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Chapter Ten—Christmas Gifts
"I'm s-staying here for the holidays."
"At Hogwarts?" Harry asks with interest. He didn't know that was an option.
No, wait, maybe he did. There was a day that Professor Flitwick came around with a list and asked for people to sign up at it. But Harry was so frustrated with his efforts at Transfiguration that he didn't pay much attention.
Neville nods, his eyes locked on the teacup in front of them. They're sharing the same table in Charms, and the charm is to make the teacup dance. Neville has got it to move a little, but that's better than Harry, who hasn't managed to make it move at all.
Artemis hisses soothingly at him. Harry reaches out and gently runs his palm over her scales under the guise of dipping his hand into his robe pocket.
"Y-yeah." Neville looks up and blinks, and Harry thinks he can see his friend forcing back tears. Not that Harry would ever call attention to that. "Ch-Christmas is the worst time. Gran always thinks of my dad. It was his favorite holiday. And she gets drunk and maudlin, and she starts talking about how I'll never live up to him…" Neville falls silent.
Harry has never met Neville's grandmother, but he can't help but feel frustrated with her. Neville is great. Why can't she see that?
"Well, I hope you have fun," Harry says, and claps him on the shoulder. "You'll have to write to me, tell me what a Hogwarts Christmas feast is like."
"You're not staying?"
"No, I'm going with—"
"Mr. Longbottom, Mr. Potter. Please talk about Charms."
Professor Flitwick's voice is squeaky and nice, he's smiling, but the scolding is clear. Harry nods and refocuses on the teacup, for all that he knows he won't be able to get the spell in this particular class.
Neville waits until they're leaving to whisper, "You're going to stay with Zabini? And his mum?"
"Yeah." Harry absently drops his quill in on top of Artemis and then winces at the scolding she gives him.
"Are you sure that's safe?"
"Mrs. Zabini is great."
Neville looks unconvinced, but also lets himself be persuaded into nodding and dropping it. Instead, he and Harry make plans to meet up in the library later so that Neville can help him study the Dancing Charm.
Sirius stands up and shakes his hair away from his face. It's covered with mud and worse things, and he grimaces as he stares down at the piece of parchment in front of him.
He and Remus have traveled so far and risked so much, and they still barely recover a page at a time.
When they first came to the Continent and, on their first night in France, learned from a true Seer's prophecy that a book existed which would let them track down You-Know-Who's means of immortality and stop him, Sirius was elated. It seemed like a simple matter then to find the book.
He didn't realize that the book is an ancient artifact that changes with the need of each person who consults it. When one quest is done, the book tears itself apart and scatters its pages all over the world. Those pages go blank, and the next person who wants to consult it has to track them down one at a time. They'll reveal the next twenty or thirty handwritten, crabbed lines of information, with a hint in the last line about where the next page is hidden.
And of course, the book is invaluable. It's told them so far what Horcruxes are, what some of the perils are to getting past them, how to destroy one, and the names and locations of two of Voldemort's Horcruxes. The book becomes what the people seeking it need. It can tell them anything.
But in the meantime, there's still the fact that he and Remus have had to plunge, literally, into an enormous pool of dragon dung flowing from a Ukrainian Ironbelly reserve to find this latest one.
"Padfoot?"
Sirius glances up with a grim little smile. Remus is forcing his way out of the pool of dung that he fell into when Sirius lunged to grab the latest page, looking beyond nauseated. With his werewolf senses, this is a far worse torment for him than Sirius.
"I have it." Sirius holds the page up. It's dripping mud and shit, but he isn't worried about that. They'll always be able to read what's written there. "Come on, let's get back home."
Remus nods, exhausted, and Sirius reaches out to Apparate him. "Home" is a small cottage in France that has a warded room for Remus's transformations and a house-elf, and most important right now, showers. They'll be able to clean off there, read the page, collate the most important information from it, and decide where they have to search next.
Sirius feels a little pang when he lands outside the cottage and startles Remus's barn owl, Toby, into flight. It's not so much for frightening Toby as it is for the thought of the hopeful letter that Harry owled to him.
Harry.
