The rest of November passed quickly. Staros continued to learn the sword and staff plus helped teach a few others. Most tried it a few times and dropped the hobby. A few stayed on. Most notably, Draco came around every few days to spar with him and Neville was working with Carcerous on the English long sword, stating once that it was part of the family traditions. Most surprising were Hermione and Susan Bones. Hermione said that and uncle of hers had shown her some basic defense moves in case she got into any trouble, and Susan just said her aunt was Madame Bones, as if that explained everything. Daphne, Tracey and Blaise came around and participated sporadically, Tracey more often than not spending the time laughing at others' failures or teaching Carcerous better ways to say something purely evil, sarcastic and insulting, which Carcerous took to like a duck to water.
Things continued in that vein until the middle of December when one slightly less than freezing to death morning, at least according to sunny California raised Staros, Hogwarts awoke to the sight of a blanket of snow covering the grounds. The lake had already frozen over by then, prompting Carcerous to try and get people to fight on the ice, something only a few would try even once. Hagrid had taken up residence for a few days in the owlry in order to nurse several owls back to health after distressful flights through the previous night's snows.
Impromptu snowball fights broke out repeatedly that first day, earning many students sharp words, a few detentions, and a couple of points lost here and there. The pinnacle of the day turned out to be, of course, the Weasley twins who both earned detentions and were actually awarded points for excellent charms work by Professor Flitwick after they successfully managed to convince several snowballs to follow Professor Quirrelll around most of the day, repeatedly bouncing off the back of his turban.
Most of Slytherin house avoided the snowball fights, but the younger years were granted some leeway in regards to 'childish antics' as it was often described. Blaise and Staros were ambushed by Ron and Harry after herbology, which led to several others being drawn into the small inter-house war. Even poor, shy Neville was drafted as was Tracey and Daphne. Daphne turned out to be surprisingly good at getting snowballs to curve around the quickly thrown up forts outside the greenhouses. Everyone had a good laugh when Staros was buried under his fort, which collapsed under its own weight, before Professor Sprout, firmly but smiling the whole time, put an end to the activities, likely fearing damage to her greenhouses.
Christmas break looming on the horizon, the Heads of House each took a count of the students that would be staying over for the break. This, of course, led to another Draco and Harry confrontation one late morning during potions.
"I do feel so sorry," Draco started, "for all those people who have to stay at Hogwarts for Christmas because they're not wanted at home."
Crabbe and Goyle chuckled at the slight directed towards Harry, who had developed a decent ability to ignore Draco, most of the time. It was odd, Draco could be very polite when he wanted to, but other times turned into a snide little rat that no one could stand. Since the defeat of Slytherin during the Quidditch match, he seemed to poke fun at Harry more and more often, so much so that most in Slytherin were now getting bored with the less than imaginative insults. This detail never seemed to sink in, however, so the little tirades continued.
Much to Staros' regret, Daphne and Tracey were going home for the holidays. Blaise was sticking around, mostly due to his mother currently dating what would probably become her seventh husband and he wanted nothing to do with the 'sickening displays of mutually overactive libidos' that he assured everyone was not even close to the horrifying truth. Only a few other Slytherins were staying over, mainly some of the fifth and seventh years who had OWLs and NEWTs respectively and were studying like mad.
In fact, it seemed that very few students from any house were staying behind for the holidays, again mostly fifth and seventh years, but also a smattering of others like Ron and the Twins who said they were staying because their parents were visiting their older brother Charlie in Romania. Susan Bones was staying behind because her aunt's schedule rarely left time for her to be home for her. She would be using the headmaster's floo to spend Christmas Eve and Christmas morning with her, then be back later that day. Staros briefly considered taking a flight back to California, but decided that he needed to acclimate to England, and English Christmas was a part of that duty. To that end, he sent Carcerous out to discretely pick up gifts and cards for pretty much the entire school, save a few special ones he ordered in himself.
Not sure of exactly how personal he should get, Staros spent a lot of time looking over various catalogues for the proper gifts. Daphne was going to be the hard one, as was Harry. Ron was as easy as most of the school, Staros having sent some candy and a card to just about everyone with a simple Merry Christmas. Signing all those cards himself had almost caused him severe cramping but Madame Pomfrey took care of him, and even complimented him on his efforts before showing him the copy charm that most people used for such tasks, normally taught in third year. This made things MUCH simpler, and much less painful.
Hermione was an odd one to get a gift for. After finding out her parents were dentists, he nixed the idea of candy like he'd sent most others he didn't know well. Mulling it over, he realized she spent a lot of time in the library and that usually meant a person who loved books. She was also classed as a 'know-it-all' by the majority of her year-mates. Finally settling on a couple of books involving British wizard customs, ones he had copies of himself, he sent those off as her presents.
