking down an adjoining corridor.

Neville stopped to look back, and then back to Harry, even as the latter was walking into an unusued classroom. "Where are we going Harry? Maybe we should go back to the dorm... eh Harry uhm maybe we should," Seeing he wasn't convincing him, Neville sighed and followed on into the unused classroom.

"So what are we going to be doing?"

Harry dropped his bag on a dusty desk, "I'm going to make sure I didn't leave anything," and with that said Harry started to rifle through his bag. All things considered while potions wasn't always interesting, and he still wasn't convinced on the usefulness of going to the class all the time it did have its moments.

-scene break-

Apparently... apparently Snape breaking up a fight between Malfoy and Ron, in Ron's mind meant that Snape absolutely had to be more guilty. Okay, sure something was clearly being hidden, even Hagrid had pretty much come out and said that much. It had been convincing other people that Snape was trying to steal whatever it was had been more difficult for Ron. He just wasn't having all that much luck, what he was having was McGonnagal chew the entire house out for poking around and snooping about the restricted corridor, and speculating on Snape well that'd just set her off even further.

So here they were again, one more miserable day of classes, and the whole house was still on lock down, and McGonnagal chewing the entire house, and now she was rounding on Harry, "Mr. Potter the headmaster would like to see you in his office, if you would follow me." That certainly didn't sound like it was good news. Gryfindor's head of house hadn't been terribly keen about him going away from Hogwarts for Holidays. Something about acceptable supervision, on the plus side Mcgonagal had been, and was quite clear on her dislike of the Dursleys.

The walk to Dumbledore's office was quiet, and boring. The hallways of Hogwarts were downright icy, and for the mmost part empty. Most students if they weren't in class were tucked away by the fire side. It was nice Su had given up those jogs around the now frozen lake. McGonagal didn't go up the stairs after giving the password.

"I'll be parting ways with you here Mr. Potter, I am afraid your fellow housemates have been far to busy in their trouble than I have time to spare." She commented, and that was when Harry noted the small compact mirror, and realized he'd not seen Fred and George all day. McGonagal didn't wait for a response and walked away.

Harry looked up the stairs, and started walking. Dumbledore's office was pretty much the same, though some decorations for the Holidays had been added. Dumbledore's robes were as brightly colored as always.

Apparently he must have been early because the headmaster was busy hovering over a small spindly table occupied with poking and prodding a silvery device... which was covered in markings flashing a particular vibrant electric blue, "Ah just have a seat now Harry this will be done in just a minute or so." Dumbledore remarked absentmindedly and continued fiddling, "I do say that should do it," He tapped his wand on a spot, and the erratic flashing stabilized. "This will be yours perhaps one day I'm sure, I intend to add it to the Hogwarts collection of items, something most Headmasters, and most professors even, contribute to. Alchemy is one of our greatest fields of study, I should say though its a rarely pursued field these days. It lets us make things though, impressive things, wondrous devices." The Headmaster stepped behind his desk, and sat in his soft chair, "in any case I know of course from Minerva, that is Professor McGonagal that there have been inquiries regarding just what is beneath's Fluffy's trapdoor, and of course I have absolute faith in Severus, that is to say professor Snape, so I would just like to lay that matter to rest." Dumbledore remarked, and then paused briefly, "That of course being said there are other maters. I'm told you've a bit of late Christmas shopping planned, indeed the house elves tell me your list is rather lengthy of things they're not familiar with, and of course there is no issue with that." The old man looked a bit more solemn, "I must say I can think of no significance of the date of the attack of the twenty fifth, it came most abruptly. It along with the troll are both so supsicious, I thought to take this opportunity to again caution restraint. I am not saying you should remain at Hogwarts for the break, but I certainly would prefer that, but the option is still yours."

"Then what is this about?" Dumbledore obviously had something else in mind by calling him here other than just talking about Death Eaters or the professors.

The headmaster reached into a drawer and produced a collection of pieces of parchment, "There are other elements that you should be wary of." For a moment he might actually find something out about Vampires or maybe werewolves he hadn't know, but that was sadly not to be the case, instead he got just a warning to be careful.

-scene break-

The snow had gotten a little thicker over night, but it'd been light compared to earlier in the week, which was good, though it was a good several inches still, an increase from the start of the week from when it had been only up to their ankles. Luckily the students who would be riding the train had the good fortune of getting to ride the carriages to the train station, which was likely what everyone would be doing at the end of the year. The carriages also had heating charms, which was a notable and distinct improvement over the frigid halls of the castle.

As it was they'd probably end up splitting up at the train station at King's Cross, but for the time being they had each other for company. The Hogsmeade station was a testament to the inherrent conservativism of the wizarding world, it was a dated structure built a sizable distance from the town. It had been done so at the time of construction to avoid disturbing the wizards who lived in Hogsmeade. That had of course been years ago, even though even then Hogwarts had still been the only wizarding village.

