Disclaimer – Everything you recognise belongs to JKR. All the rest is simply me playing in her sandbox.

-oOoOo-

The Cupboard Under the Stairs

Chapter 12

The one thing that Harry had been dreading for three days happened the morning that the Hogwarts Express was due to take the vast majority of students home for Christmas.

"Look Harry, Hedwig!"

Harry looked up to where Hermione was pointing at the beautiful snowy owl flying through the Great Hall along with all of the other post owls. Her great wings brought her gliding gracefully along the Gryffindor table to land precisely between the plates and bowls directly in front of him.

"Hello there, girl," Harry murmured, offering her a piece of his bacon.

After giving a soft hoot, she wolfed down her treat and extended her leg. As quickly as he could, Harry untied the small package and letter and stuffed them into his pocket. A small, affectionate nip on the finger later, Hedwig took off to return to the Owlery and a well-deserved nap.

"What was that, Harry?" Hermione asked curiously as she tried to nudge his arm aside to give her access to his pocket.

"Nothing, Hermione."

A frown and a pout indicated her unwillingness to believe him. "It sure didn't look like 'nothing', Harry."

"I hope I haven't forgotten anything," Neville piped up from where he sat across the table from them, "the Express leaves in half an hour and my Gran'll kill me if I don't have everything I'm supposed to."

"Half an hour?" Hermione yelped, looking at her watch. "I better go get my trunk."

With that, she hopped up off of the bench and raced out of the Hall.

"Thanks, Nev, I didn't think anything was going to distract her," Harry said gratefully.

"No worries, Harry," Neville smiled. "So, now that she's gone, what's in the package?"

Harry merely groaned and let his head fall forward to bang against the table.

-oOoOo-

The instant that Hermione, Neville and all of the rest of his classmates that were going home had boarded the carriages to take them to Hogsmeade Station, Harry raced up to his dormitory. At first he'd considered going down to his cupboard for some privacy, but with only Ron left of the first year Gryffindor boys apart from himself, he figured that the dormitory was private enough.

Flopping down on to his bed, he took the package and letter from his pocket. Opening the letter first, he read as quickly as he could.

Dear Mister Potter,

Please find enclosed Founding Fathers: The Life and Times of the Hogwarts Four by Ephaniah Davies and The Complete Guide to Magical Flora of Great Britain by Angela Roustabout. Although Flourish and Blotts do not normally stock or sell quills, I have, as a special favour to you, purchased and included a quill of the red-tailed kite.

To resize the books to their proper dimension, simply tap the package twice with your wand.

Your Gringotts bank note was precisely the correct method of ensuring a quick, easy payment and I would encourage you to utilise this method for all future purchases.

For you convenience, I have taken the liberty of including a copy of the current books held by Flourish and Blotts for purchase.

Thanking you for your business,

Robert Flourish.

Taking out his wand, Harry carefully tapped the brown paper package twice and watched wide-eyed as it grew nearly five times in size.

After carefully untying the string and removing the paper, Harry admired the quill and thumbed through the two books. A small smile and a nod indicated his approval. The catalogue, a small book almost as big as the regular books, was put aside for later perusal.

When he'd first seen Neville sitting quietly on his bed nearly a week ago wrapping something in brightly coloured paper, Harry'd wondered what he was doing. It was only after a surreptitious glance that he'd realised that the bright green paper was decorated with holly and moving sleighs. And then it clicked. Neville was wrapping Christmas gifts.

It'd taken Harry nearly two days before the thought had occurred to him that he could give Christmas gifts if he wanted to. He'd never actually received one himself, but Dudley had been given hundreds over the Christmases that he'd been with the Dursleys. He'd also never wanted to give a Christmas gift before either. His Aunt, Uncle and Cousin had never done anything nice for him and he'd never felt inclined to do anything nice for them either.

But here at Hogwarts, Harry'd been making friends. Two friends in particular. And he'd wanted to do something nice for them.

Neville had been easy. He loved Herbology and every time that he talked about the greenhouse that he had at home, his face lit up.

Hermione had been a bit more difficult. A book was easily the most logical choice. But he didn't know which one.

When he'd written to Flourish and Blotts in the hope of getting a book for each of them, he hadn't known what books to ask for. So, he'd resorted to simply asking the store to send him 'the newest book on magical plants that there was', along with a book about the Hogwarts Founders, to compliment Hermione's favourite book, Hogwarts, A History.

Asking for a red-feathered quill was a last minute addition. Professor McGonagall had been so nice to him when she'd found out what that he'd been intentionally doing worse in her class than he could that he felt that he should get her a little something to say 'thank you' and a quill in Gryffindor colours seemed about right.

Smiling to himself, Harry carefully rewrapped the book for Neville and tied it back up with the string and wrote a small Christmas greeting on the outside. Then, after chewing his lip in thought for a minute, he pulled out a spare roll of parchment and wrapped Hermione's gift. Using another small piece of parchment, he wrote 'To Professor McGonagall, Merry Christmas, from Harry', and attached it to the quill with a spare bit of string.

All three gifts, along with the catalogue from Flourish and Blotts, were safely stowed away in his trunk. The day before Christmas, he decided, he'd attach them to Hedwig and two of the school owls and send them off.

Feeling happier than he had been for longer than he could remember, Harry wondered out of the dormitory intent on finding the twins or, failing that, finally giving in to Ron and letting him teach him how to play Wizard's Chess.

