Chapter 14: Christmas Spirits
I looked down at the deck of cards in my hands. They felt oddly heavily, and they didn't fit neatly into the palms of my hands, making them awkward to hold. Slowly, I shuffled them, and then carefully laid the top three out onto the table in front of me.
"Well? What does it say?" Sam asked eagerly, sitting across from me. Between us at the table was Harry Potter, also looking curious.
"I have no idea," I admitted after a bit of staring at the tarot cards I'd laid out. "I think this configuration means great changes are coming for me, but it's really vague. I much prefer using the rune bones to tarot cards."
Divination. Something of a joke discipline, even in the magical world. Prophecies absolutely existed, no one denied that, and Seers did exist, but the natural talent for it was rare, and as such most of the time, trying to scry the future failed. There were ways to predict things like future events using Arithmancy, the magical art of numbers, but it was closer to how muggle systems worked, by analyzing and predicting trends.
Still, there were methods to trick fate into giving up its secrets. The method I preferred the most was rune bones, which were the knuckle bones of sheep, carved into dice and engraved with runes. Depending on the way they fell, information could be gleaned from them. You were supposed to soak them in Felix Felis, or Liquid Luck potion, for best results, but there was no way I could afford to brew it or buy a vial of my own. So I made do with regular ones I'd hand-carved myself.
'Plus, if I practice Divination now, I can use that as an excuse for my future meta-knowledge,' I mused to myself. 'You're a genius, Edward!'
"Well, we can't use those anymore. Not at school, at least. Apparently playing with dice is 'gambling' and thus 'morally reprehensible,'" Sam said, using air quotes to get across how dumb he thought it was.
"Yeah, bunch of hypocrites," I grunted. "I know for a fact eight of the staff here in Woolingsby gamble. And at least two of them are addicted to it!"
"Maybe that's why they're telling us not to gamble, then?" Harry suggested meekly.
"Maybe. Doesn't make it any less dumb," I grumbled. I then shot Harry a stern look. "And drink your medicine, Harry. You need it."
Ever since I'd told Harry about magic, I'd done a few things for him. First was teach him all about magical society. I was not going to let him run into Hogwarts ignorant of how things worked over there.
Secondly, I'd taught him and Sam about Occlumency. It didn't need magic to work, after all, and Harry needed every advantage. A sharper memory and superior control over his emotions would do wonders in the long term. And I didn't want Snape or Dumbles to probe his young mind and find out about me. Sam just enjoyed the fact he could memorize the lessons easier.
The third and final thing I'd done was start dosing the boy with potions. Mainly Nourishment potions, to repair the decade's worth of damage living with the Dursley's had done to him. He was way too skinny, far too short and weak, and his eyes were absolutely crap. Though the latter may have simply been genetics. Regardless, a few months of these potions slipped into his breakfast in the form of milkshakes and he wouldn't be a twig when he got to Hogwarts.
Harry just nodded and grabbed onto the thermos I'd brought for him, slurping down the Nourishment potion laced milkshake inside. Today's flavor was chocolate.
I glanced out the window out at the icy cold morning beyond. Weeks had passed since the Halloween incident, and it was now the middle of December. Things were frigid, and snow was threatening to fall soon if the thick grey clouds were any indicator.
"Any plans for Christmas, Ed?" Sam asked me, stirring me from my thoughts.
"Gonna spend some of it with the Weasleys," I replied as I packed away the tarot cards. I'd told the two about my circle of friends from the magical side, and naturally Harry and Sam had expressed interest in meeting them. That was something for another day, though.
"Not your mother?" Harry asked softly.
"I'll probably say 'Hi' to her, and give her the gift I made, but no. I won't be spending much time at Lumpkin's Patch this year," I said, a note of bitterness creeping in. "My brother is spending this Winter Break at home instead of Hogwarts."
"Ah. I see," Sam said slowly, and Harry winced in sympathy for me. Being more open with the two of them had its downsides. Namely them learning about Rudy and the crap he and his father had put me through.
I didn't let it get to me, however, and shrugged. "It's fine, guys. Anyways, speaking of gifts, I hope you two are excited for what I've got for you."
"We sure are!" Sam said excitedly. "What'd you make? Come on, give us a hint!"
"You'll see," I told them with a smug smile.
"Ugh, tease," Sam groaned, and Harry laughed softly at our interactions.
The bell rang before anything else could be discussed, and I escorted Harry to his classroom. Dudley, the little devil-brat, had been trying to ambush his cousin in the hallways ever since Halloween, and to prevent this, I'd started taking Harry to his classes whenever I could. It made me late sometimes, but I didn't care, and the teachers could glare at me all they wanted whenever I came in late and interrupted their classes, but it wouldn't stop me.
In some cases, a few of the more assholish teachers tried to sabotage me with pop quizzes or claims about my homework being late or some such malarky, but I was able to stomp their attempts flat with logic and simply being the top of all my classes. No matter how they whined to the administration, I was the top student in my year, and the bean counters and pencil-pushers loved the fact I brought the average grade scores up. So, they often ignored the teachers' complaints. Being the best had its perks.