Sirius so wants to go home to him. Real home is Britain, where Harry is, and Sirius wants to be done with this endless, mad quest and hold his godson in his arms again.
But if he did that, then at some point You-Know-Who would just appear again. He has enough Horcruxes that he can come back multiple times and Sirius isn't even sure how many the total is yet, although Albus suspects seven. And while Sirius thinks he and Remus could probably handle the wards the book described around the Gaunt shack, and even the curse on the ring, he has no idea on how to go about breaking into Malfoy Manor.
Harry will have to wait. But he's been waiting since he was a baby. It'll keep a little longer. Sirius does really think that they're close to the end now, even if there are seven Horcruxes. The book only has to tell them about the locations and type of five more. Maybe fifteen more pages, maybe twenty.
And then…
I might hug Harry so hard that I'll never let him go again.
"I wish we had been able to find out more about the door in the wards."
Blaise smiles a little at Harry as they step onto the Hogwarts Express. They're some of the first ones there, because Blaise wanted to find a fairly isolated compartment. He's not fond of the idea that people might come and gape at him along the way because of Mother. Or because of Longbottom, whom Blaise thinks might join them.
"You find the theory fascinating."
"Well, and I'm concerned about people who let trolls into the school."
Blaise half-shrugs and sits down on one of the seats, using his wand to float Harry's trunk along with his up to the rack. Although Hedwig will be coming with them, she's flying independently alongside the train until they reach the platform, when she'll suffer herself to be put in the cage so they can all Floo together. "Nothing else like that has happened."
"Something could."
Blaise leans back in his seat and studies Harry. Harry's eyes are practically on fire. He has Artemis twining around his fingers, just poking her head above the rim of his pocket.
"You know that most people wouldn't bother to fight the troll if it was hunting you?" Blaise asks softly. "They would just run in the opposite direction."
"That doesn't mean I should."
"I don't want you to get killed trying to face up to opponents a lot stronger than you are!"
"I can't just leave people to suffer!"
"What a fascinating conversation."
Blaise swivels to face the compartment door, cursing himself for not locking it, and for moving too quickly now. Nott has a jagged grin on his face, and the way he looks at Blaise says that he saw Blaise's movement and probably took it for nervousness.
"You're Nott," Harry says, and his voice and face are clear, but Blaise suddenly can't tell what he's feeling. It's a bit unnerving. Blaise has mentioned Nott a few times to Harry. Nothing that should cause him to react like this, though. "Blaise told me about you."
"Theodore Nott, at your service." Nott bows shallowly and then pushes into the compartment, sitting down on Blaise's seat but with a fair distance in between them. "Your perspective on the necessity of defense sounds more like a Gryffindor's than a Ravenclaw's."
"So?"
"I find it fascinating when people don't fit their House stereotypes."
Harry squints at Nott. "Well, you don't have to worry about that with yourself. You fit the Slytherin stereotype of creepy and nosy."
In the sudden silence, Blaise resists the urge to put his hand over his face. He turns to Nott and conveys, with the kind of smile his mother taught him for situations like this, that Nott isn't welcome here.
But Nott doesn't pay any attention. He's staring at Harry. "Nosy?" he repeats. "That's not a Slytherin House stereotype that I've ever heard of."
"Maybe we should add deaf."
Nott blinks and studies Harry for a moment more. Then he says, "Are you aware of who my father is?"
"No. Is he creepy and nosy, too?"
There's more silent blinking. Blaise finally manages to catch Nott's eye, and smiles a little harder. Nott jerks back from him before he catches himself. Hmm. Maybe Blaise should channel a little less of his mother.
"I think you were just leaving, Nott," Blaise says blandly.
"Yes, perhaps I was," Nott says slowly, and stands, looking back and forth between them. "A word of advice, Potter. If powerful people take an interest in you, then you should cultivate that interest, instead of doing your best to anger them."
"The next time I hear about you being powerful, Nott, I'll make sure to take that advice."
Nott shakes his head a little and leaves. Blaise makes sure to slide the compartment door shut and spell it, hard, so that no one else is likely to open it for the rest of the journey.
"I'm sorry that Longbottom can't get in, but I don't want any more intruders," he says, turning back to Harry.