Coming across a catalogue he'd not looked through yet, Staros found a wide array of jewelry. Inspiration hitting him like a freight train, he began to order simple pieces for those he felt deserving. For Harry, Blaise, and Neville, he found several nice clasps for their school robes, done in the house designs. Not too personal, but tasteful and practical. For Tracey he found a necklace that screamed Goth being a small raven clutching a skull in its talons. Lastly, for Daphne he found a very nice charm bracelet that she probably wouldn't kill him over. Maybe.
Staros looked through more traditional catalogues for adult gifts to give to the faculty. He settled on simple things like new name plaques for their desks for those he had yet to have classes with. The ones he was more familiar with, he looked harder for. For the ghost Binns, Staros actually tossed a coin to see if he should even get the almost non-existent person anything. Coming up 'Yes,' he settled for the plaque he had gotten the others simply because there was almost nothing to the 'man'.
Professor Sprout he sent several American plant seeds to, mainly ones used by the Hopi Indians for their magic. Professor Flitwick was to receive a bookie's tablet direct from the Bronx. Staros wasn't sure if the little professor would like it or not, but felt that he would definitely appreciate the humor. For Hagrid, Staros found a reinforced tea set that would probably turn the big man into a five year old for days.
Despite the general student dislike of the man, Staros managed to convince the majority of the Slytherins to sign the card he was sending to Filch. Many considered it a waste of time, but Staros' argument that any form of recognition could make the man return the favor by looking the other way a few times made them risk it. The librarian, Ms. Pince, was a downright scary woman. In the tradition of librarians everywhere, she went out of her way to protect her precious domain from the ravages of children. With that in mind, Staros ordered her a small set of magical bookplates charmed to help preserve the books from common issues like rain, spills, being dropped, and especially ink. In a brief moment of pure school spirit, he managed to convince virtually every student to sign the card included with it, with the same reasoning as he used with Filch's.
For Professor Snape, Staros sent away for a set of alchemical weights and measures from the Flammel Brothers similar to his own. Professor McGonagall was given a pair of Egyptian cat statue bookends and Madame Pomfrey a set of the nicer hospital scrubs used the world over by high ranking nurses.
Professor Sinistra was easy as Staros got her a couple of decent mundane telescopes that were far superior to the magically created ones currently used. His card specified that they were not for the students to use unless she trusted them implicitly since they were far more fragile than their magical counterparts.
The last gift he specified was less for the professor in particular and could be called a gift to the school. After the debacle of their first flight class, Staros had been discretely sending letters to dozens of broom manufacturers. Each had responded positively in varying degrees. The grand total of the responses ended up with Staros having a decent collection of basic brooms, many had simply been in storage of the various companies, being older, outdated models. Altogether, fifty-three brooms had been delivered already, with another one hundred and seventy more to come by year's end. The first delivery would be made directly to Madame Hooch's office the day after Christmas.
Another series of letters were written as well, this time to all the people who had sent him invitations to various Christmas and New Year's gatherings held by the upper crust of magical Britain. Knowing he'd be way out of his league there, he asked a few older Slytherins how to reply with a 'No' and not sound insulting while also apologizing for not being able to attend. Several people gave him slightly different advice, but it all added up to a very nice rejection. One girl he asked even pointed out a few ways to gain advantage from the refusal. When Staros asked why she would do so, she simply replied, "It's all part of the game, silly boy."
With advice in hand he spent a good several hours penning replies to about two dozen people. In it he said how he regretfully could not attend their function, citing school and previous engagements with friends. He made overtures to attend the following year condition being that he felt he would be able to mingle without fear of creating any social awkwardness. He went as far as to include the girl's statements about how he was currently seeking an advisor to help him run his House and prevent any mistakes on his part. She told his how this would both excuse him from many mistakes he might make as well as set them all scrabbling to try and either find an advisor under their control, or make themselves his advisor if possible. After he thought about it, he chuckled over her little bit of chaos that would be sowed amongst the ruling elite.
During all of this, Hermione had them trying to research Nicholas Flammel. Staros' mention of the Flammel Brothers gave them a start, but so far, their searching had turned up nothing. The man wasn't mentioned in any of the Who's Who type books. They found nothing in Great Wizards of the Twentieth Century or Notable Magical Names of Our Times, although the Flammel Brothers, Igor and Allain, both in New York, were in Notable. The man also wasn't found in lesser books like Important Magical Discoveries or A Study of Recent Developments in Wizardry. Of course, the sheer size of the library didn't help. Thousands of books across hundreds of shelves, private study rooms, and little spin off sections, all spanning three floors and a large chunk of said floors not to mention the restricted section which took up an unknown amount of space seeing as they weren't allowed in there yet.