-oOoOo-

Christmas morning dawned bright and clear in Crowley. A light dusting of snow had fallen overnight giving the place a feeling of freshness. The white ground was marred only by various animal tracks and the footprints of a lone early morning walker.

In this particular street, the houses were similar enough to tell that they'd all been built at the same time, but different enough to show off the personalities of the families that lived in them.

One particular house, number sixteen, was set back a little further from the road than the others. It was surrounded by a tall fence with a gate set within an ivy-covered arch. The patch of front lawn was bordered by what, once spring came along, would be a riotous array of flowers.

But being the middle of winter and especially with it being Christmas morning, not a soul was to be seen outside.

Inside, however, the small family was awake and gathered in the family room in front of the Christmas tree. Peals of laughter were ringing from the bushy-haired girl as her father wrapped his brand new tie around his head. In itself, this wouldn't ordinarily be considered amusing. But as this was a magical tie with a quartet of small yellow birds flying around the dark blue tie, and consequently around Dan Granger's head his daughter had ended up falling over in laughter while even his wife couldn't completely contain her chuckles.

A series of sharp taps interrupted the fun.

"Is that … an owl?" Dan asked, thoroughly confused by the sight out of his window.

"Hedwig!" Hermione squealed, jumping up and scattering wrapping paper every which way in her rush to cross the room.

In an instant she had thrown the window open allowing the snowy owl to hop inside.

"What a gorgeous owl," Dan stated, amazed at the sight before him. "I take it you know him?"

"Her, Dad. And of course I know her. She's Harry's."

"The boy from the train station?" Emma asked, remembering the last time that she'd seen such a distinctive owl.

Hermione beamed at her mother. "You remember Harry!"

"But what's this Harry's owl doing here?" Dan asked, interrupting his wife's response.

"Owls are how we send letters in the magical world," Hermione explained. "I've just been using the school's muggle system because I didn't think that you'd appreciate owls coming in to the house every week."

"Darling, if they look like this one, then I think we'd gladly accept letters from owls," Emma smiled.

Turning back to Hedwig, Hermione noticed a fairly large package tied to one of her legs.

"What have you got there, Hedwig?" Hermione asked. "You must be really tired if you've carried that all the way from Hogwarts."

A soft hoot let her know that Hedwig agreed with her assessment. After quickly untying the package, Hermione rushed off to the kitchen, returning a minute later with a small bowl of water and some strips of ham that she'd grabbed out of the fridge.

Hedwig gently rubbed her head against Hermione's hand before drinking greedily and gobbling up the ham.

"Mum, Dad, can I put Hedwig in the laundry with the window open so that she can have a sleep before she flies back to Harry?"

"That'd be fine, dear," Emma smiled.

The two adults smiled bemusedly at each other as they watched the beautiful owl step gracefully on to their daughter's arm before the girl and owl left the room.

"Well, my dear, are you going to open your package?" Emma asked once Hermione had returned.

A brilliant smile lit up her daughter's face as she raced across the room, snatched up the package that'd been left on the sideboard and plopped cross-legged on the carpet once more.

In contrast to all of the wrapping paper strewn around her from what was left of the Granger's presents to one another, the dull brown package in Hermione's hands could only been considered rather ordinary. But to Hermione, it was as though it was the most precious thing in the world. This was the first time that she'd ever received a gift from someone in the magical world. And for it to be from Harry, her first real friend ever, made it extra special.

"Is it from the boy who own that owl?" her father asked.

Hermione slipped the folded piece of parchment out from under the string and quickly scanned it before replying.

"Yes, it's from Harry," she beamed.

Bringing her eyes once more to the top of the short message, she read it again.

Dear Hermione,

Merry Christmas! I hope that it was okay that I got you a gift – I've never been able to give someone a Christmas present before. I hope you like it, I thought that it'd go with one of your favourite things.

Hogwarts isn't the same without you here. It's really quiet and lonely. Usually that's how I like things the best but I guess I've just gotten used to talking to you and Neville. I like having the two of you as friends. I've been stuck playing (and getting thrashed at) Wizard's Chess with Ron a bit since no one else is about and the twins keep disappearing on me.

Anyway, Merry Christmas,

Harry.

Refolding the note, she carefully laid it aside before attacking the package. The string took a bit of wiggling around before she could pull it off and when she unravelled the length of parchment that Harry'd used as paper, it was to find a heavy book come tumbling into her lap.

Picking it up and turning it over, Hermione gasped. Founding Fathers: The Life and Times of the Hogwarts Four by Ephaniah Davies. It was perfect. And Harry was right. This was the perfect book to read along with Hogwarts, A History. A small frown marred her face for a fraction of a second as she considered that this book would have cost Harry a lot more than the set of four quills and colour changing ink that she'd given him.

"What's that, dear?" her mother asked.

Hermione looked up from where she was tucking Harry's letter inside the front cover of her new book. "It's a book about Godric Gryffindor, Rowena Ravenclaw, Helena Hufflepuff and Salazar Slytherin, the four great witches and wizards that built Hogwarts."

Sliding across to her parents on her knees, Hermione showed them the book and waited impatiently for them to have a quick flick through it.

As soon as it was safely back in her hands, Hermione curled up in her favourite reading chair, opened to the first page and settled in for many, many hours of fun.