Harry frowns a little. "Neville is staying at Hogwarts for Christmas. Sorry, I thought I told you that."
"Perhaps you did," Blaise says, and shrugs. "Longbottom's not the most interesting person in the world to me. Exploding Snap?" He pulls out the cards from the specially enchanted pouch where he's been keeping them, so that they don't blow up or shuffle out of order, and fans them invitingly.
Harry studies him for a second, then shrugs, seemingly content to leave the argument behind them. "Fine."
They play for a little while, and just when Blaise is thinking that their fingers are satisfactorily singed and congratulating himself on a job well done, Harry asks abruptly, "Does Nott bother you all the time?"
Blaise looks up. Harry is leaning forwards over the cards, and his eyes are hard.
"Not all the time."
Harry thinks about it. Artemis hisses something. Harry hisses something back, and returns to their game.
Blaise doesn't ask him to translate.
"Welcome back, my son."
Harry's chest aches a little as he watches Mrs. Zabini fold Blaise in her arms. But he shoves away the ache. He'll find someone someday who hugs him like that, he thinks. Maybe Sirius Black can never be it the way Harry hoped he would be, but someone.
"I am with you," Artemis hisses softly.
Harry strokes her back, and smiles and nods a little as Mrs. Zabini lets go of Blaise and turns towards him. There's almost no one on this part of the platform, and Harry doesn't know if that's because of Mrs. Zabini's reputation or because he and Blaise got off the train later than some other people. "Hello, Mrs. Zabini."
"I think," says Mrs. Zabini, "that I will insist on your calling me Aradia."
Harry blinks, hard. He doesn't call any adults by their first names, except for Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon, but that's a little different. "Why, though?"
He worries that he's been impolite in the next second, especially for the way that Blaise sighs a little, but Mrs. Zabini says only, "I know I am not your mother and would not demand such a place in your life. But I do not like the distance that the last name puts between us. It makes you sound as if you are speaking to an acquittance."
"And you intend—"
"For us to be allies, at the very least."
Harry nods slowly. He knows that Blaise told his mother about Harry's magic to create little creatures. He supposes that makes sense. He doesn't think it's the most powerful power ever, but Mrs. Zabini seems like someone who would want to know powerful people of all kinds. Blaise has told Harry that she has friends who are Muggles or Squibs and don't have magic, but whose money or political power are important to her.
"All right, Aradia. Thank you. And thank you for inviting me to stay."
"It would hardly be worth it for you to stay at Hogwarts," Mrs. Zabini says softly as she Levitates Harry's trunk and Hedwig's cage. Hedwig doesn't look excited about this, but she flexes her wings and says nothing. "People who wish to avoid their families do that."
"Well, I'm sort of avoiding mine."
"Harry," Blaise snarls under his breath.
Mrs. Zabini gives Blaise an amused look, and then nods to Harry. "But you are still welcome at our house, and I hope that you will enjoy yourself."
Harry smiles up at her. "I'm sure I will, M—Aradia."
Having two children in her home instead of one is an experience.
Aradia has lived so many years with Blaise, first as a baby who stayed in one place, then as a toddler who couldn't cross her wards, and then as a child who knew better than to do so, that she has forgotten what it is like to shield so much of her home from a stranger. Harry, of course, walks past the wards that seal off certain doors and balconies and altars in pure ignorance. He seems to sense other wards, but only looks at them curiously and doesn't interfere. She does step into one of the ritual rooms one morning and find him admiring a set of stone knives, but he keeps his hands behind his back and very carefully doesn't try to touch them.
Aradia appreciates his politeness. Blaise could have chosen a worse friend.
And she knows that some of her uneasiness about a stranger in the house is simply her own uncertainty about the future. Harry is important to Blaise; that is true. Harry has power that she wants to cultivate; that is true. Harry has no family who could object to him taking up a place in the Zabini family; that is more than true.
But Aradia still looks at Harry, someone who does not know about the suns or the blood sacrifices or the Walking Spiders, and thinks it beyond strange that someone who does not know those things is spending time in her home.
