Mr. Weasley placed his new pistol on his desk and looked at it fondly. He enjoyed looking at it's small shape, admiring the way it fit into his hand and into his pocket. He loved the way it looked, the weird shape of it, the way the magazine fit so snugly inside, the click of the slide as it slid into place.

As he was admiring the gun, Perkins, his colleague, came in. He looked curiously at the gun and asked, "Arthur? What is that?"

"Well," said Mr. Weasley, grinning, ...

\ \ \ \ \

On Christmas morning, Harry was woken by Ron throwing his pillow at him.

"Oy! Presents!"

Harry reached for his glasses and put them on, squinting through the semi-darkness to the foot of his bed, where a small heap of parcels had appeared. Ron was already ripping the paper off his own presents.

'Another sweater from Mum... maroon again... see if you've got one.

Harry had. Mrs. Weasley had sent him a scarlet sweater with the Gryffindor lion knitted on the front, also a dozen home-baked mince pies, some Christmas cake, and a box of nut brittle. As he moved all these things aside, he saw a short, thin package lying underneath.

"What's that?" said Ron, looking over, a freshly unwrapped pair of maroon socks in his hand.

"Dunno..."

Harry ripped the parcel open and gasped at a magnificent, gleaming pistol. Ron dropped his socks and jumped off his bed for a closer look.

"I don't believe it," he said hoarsely.

He rummaged in his own presents and brought out a similar-looking package. He tore it open, and revealed a gun similar to Harry's. He looked up, and they both grinned.

"What're you two laughing about?"

Hermione had just come in, wearing her dressing gown and carrying Crookshanks, who was looking very grumpy, with a string of tinsel tied around his neck.

"Don't bring him in here!" said Ron, hurriedly snatching Scabbers from the depths of his bed and stowing him in his pajama pocket.

But Hermione wasn't listening. She dropped Crookshanks onto Seamus's empty bed and stared, open-mouthed, at the gun. Slowly, she reached into her cloak, and brought out another gun.

"It came with a note", she said, her voice trembling. She took it out of her pocket and read,

Dear Hermione,

I am sending this note to you, even though it's really for all three of you, because I know you're the only one who will read it. This gun is called 'Taurus GX4XL T.O.R.O.' and it seems to be a very good pistol. I've given it to you because I accidentally may have introduced guns into the wizarding world proper, -

"How do you accidentally introduce guns?"

- and I am expecting many parents to start sending their children guns, and I know your parents don't know much about what happens in the wizarding world -

"Imagine if they did." grinned Harry, who knew that his uncle and aunt would be mortified that their self-defence weapon had become a wizarding trend.

- so I have given each of you what muggles call a 'concealed firearm', which means you need to hide it from everyone unless you want to use it. Many parents over here at the Minstry have been talking about getting their children one, because it's a great tool to resolve fights without anyone getting seriously injured.

These guns have been magically upgraded so that they will never fail you: They will never run out of ammo, and you don't have to worry about maintanence at all. However, Mrs. Weasley has insisted that her little Ronnie would never hurt anyone, so I expect that you two will not even dream of using them.

Enjoy,

Arthur Weasley

\ \ \ \ \

At lunchtime they went down to the Great Hall, to find that the House tables had been moved against the walls again, and that a single table, set for fifteen, stood in the middle of the room. Professors Dumbledore, McGonagall, Snape, Sprout, and Flitwick were there, along with Filch, the caretaker, who had taken off his usual brown coat and was wearing a very old and rather moldy- looking tailcoat. There were only six other students, two extremely nervous-looking first years, a sullen-faced Slytherin fifth year, and Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle.

"Merry Christmas!" said Dumbledore as Harry, Ron, and Hermione approached the table. "As there are so few of us, it seemed foolish to use the House tables... Sit down, sit down!"

Harry, Ron, and Hermione sat down side by side at the end of the table.

"Dig in!" Dumbledore advised the table, beaming around.

As Harry was helping himself to roast potatoes, Draco Malfoy started to become very vocal.

"I really wish I could hear that great hairy moron trying to defend himself... 'There's no 'arm in 'im, 'onest' that hippogriff's as good as dead -"

Harry had had enough. Staring at Malfoy, he took out his gun, pulled back the slide with a click, and placed it on the table.

Malfoy looked up, startled. He saw the gun on the table, composed himself, and drew his own, before following a similar sequence and resuming eating. He did not, however, stop speaking. It was quite disgusting, actually.