It seemed from reading history there was a dark lord of some sort at least twice a century, it'd just been poor luck Grindelwald, and Voldemort had been such powerful ones and had followed rapidly after each other. The story was that Dumbledore had killed Grindelwald, it was that story that intrigued Harry. A story of details lacking, no one seemed to be able to produce those answers not even Hermione Granger the resident bookworm, who was also going home for the holidays.

"We should grab a compartment," Katie commented, "And Malfoy's coming," She warned quickly spotting the blonde Slytherin walking down the platform with his trunk levitating behind quickly moved aboard the train. It was quite crowded given that most students did in fact go home for the break.

Finding a compartment was surprisingly difficult, most had spread out hoping for some room spreading out amongst the length of the train. Still it was not near so bad as a late arrival could have been, and they found a compartment near the fore of the train, where they quickly dropped their trunks.

Harry settled his trunk, the cold coming into the station had been unpleasant, and further south it would be worse. He flexed his hands after that was done, "Well at least we've got seats," Daphne's beast of a bird made an annoyed noice as she settled it as well. It was a fierce thing, Pansy mocked it often as ill suited for a lady, but it was swift in flight, and that meant quickly received letters even in such conditions as these.

"I-" Katie stopped as the train gave a long whistle, she waited as another call was made for people to board the train, and started again, "was thinking we could head to Diagon Alley for lunch when we arrived they have portkeys, you know we could take"

Su murmed it would depend on her family's choices, which was understandable all things considered. "I have been gone since school started, my grandmother has been looking forward to my coming home," She added, by all indications Su's grandmother was a foil to Neville's own a stern but compassionate woman... and a fine cook by all indications.

A few minutes later they waited as a final boarding call was issued by the train, and it finally some minutes after that started a rumbling as it started. Harry exhaled flaring magic into his cold fingers to warm them, causing Daphne to snort and chuckle. "You're too used to wearing gloves. Anyway lunch would probably be easy to manage I'm sure my father won't mind,"

That bit about the gloves was probably true, they'd seen the pulsing marks under the bandages at this point. It'd been unavoidable after the troll. They'd asked and he'd yet to answer, only the Centaurs in the forrest had a clue, and their talking about it had been enough to steer Harry away from any visit he could avoid.

Tracy agreed, and Katie expected it would be easy to get permission to go eat. It sounded fine as far as plans went for the start of the holidays, certainly it wasn't as if there was anything better to do, and they'd certainly be hungry by the time they arrived at the King's Cross station. Diagon Alley also meant the chance to go ahead and shop around, which was probably what Katie was angling for anyway it being the first day of the holidays and all.

-scene break-

The magical, and muggle worlds had many differences, and many similiarities. Unfortunately the establishment of the Statute of Secrecy pressed by the Europeans had coincided with unfortunate times. The treaty had been formally implmented in 1692, but had been in the works before that given increasing anti magical sentiment in the muggle world. It was an irony of ironies that the European wizards benefited from the treaty while the rest of the magical world was largely made poorer because of it. In the end though, when Qing broke at the start of the century China had been better off. The statute meant that the wizarding communities had been secreted away from the muggles to avoid their wars, that'd been the intention. It had not been wholy successful.

Su would have liked to go along for lunch in Diagon Alley, but at the same time she was also quite glad to be out of school, and home. Her mother had took her home, after they'd all agreed to owl about lunch on Christmas day. Her mother thought it would be a grand idea, as did her grandmother, which gave her great hope for actually getting permssion to go.

Su's grandfather, and patriarch of the clan, was an ancient wizard. The old man was Dumbledore's age, with nearly as abusrd a beard, even by wizard standards its length was great. He had held a number of jobs before settling into his job as an enchanter, one that he'd held for the last seventy years, he adjusted his glasses as she made his way through the sitting room, "Ah did you learn much when you were at school?"

"I..." This was her chance. The magic swirled as she held out her hand, there was a spark above her palm, and a crackle drawing her mother's attention. She focused deeply on the emotions, and fire crackled and roared as she poured magic which formed into a sphere of red orange fire the size of a bludger. It was like a little minature sun. A bead of sweat trickled down her face and she exhaled exhausted from the holding the fire there for a minute.

Her grandmother, "Aiyah no magic in sitting room, smoke sticks to furniture, I raised you better than this," The old woman scolded before Chun spoke up getting her to lay off.

"I thought it was a fine demonstration," Her husband responded, "but we'll do any future ones outside of the house in the future allright?" He placated his wife gingerly, "I'm sure Su will remember that in the future."

The conversation that followed was lengthy. Su's sorting had been dead on, Ravenclaw was the proper place for her. Still Harry would have been quite cross at the discussion. There wasn't anything malicious about sharing the information.