She also looks at the way Blaise's face shines when he and Harry run about the house or gardens shouting, though, and knows that Harry would have to do something much worse than make her a bit uneasy to make her kick him out.
"The wards tingle."
"You can feel the wards?" Harry is sprawled on his back in the bedroom that M—Aradia gave him, watching the magical stars on the ceiling dance in lazy patterns that only sometimes match the constellations they're learning in Astronomy.
The room is enormous. Harry thinks he could fit two of the Dursleys' bedrooms in here. The walls are dark blue and silver, and so are the sheets on the bed and the curtains around it, and strange lights like the stars on the ceiling shift and dance in the mirror when he isn't paying much attention. It has its own bathroom. Harry loves it.
"Of course I can feel the wards," Artemis says, and wriggles at him. She's curled up on his stomach, and slaps him a little with her tail. "I can always feel wards. I felt the ones that you were talking about at Hogwarts."
"Of course. I'm sorry." Harry strokes her back until she obviously relaxes and feels better. "But you didn't say anything about the wards at Hogwarts tingling, so I thought this was something different."
"There are many more wards here." Artemis darts her tongue out. "Not in this room, but in others. And they are guarding things that I do not think Aradia wants you to see." Harry is amused that the word for Blaise's mum's name in Parseltongue is "hunter-who-frightens-me."
"Well, I can live with that."
"I thought you would be more interested. You were interested in the not-door of the Hogwarts wards."
"Because I don't know who made it, and maybe it was the person who let the troll into the school, and that makes me feel less safe. But here, I know that Aradia set the wards, and I don't need to know what they're guarding."
"That is not very hunter-like of you."
Harry shrugs, nearly making Artemis tumble off his stomach. She hisses at him, and he reaches down and settles her back into place more firmly. "I don't need to distrust her and Blaise the way I had to distrust everyone at the Dursleys. The way I sometimes feel I need to at the school. I trust them, and that's the end of it. And don't tell me that you distrust them. You eat the fat mice Aradia gives you all the time."
"That is different."
"Why?"
"I am saving my strength for the next hunt. I am not deciding not to hunt at all."
Harry laughs, and they pass a pleasant half of the afternoon arguing about who's lazy and who's not, until Blaise calls Harry outside to fly.
"Can I see some of the spells that you're good at?"
Blaise agreed to that before he realized what he was agreeing to. Of course, Harry has seen him practice magic many times, in the classes that the Ravenclaws and Slytherins share. So he must mean the kind of curses that are not what Hogwarts would teach.
Now they're standing in the garden not far from the Quidditch pitch, the grass around them glowing softly green thanks to his mother's spells, and Harry has wide, interested eyes fixed squarely on Blaise.
Blaise breathes softly and takes his wand out, holding it with steady fingers. Harry bounces a little in place.
That gesture, oddly enough, relaxes Blaise. If he somehow messes this up, Harry will forgive him and still think he's impressive, because that's what Harry does. He just wanted to see something brilliant, not judge Blaise for it not being brilliant enough the way some other Slytherins would.
Blaise turns to face the large oak tree at the far end of the garden, which has a crooked branch he's always hated. It used to give him nightmares; it loomed right outside his bedroom window, and reminded him of a reaching claw.
"Want to watch me destroy that branch?" Blaise asks, indicating the one he means with his wand.
"Yes."
Harry is practically quivering in place, and if he realizes that Blaise is probably talking about Dark Arts, he doesn't seem to care. Blaise is smiling as he moves his arm in a corkscrew shape and murmurs the Disintegration Curse, which makes it a lot easier to perform the spell than it ever has before.
The branch turns into particles smaller than dust. Blaise can see them if he squints, but it really looks like that he just blinks and they're gone.
"Wow."
Blaise turns to face Harry, smiling. It helps that Harry's eyes are huge and Artemis is swaying back and forth on Harry's shoulder as if she's also impressed.
"Can you show me something else?" Harry asks.
Blaise blinks for a moment. He thought Harry was going to ask if Blaise could teach him that spell. But he supposes it makes sense for Harry to ask this instead, given the problems he has with spells that use wands.
"Sure," he says, and casts his mind to when Mother taught him the Withering Curse.