Of course, when I saw the smug look on Mrs. Jonson's face when I got to her class after dropping off Harry, I knew something was up. The Math teacher was one of the worst offenders when it came to trying to get me in trouble.
'Probably something to do with the fact I keep acing all of her tests, and always know the answers to the questions whenever she calls on me in class,' I mused. Or it might have something to do with the fact she was related to Donny Miller, and I'd made that bully crap his pants whenever he tried to beat up Sam. Literally. Laxative potions snuck into his food worked every time to humiliate the little snot. Even after the brute had graduated Mrs. Jonson had apparently kept up some sort of vendetta towards me for it. She could never prove I'd done it, but that didn't seem to matter much to her.
"Mr. Rose, so glad you could make it here on time," she said, her voice oozing false sincerity. "Before I forget, however, the vice-principal wanted to see you."
"Cool, I'll see him after school if I have the time," I replied. I knew for a fact that the vice-principal was an incompetent piece of shit who loved to turn a blind eye to any bullying problems, and caved easily whenever any parents of said bullies denied their 'precious darling's' involvements.
And I was pretty sure he was skimming off the top of the school's budget because he had a nice, fancy car that was too expensive for his salary.
I enjoyed the look on Mrs. Jonson's face as it twisted with indignation. "No, you'll go see him now."
"Fine, not like I was going to learn anything in this class anyways," I said with a roll of my eyes. My classmates tittered at the comeback, just as unamused by Mrs. Jonson's antics as I was at this point. She hadn't made many friends – if any – among the students for her surly attitude and harsh penalties for missed work.
She glared at me, but I ignored her as I left the classroom. I made my way to the office, and went in. The secretary shot me a sympathetic look as I told her I was here to see Mr. Birch and waved me in.
"Hey, there, Mr. Birch," I said, greeting the vice-principal as I entered his office. "You wanted to see me?"
"I did. Have a seat, Mr. Rose," he requested. He was a boringly average man in his fifties with a bald spot on the top of his head, and he wore tweed jackets to make himself look more scholarly.
I sat down, and waited for him to speak.
"Mr. Rose, I've had some complaints from the mother of one of our younger students," Mr. Birch began.
"Let me guess, the name starts with 'D,' and ends with 'Ursley,'" I cut him off. "Is she complaining that I'm not letting her cunt of a son beat up her nephew whenever he wants?"
"That is not the issue!" Mr. Birch spluttered, and I shook my head.
"I don't believe you," I said, folding my arms.
"Mr. Rose! That is not the issue and you know it!" Mr. Birch snarled. "And don't think I haven't gotten complaints about your disrespectful attitude! You better start following the straight and narrower, or else!"
"Do something about the rampant bullying in this place and maybe I'll start giving a damn," I shot back to the vice-principal. "There's nothing you can do to scare me, either."
"Oh? Then you must not care about your transcripts, then," Mr. Birch threatened. "If you don't straighten up, you can kiss your chances at getting into college goodbye!"
"Threaten my grades again and I'll shatter that cueball you call a skull," I snarled at him, causing the man to rear back in shock from the venom in my voice.
"You, you can't threaten me like that!" Mr. Birch gasped.
"Can't I?" I growled. "You're a terrible administrator and a worse person. If you try and throw hands with me, I will fight back with everything I have."
"Get out!" he shouted at me. I decided to do as he asked, and got up and left his office, plans swirling through my mind as I did.
"Can I make a call?" I asked the secretary, who stared at me with wide eyes.
"What the hell happened, Ed?" Sam demanded, whispering to me as he and a bunch of other students watched as Mr. Birch was dragged out of his office by several police officers the next morning.
"The man made the mistake of threatening me. I retaliated before he could do anything," I whispered back, my voice low.
"What did you dig up on him, anyways?" Sam asked.
"Mostly just graft. See his shiny car? No way he could afford that on his salary," I replied. "Probably has some other things as well."
"How'd you manage to do it so quickly?" Sam wondered.
"I know a family friend who's an attorney. I told him my suspicions and he made some calls of his own," I explained.
'Of course, even I'm surprised by how fast this happened. Who knew Tarsworth was so influential?' I mused, watching as Mr. Birch was shoved into the police car.
"Squibs gotta squib together," I said under my breath with a snicker.
"That sounds ominous," Sam informed me.
"It's the truth, though," I replied. "Now come on, let's find Harry. I have a gift for him. And you too, I suppose."
"Right now?" Sam asked, surprised.
"Do you really think the school is going to stay open today after that just now?" I replied, gesturing towards the police car as it sped away. "Odds are the administration is going to be scrambling to figure stuff out and shift blame away from themselves, so they'll let us out early."
Sam nodded slowly, recognizing my point, and we hurried off into the crowd of students as it dispersed. We found Harry waiting for us in the library, years of learning to avoid attention having led Harry to stay away from large groups.
Spotting Harry, I walked up to him, and tossed him a package wrapped up nicely in green and red wrapping paper and ribbons.
"Merry Christmas, Harry," I said with a smile. "I know it's early, but I thought you two might like 'em."
