There are less than 90 days left for Christmas, so let's celebrate it now.

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Year One - Chapter 14.


When I woke up on Christmas morning, the first thing I saw was several packages in front of my bed, I tossed my covers to the side and crawled to the foot of the bed, sat on the edge and grabbed the closest gift I had.

It was a rectangular box wrapped in green paper, I tore the paper and on the box was a letter, I took it and began to read it, recognizing Aunt Cissy's handwriting.

Dear Eileen,

We hope you have a nice Christmas, we also wish you were with us, but as you said, we have 'boring' matters to attend to so we are glad that you are having a good time these days.

I trust you will like your Christmas gift, we know that you are very interested in the Dark Arts, Lucius and I would love to teach you all about them, but we respect your father's decision not to show you anything too advanced until you are older. Lucius wanted to give you a more advanced book and I agree with him, we know that you are responsible and would not do anything foolish with the information you can find, but we also know that it can lead to misunderstandings if someone were to find your books and people tend to assume things when they know who your family is.

Regarding your question in your previous letter, yes, we know who Nicolás Flamel is, I do not know much about him, only that he is a French alchemist, I know that it is not much information but I hope that it helps you.

We love you dearly,

Narcissa Malfoy.

I opened the box and was surprised to see the book Jinxes for the Jinxed, I know that jinxes are not really considered a Dark Art, or at least not such powerful ones, but it was still amazing to finally have something close to it, plus we won't learn a lot of this in Defence or Charms.

I put the book aside and grabbed the next gift, it was a box lined with red paper, but it didn't have a note and I didn't find one inside the box either, the only thing in the box was a grey sweater that appeared to have been handmade with a large green E across the front. For a moment I thought it was from Aunt Cissy, but it wouldn't make sense for her to send it in a package other than the book and it didn't say anything about a separate gift in the letter either.

I didn't give it much thought to trying to know who had sent it and I put it over my pyjamas, I was excited to open the gifts that I hadn't realized that the room was a little bit colder.

I grabbed the third package, it was light, inside were several Honeydukes sweets and others that I had not seen in my life, I looked at the note and immediately recognized Hermione's perfect handwriting.

Dear Eileen,

I'm sorry I said that about your father and I'm sorry I didn't say anything when Harry and Ron said those things about you too. I know I should have talked to you first, but I was carried away by what I had seen in the game, Harry's broom looked like it was going to let him fall at any moment and your father kept looking at it and muttering, I've read enough to know that this is what hexes are like.

I'm not asking you to forgive me and I really don't think you will, but I hope you understand why I thought your father wants to hurt Harry. Maybe we could talk to him and find out his version of that day? We could fix this misunderstanding.

Merry Christmas.

Hermione J. Granger.

PS: The sweets are Muggles, I remembered that you mentioned one day that you wanted to try them, I don't know if they are good, my parents do not let me eat sweets.

Yeah, sure, as if my father were going to explain something to us. I threw away the card and took a chocolate bar of the Muggle sweets that were in the package, apparently, the chocolate was called Crunch and it was the most delicious thing I had ever tasted.

I kept eating the chocolate bar while I opened my last gift, it was from my father, a book called Protection Charm Your Mind: A Practical Guide to Counter Legilimensy along with a simple note.

Eileen.

It never hurts to know how to protect what is only ours. I hope that you will read the book.

Come see me in my office after the Christmas feast.

Protect what is ours? What's gotten into him? I put the books in my trunk and went down to the common room, as soon as I got to the bottom of the stairs I wanted to go back to my room, Harry and all the Weasleys were there, although I had no luck because George had already seen me.

—Look, Perce! Even Eileen is wearing hers!

—I don't want to use it —Percy said, as the twins pulled a sweater over his head, knocking his glasses askew.

—Do you know who sent the sweater? —I walked up to Fred and asked him.— There was no note in the gift.

—Mum makes them every Christmas, mini Snape. I think I mentioned you in some letters and that's probably why she made you one too.

—Oh. —I couldn't help the blush. He has talked about me with his parents in his letters? I wonder what's he told them?— Wow... How nice of her, I love it.

Fred smiled, grabbed me by the shoulder and we walked toward the entrance while George dragged Percy away.

—And you won't be sitting with the prefects today. Christmas is to be spent with the family!