"Happy Christmas, Harry."
Harry is pretty sure that he's gaping like Dudley used to do when confronted with maths. But he can't help it. The gifts. The presents!
He's seen the huge tree in the middle of Aradia and Blaise's drawing room, of course, or parlor, or whatever you call a huge room that's mostly made of stone but also has dazzling glass windows that show images of curling waves and glowing sunrises and mountains covered with snow. But he didn't pay attention to the pile of presents underneath it. Harry already bought and sent off a book for Neville on speaking with self-confidence, and he has his gift for Blaise tucked in a pocket, and he asked Blaise if he should get Aradia a gift for hosting him, and Blaise said no. Harry knows that he'll probably get something from Neville, but it doesn't matter that much.
And he didn't think that any of those presents were for him when he saw them.
"You look as though that troll clubbed you over the head," Blaise says in an undertone as he hands several brightly-wrapped gifts to Harry. The paper is blue and covered with the same kinds of scenes that the enchanted windows show.
"No one's ever got me gifts before," Harry says happily.
Blaise's mouth firms for a second, his eyes turning dark. Harry holds his breath, hoping that Blaise doesn't want to talk about the Dursleys. But it seems that Blaise doesn't want to ruin the mood any more than Harry does, so he just nods and starts tearing into the gifts that have his own name on them.
It seems that Aradia mostly got Blaise books, and Harry clothes. Harry doesn't care. He's thrilled that someone got him gifts at all, and he holds up the thick winter cloak lined with nundu fur and the dragonhide gloves and the dragonhide boots with a smile.
"Thank you, Mrs. Zabini!"
Aradia is sitting on a couch amid a pile of presents of her own, most of them looking like the kinds of things rich people probably send her to get her on their side, and sipping hot chocolate from a blue mug that looks expensive. But she still manages to give Harry a chiding look. Harry ducks his head. "Sorry. Thank you, Aradia."
"You're welcome, Harry."
Blaise has got Harry a book on the history of Parselmouths and Parseltongue, which Harry can't wait to read. The first page on the inside of the book is an intricate map that apparently shows parts of Africa and India and China where some historical Parselmouths lived. Harry is tempted to dig into it, but he does hold back when he notices the stiffness in Blaise's shoulders.
He's getting down to the bottom of the pile of gifts, and he must have noticed there's no box for him from Harry.
"Your present is here, Blaise," Harry calls, and reaches into one of his pockets, ignoring Artemis's grumbling. She'll be glad to see the thing go.
Blaise spins around on his knees, and Aradia settles back on the couch as if she was about to get up. Harry sighs. He really did think that Blaise's gift would be too fragile to wrap up in paper, and wanted to keep it close to him in case it fell apart.
But he can admit that he also kept it with him because he wanted to be the one to give it to Blaise with his own hand, and not miss the moment because he was occupied with Artemis or something.
Blaise reaches out with a shaking hand to accept the tiny dragon crouched in the middle of Harry's palm. Harry concentrates fiercely to keep from reaching out to it with a puff of his own magic, the way he did when he animated it. It has to be able to last on its own, away from him, or it isn't going to be that great a gift for Blaise.
Blaise holds up the dragon as if it's the most precious thing in the world. And the little dragon, made of glittering pieces of blue glass locked together with magic, and with snowy white feathers from Hedwig making up its wings, flaps its wings and opens its jaws—its teeth are small, sharp pebbles—and—
Harry breathes out slowly. He did it! The dragon breathes a tiny curl of flame.
"How in the world did you do this?" Blaise whispers, without taking his eyes from the dragon. "I didn't—I thought you couldn't animate things like this—where you did even get the glass?"
"How did you make it breathe fire, Harry?" Aradia interjects. Her voice is soft and strange, but Harry can't take his eyes from Blaise and Blaise's joy to look at her. "That is something I have never seen, and I must be sure it is not dangerous."
"I got the glass from some of the Potions vials I brought in Diagon Alley. I just broke them," Harry tells Blaise, and then turns to face Aradia. "And it's just magic that's inside it, M—Aradia. I promise. I willed it to breathe fire like I willed Artemis to exist. And I made it so that it could never hurt Blaise."