"Wow," Harry breathed out. "I've never gotten a present before!"
I hid my emotions at that, but Sam winced and reached out, jostling Harry's black hair fondly.
"Open it," Sam suggested, and Harry did so, carefully and neatly taking apart the wrapping paper.
His gift was three-fold. First was a nice, warm sweater and a beanie hat. Rather plain looking as both were just a dark blue color with a few orange and red highlights, but I had woven several runes into the items, making them both durable, able to deflect a knife or Stunning spell, and able to grow with Harry. The runes worked by absorbing Harry's own magic to work. The gifts would protect him, hopefully.
The second gift was a pair of black frame eyeglasses. These too were rune-inscribed, the rims of the frame carefully etched with magical sigils that made the glass of the lens nearly unbreakable, weather-proof (like the charm Hermione had used on them, once) and self-correcting.
The third and final gift was actually a couple of things bundled together. They were some bus and train vouchers for travel fare. If he was ever in danger at home, he could use the muggle transit system to get away safely.
"There's something else I had planned, but that can wait until Christmas itself," I told Harry.
"What is it?" he asked.
"Your parents used to live in a place called Godrick's Hollow," I said quietly. "Their graves are there. I thought you might want to go visit them this holiday season."
Harry teared up, unable to say anything, and he immediately hugged me. I froze, taken aback at the affection I was receiving, but after a moment (and a slap upside the head from Sam to shake me out of my silence) I returned the hug.
Sam quietly took the gifts I'd made for him (magical acne cream and a forest green rune-woven sweater of his own) and left the two of us alone for the moment.
It was a sweet moment, and I felt good about what I'd done here today.
"Hey, Harry. Merry Christmas," I called out to the young black-haired boy as he stepped off the bus early in the morning on December 25th.
"Hi, Edward," Harry replied softly. "Merry Christmas."
"Come on, it's not too far," I said, leading Harry down the snowy streets towards Godrick's Hollow. "Did you have any trouble leaving the house?"
"No," Harry said, shaking his head. "Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon have been rather quiet recently. They didn't say anything against it when I asked to leave. Though I think they just didn't want me around to spoil Dudley's present opening."
"Quiet, eh? Do you think they got scared by the vice-principal's arrest the other day?" I wondered, thinking back to what had happened last week. A lot of the more 'opinionated' parents who'd previously loudly claimed that their babies couldn't possibly be bullies had gone suspiciously silent when news that Mr. Birch had been arrested for a bunch of crimes had spread. I couldn't help but wonder if he'd somehow been accepting bribes from those parents, and they were waiting for the other shoe to drop on them.
"Maybe," Harry said with a shrug.
"Well, whatever the reason, I'm glad you're safe," I said with a smile, giving him a shoulder-hug. He smiled back up at me shyly.
A few minutes later we reached Godrick's Hollow. It was a magical neighborhood, one of many that dotted the edges of London's environs. It had a few Notice-Me-Not charms here and there, and a weak Muggle repelling one that kept non-magicals away unless they had business there, like delivering the mail, milk, or the like. Plus a ward to keep any magical activity invisible to outside eyes.
It was a fairly standard set-up, honestly, and as I led Harry through the minor wards, his eyes lit up as he saw the magical Christmas decorations all over. Floating orbs of lights, glowing snowflakes, and animated snowmen were all visible in the front yards of several homes.
We soon came to a certain building near the center, and stopped to look.
"This was my parent's house?" he whispered as he looked at the exploded ruins of his childhood home.
"Yeah, the Ministry 'preserved' it as a historic monument or something," I replied. "I have no idea how legal that is. When you turn eleven and someone takes you to Diagon Alley for school shopping, be sure to ask the goblins what the status of your properties are."
"Right. Goblins are the ones who run the banks, correct?" Harry asked, recalling one of my lessons.
"Yup. A dumb decision on the Ministry's part, in my opinion. Why give control of your wealth to your enemies?" I said with a shake of my head. "But I suppose the wizards didn't have a lot of choices. This was one of the conditions they had to give up in order to get the goblin nations to sign the Statue of Secrecy."
I then looked down at Harry. "Want to see the graveyard, now?"
He nodded silently, and I led him to where his parents had been buried. He stared up at the monument to his family, and one of his fingers traced the words carved into their tombstone.
"My family," he whispered softly. "Did… do you think they loved me?"
"Yes," I assured him. "You were loved. And you still are. You've got me and Sam. And, someday in the near future, you'll make lots of friends and have tons of fun at Hogwarts. You won't be alone ever again, Harry."
He choked back a sob, but nodded, and continued to stare at the headstones, even as new snow began to fall.
Half an hour later, I shook his shoulder gently. "Hey. It's getting late. Let's get a nice, hot lunch. Maybe some hot chocolate as well?"
Harry bobbed his head slowly. "Okay," he said in a whisper.
Then, as we left Godrick's Hollow, he grabbed my hand and in a quiet voice said, "Thank you, Ed."
I just patted his head fondly.
Author's Note:
Many thanks to my two new Patty-rons, Alatoic and Thiago Silva! Soon I will be a real writer with your help!
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