We all went to the Great Hall and I was surprised to see only one of the tables, rather than each of the houses, but I suppose that made sense since there were very few of us who had stayed at Hogwarts; all of the Slytherins had gone home and the only other students who had stayed were Marietta Edgecomb and Roger Davies from Ravenclaw and Hannah Abbot from Hufflepuff.

I've never had so much fun at a Christmas dinner, I was sitting between Fred and George, Percy was next to Fred and with my bad luck, Harry and Ron were sitting in front of us, but it still didn't ruin my dinner, I ate more roast than I've ever eaten in my life and felt like I wouldn't need to eat anymore at least until classes started again.

I opened one of the many eggs that were scattered all over the table and as I did so, a large yellow smoke bomb exploded in my face, leaving me covered in yellow dust.

—Look! —Davies said, laughing.— Now Snape's a Hufflepuff! —We all laughed and even more when he opened an egg and the same thing happened, but he was now covered in red powder.

At the teachers' table, Hagrid was looking redder and redder when finally he kissed McGonagall on the cheek; Fred, George, and I clapped loudly, making her blush even more. To my surprise, even my father was enjoying dinner, as he didn't seem to hate being here and would even smile when our eyes met. I definitely do not regret staying at the castle.

After the meal, the puddings followed and even though I still felt extremely full, I helped myself to two servings of the pudding. After half an hour, when I finally felt strong enough to be able to get up from the table, I went in the direction of the tower.

My father had been out of the dining room for several minutes and I was hoping that he would let me stay in his office for a long time after he told me what he had to say.

I went up to my room, grabbed the book that my father gave me and the one Aunt Cissy and Uncle Lucius gave me and put them in my bag, I didn't feel strong enough to carry them to the dungeons, besides, I had the feeling that if someone saw me with this books, they would ask questions for some reason. I was about to leave the room when I remembered the chocolate bars Hermione had given me, I decided to take one and put it in my backpack too.

When I came out through the portrait of the fat lady I ran into the boys, Harry, Ron, Percy and George went straight to the common room, the others basically ignored me, but George put his hand on my head and messed up my hair a bit. Fred stayed outside with me.

—Hey mini Snape, where are you going?

—My dad's office, he said he wanted to talk to me. —I said as I fixed my hair and started walking again, Fred followed me.

—Are you going to study during Christmas? What are you taking your backpack for?

—He won't make me study... Merlin, I really hope he won't. Do you think he asked the other teachers how I'm doing in class? I have done terribly in History of Magic... He did not tell me what he wanted to talk about, only that he wanted to see me after the feast.

—I really don't think there's a single person who gets good grades in old Binns's class.

—Probably Hermione.

—Speaking of... What happened between you guys? I've seen you being on your own for a long time and every time we mention you, Ronnikins gets kinda mad.

—It's nothing you have to worry about, Fred.

—Of course, I'm going to worry! It must have been something big so that you have stopped talking to them for months.

We kept walking in silence for a long time, a part of me wanted to tell him the truth, but the other part was afraid to know what he would think, if he too would believe that my father tried to hurt Harry.

We were near the entrance to the dungeons when I felt Fred take my right hand.

—Whatever happened, you can count on me.

I stopped walking, making Fred stop too. I've been staring at the snow-covered grounds, through the huge oak doors in the Entrance Hall, trying to organize my thoughts.

—Do you remember the first Quidditch match? —He nodded.— And I guess you also remember what happened to Harry's broom? Well, they think my father was cursing Harry's broom and trying to hurt him... Dumb, right? You don't think he's trying to hurt Harry... do you?

Fred was just watching me, his mouth slightly open, I could feel my eyes filling with tears, but I wasn't going to let them fall.

—You think so too.

I let go of his hand and started walking quickly down the stairs, after a few seconds I heard his footsteps behind me.

—Eileen, wait!

—Leave me alone, Fred.

I opened the door to my father's office, but Fred took my arm and wouldn't let me in, so I turned to see him.

—Listen, I'm sorry, I don't think that happened, I was just a little surprised by what you told me. I know I've said some things, well... Bad, about him, but I never really thought they were true. And it seems stupid to think that when someone takes the time to get to know you, if he were really bad, well... You would be bad too, right?

I could feel a tear finally fall down my cheek, at the same time that I felt a hand on my shoulder and didn't need to look up to know it was my father.

—Well, Eileen, um... We'll be in... Ah... In the gardens, in case you want to join us later.

—Maybe... Maybe on another day.

—Well...

He looked me in the eyes, smiled a little and left.

But he avoided looking at my father.