Her grandfather, and her settled down. For so long England had its problems, as a whole the wizarding world had plenty of problems, but Voldemort's fall had left the Death Eater's fractured and running about. Her grandfather was eager to hear her stories of school, "Emotions have power great, grand daughter mine. I think you've learned well.

-scene break-

Daphne dropped her things in her room which rested beside her sister. Lunch had gone well, and shopping after ward had been great after they'd gone to Gringotts first obviously. Harry, and Katie had hit a half dozen bookstores looking for things on Nicholas Flamel, the alchemist, which had peaked her interest, as up until this point Harry had had seemingly little interest in wizarding history. She had planned to ask both her father, and his brothers, one of her uncles would probably have the answer of the man if her father didn't. It was probably nothing, her mother told her, Flamel was an old wizard an alchemist who had ties to Dumbledore, her mother had said, it was probably that, as far theories went it was probably sound.

Maybe that was the case, but Daphne thought she would look into it nonetheless. She tossed her purchases haphazardly onto her bed. Harry had ended up being impatient about getting gloves, which was what she'd intended to give him for Christmas. It wasn't like the idea was completely ruined, but she'd definitely need to go shopping in the alley. At the very least it was an excuse to get her mother to let her go shopping again so soon. Her mother brought other ill news, Narcissa had extended Lucius's invitation to Christmas Dinner.

It was not an uncommon invitation, Malfoy and Greengrass shared a common heritage tracing back to where both shared a single wizard sire who'd come from Normandy when William the bastard had crossed. The Malfoys, Lucius as his father had before him, brought that shared heritage up whenever. They brought it up both often, but most especially when bringing up the ties was helpful to their agenda. That was just the way things were.

Daphne walked through the house stopping to look at the massive tapestry, a magic family tree. She had never really paid much attention to it, but far in the corner on the opposite side of the family, was Harry J. Potter, he was closer related to the Malfoys then she was to them, but the interesting thing were there were three sets of years beside his name. That was the curiousity, because the first was obviously his birth, and the second was 1981 October 31st. The third didn't make any sense, she'd asked about but no one could make sense of it. So they'd all left it alone.

Astori popped up beside her, "So do you know what your wearing? To dinner with Uncle Lucius I mean, we're going to Christmas dinner with them this year." Uncle Lucius... that was funny given Harry was closer by blood relation to both Narcissa and Lucius than the entire Greengrass family was.

"I haven't thought about it," She commented with a shrug, it wasn't that big of a deal, if anything it might be an excuse to go clothes shopping. "I'd planned on taking the time to look around some shops in London," She announced so her mother would here,

-scene break-

Harry had quickly found he'd failed to consider a number of things. Food amongst them... that was a major oversight on his part. He hadn't even considered it, which was precisely why he'd fallen back into the habit of his to hit the Surrey library to see if he could research something. In this case agriculture, and farming and feeding populations. After that he'd considered greenhouses, since they had had those in Hogwarts. Until then... well orks, and goblins could eat bacon and rice for the winter... or something, for right now bacon and rice would have to do for them...

So after a painfully, to his pride at least, long shopping trip to the grocery store with his aunt in Surrey Harry had spent the night at the old Potter house in London. He'd gotten up in the morning planning to go to the dillapidated castle to try and oversee refurnishing, given the temperature that was sure to be unpleasantly cold to say the least, found McGonnagal banging on his door. She'd taken one look at the books on historical alchemy, particularly Progress in the Art, of the late 1300s and exploded irritably at him. The text wasn't even all that detailed... or helpful translated old French was boring and wordy as far as texts went. It was primarily a second source historical text, it said so specifically in the front of the book, with exceprts from primary sources. It was more interesting than Binn's lectures, but that wasn't saying much. Then again he'd barely gotten through chapter 3 of the book so far before changing texts, so maybe there was something in there.

After the head of Gryfindor had finally stopped her tirade, she had brought up that Ronald Weasley had apparently snuck into Snape's office. They only knew this because Filch, the caretaker, had caught him sneaking back to the tower, and Ron had started shouting how Snape was responsible for something or other. It seemed like a sizable portion of Gryfindor was now aware that somehow the alchemist was the linchpin to figuring out what Dumbledore was hiding. After she'd left Harry had gone back to his readings on agriculture alternating between modern muggle methods, and magical ones.

On the plus side going shopping with Petunia had given him the opportunity to buy a number of things. Including most notably the things to actually make a cup of coffee without electricity, because naturally there were no power sockets in Hogwarts.

He opened the letter, well letters seeing as there were two. Harry tossed the far more formally written back on the old desk, he'd read it in a minute and stuck his feet back on the desk as the bird stared at him. "What?" He turned back to the paper, on the one hand not fixing food was great... on the other Daphne was inviting him to tag along to eat with Malfoy at dinner on Christmas. The more wordy letter said much the same, but included a guest list.

-scene break-