Ron took out his gun and fired into Malfoy's food. Malfoy, now angry that that blood traitor dared ruin his meal, shoved Crabbe. Crabbe looked confusedly at Malfoy, who pointed at Ron. Crabbe waved at Ron and went back to his food.

Annoyed, Malfoy slid Crabbe's gun out of his pocket and placed it on the side of his plate. Ron tried to do some Maths.

"If I run towards him, then the minus of my speed against the speed of the gun... which one is minus again?"

"Ron!" shouted Harry, bringing him back to his senses, "Concentrate!"

Ron jerked back into real life, and started glaring at Malfoy, his hand tightening around the barrel of his gun.

"It's on." Malfoy growled as Ron lifted his gun by the barrel looking confused.

"Now, wait a mome-" started Hermione, but she was too late. The fight had already begun.

Harry saw Malfoy press the trigger and ducked, coming back up to find Malfoy had forgotten his magazine, and had run back to get it. Ron and Crabbe were arguing on how their guns worked.

"I think you just press this." explained Crabbe, pointing towards the trigger.

"I already did that! But I think Harry pulled something when he was using it." retorted Ron, attempting to pull at the underside of the barrel.

Crabbe experimented by pulling the trigger, and accidentally shot a first-year's lunch. She looked sad.

At this point, Malfoy had returned with a box of bullets levitated by use of his wand and a loaded gun. He gave the box to the confused Slytherin, and he and Harry started a dangerous dance with their guns.

Harry started fighting with style. He jumped onto the table and, midair, shot some bullets towards Draco. Draco dodged and tried to return fire, except by that point Harry had already slid onto the table and off it onto the ground, taking a few plates with him. He then ducked under Draco's fresh volley of bullets and whacked him in the knees with his gun, causing him to fall. Before he could do much more though, Draco rolled put of the way with remarkable speed and ran as fast as he could towards the other end of the wall, taking random turns to make sure he was not shot at by Harry.

All the professors were staring at the table with shock, with the exception of Professor Dumbledore, who had been enjoying the proceedings, and was now cheering on Harry as if his fight with Malfoy was a sports match.

"That's it Harry, yeah, shoo - oh, no, no, run for cover. RUN FOR CO- yes, exactly. Oh, narrow miss there, well done, you almost had him, -"

Draco had been taken by surprise by Harry's brilliant show of talent, but now that he had some space, Draco was ready to meet him head on. He took advantage of Harry's guard being down and shot at him, but instead of bullets, the slide popped open. Dang it. He was out of bullets. Harry, apparently, hadn't noticed. He was on the defense, waiting for fire, and Draco took advantage and ran straight to the poor fifth-year, whose mouth was now so wide that Draco was afraid it had dislocated. Thankfully, he got the signal and tossed Draco a full magazine. Draco was surprised but thankful that the Slytherin knew how to load a magazine, and tossed his empty magazine to him before loading his gun. He ran towards the table, jumped onto it, then used his momentum to jump towards Harry. While in the air, he shot a torrent of bullets, and Harry had to do a backflip to dodge it, and he almost got hit anyway. Unfortunately, Draco had been planning to land where Harry was now, and Harry and Draco tumbled to the floor. Harry tried to fire in a circle to hit Malfoy's face, but judging by his squirming, he had not been knocked out.

Crabbe and Ron had taken one look at the fight between Harry and Malfoy, the masters of their game, and decided they wanted nothing to do with it. They both plonked down and started discussing strategy, occasionally yelling out tips and instructions for their friends.

Professors Snape and McGonagall has stood up to stop the fight but a stray bullet caught Professor Snape's head and knocked him out. Professor McGonagall decided that this, coupled with 'just a bit of fun', was more than enough justification for this fight, and sat back down.

Filch decided he had had enough and left the hall to write his resignation letter, which was the smartest idea he had had ever since he was born (seriously, join a wizard school as a squib? What had he been thinking?)

By now, the fight between Harry and Draco was getting quite repetitive and boring. They were both just firing, dodging, running, and tripping. Dumbledore's commentary had become much more lethargic. "Yay, Harry, you fired a bullet. Oh, great, you dodged. Oh wow, The Boy who Lived tripped.."

Harry started to get a bright idea, wait, I'm a wizard. Why don't I use a wand?, but before he could take that idea any further, Ron and Crabbe called for a ceasefire because this chapter has started to become boring.

Malfoy looked at Harry and growled, "This is not over yet, Potter." He fired a bullet randomly and angrily threw his gun onto the ground.

The bullet hit Goyle, who collapsed silently.

Author's Note: Sorry about the lack of a third chapter. I'm not very good with weekdays. Soon, God willing.