"I do find myself curious how you animated it, Harry. From what my son said, you have not managed to animate anything well except in the presence of danger."
"No," Harry says with a little frown. When he agreed that Blaise could tell his mum about Harry's magic, he didn't insist on reading the letters Blaise sent to Aradia. He thinks now that Blaise must have got things a little wrong. "I just need to really want something to happen. I wanted a friend when I made Artemis. And I wanted to save myself when I made the thing that attacked the troll. And I really wanted to make a Christmas gift for Blaise."
Aradia watches him with intense, critical eyes. She looks like Aunt Petunia for the first time. Harry hopes it's the only time. He raises his head and watches stubbornly back.
Aradia smiles abruptly. "Yes, I understand," she says. "You should probably still work on control of your gift, Harry, to make sure that you can use it when you need to and not only when you most intensely want to." She turns and looks at Blaise. "What are you going to name it, Blaise?"
"Him," Blaise whispers, and settles the dragon onto his shoulder. The little thing crouches there happily enough, and breathes out another tiny bit of fire. "Ignis."
"That's fire in Latin, right?" Harry asks.
"Yes," Blaise says firmly. "That's what his name is."
Harry smiles. That's good enough for him. "Happy Christmas, Blaise."
"Happy Christmas, Harry."
If Blaise sounds a little choked up, well, Harry can remember that Blaise didn't have a friend before this year, either. He looks away politely and pets Artemis.
Aradia watches the dragon—Ignis—and lets the wards wrap gently around the small dragon, along with most of her awareness. Part of her attention remains, by necessity, on Harry, Blaise, and the suns.
The magic of the little dragon is intricate in a way she has seen before, in fact less intricate than in some of the toys that she gave Blaise when he was a young boy, but it is seething. The magic of the plushes and other toys was settled. This power dances constantly through the little dragon's body, binding it together moment by moment, keeping the fire alive in it.
And probably keeping the fire harmless to Blaise, too, given that Blaise coaxes Ignis to breathe directly on his hair and it doesn't burst into flame.
It can only be Harry's will, Aradia thinks.
Most wizards and witches, of course, excel at using their wills, pushing it out in brief, focused bursts during spells, many of them more powerful than Ignis. But the word brief is what matters. Once the spell arrives at its destination, an object or another person or a place, it executes itself and settles. It does not keep moving. Aradia thinks that perhaps it is theoretically possible that it could, but it should leave the magical person who cast it on the verge of collapse, in that case.
Harry is happily talking with his snake and admiring the cloak Aradia gave him, pulling it around his shoulders and making "Whoosh" noises.
Aradia nods a little. So Harry can make extremely powerful spells that defy most of what she knows about magical theory. He can animate small creatures enough that they essentially live. And he decided that he should do something this strong and intense and borderline miraculous for her son as a Christmas present.
Harry is devoted to Blaise.
Aradia intends to see that he has every reason to stay that way.
Blaise concentrates on Ignis so that he won't look up and blub or something equally stupid. He strokes his fingers down Ignis's back. He can see the seams between the different fragments of glass making up Ignis's body, but he can't feel them. Blaise's gift dragon is perfect and flawless.
Ignis is the first Latin word Blaise learned. It's the first spell his mother taught him to cast, a wandless, modified Incendio that makes a small intense flame spring up on his palm. It can be used for light and heat.
It can also, if Blaise drives his hand into someone's skin or mouth, hurt an attacker quite badly. Mother knows her reputation. She knows that someone might try to snatch Blaise, off the street or at Hogwarts, and use him against her.
Now Harry has given Blaise a dragon that—although Harry didn't say it—would probably fly to Blaise's defense and do the same thing.
Blaise is made of broken glass, too, he thinks sometimes. He knows the importance of Mother's work, he respects it, and he knows that he has power he owes to her, both his family name and some of his spells. But he hasn't known how to reconcile that with his own goals and desires to be independent and have power of his own.
Now he knows part of the answer. Now he feels less broken, with some of those pieces attached to Harry.
Blaise knows why his mother kills. What she kills for.
Now he knows who he would do that for, too.