AN- Not much to say. This is being posted just minutes after chapter 20 was so nothing new has happened…
H/H FOREVER!
Bye!
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Things returned to what passed for normal at Hogwarts after the Gryffindor-Slytherin Quidditch match, but Christmas was quickly approaching and one could almost feel it in the air.
One morning at the beginning of December, the whole of Hogwarts awoke to find the world outside the castle walls had turned a sparkling white. The entire Hogwarts staff (even a rather reluctant Snape) agreed to leave off classes for the day since it was Friday and combined with the fact that it was the first snowfall they realized that the students would be hard pressed to pay any attention in class.
The general feeling of happiness and good cheer was even more exhilarating for Harry who had never really had a Christmas that was in anyway different from any other day with the Dursleys, or rather he'd had one Christmas with his parents, but that could hardly be counted since he didn't remember it.
The Weasley twins enchanted a pair of snowballs to follow Professor Quirrell around the grounds, bouncing off the back of his turban and were punished for it. Professor Flitwick began teaching them different decorating charms; everyone was getting into the holiday spirit. Even Malfoy's sneer seemed a little more like a smile than a sneer.
Of course Malfoy's way of showing his good cheer was to try and make as many people as possible as miserable as he could manage. After the disappointment of Gryffindor's victory he'd tried to get people laughing at Harry by suggesting that he'd be replaced with a wide mouthed tree frog in the next match; however, it quickly became apparent that everyone one was too impressed that Harry had stayed on his broom at all to laugh at such a weak joke. When Malfoy saw that insulting Harry's Quidditch skills was pointless he resorted to making fun of Harry's lack of a true family.
' I really do feel sorry,' he said during one particularly freezing potions lesson, ' for all those who have to stay at Hogwarts over the holidays, because they're not wanted at home.'
He smirked and looked pointedly in Harry's direction, but Harry simply raised an eyebrow at him and shook his head in a disappointed fashion. Surprisingly this served to wipe Malfoy's smirk off his face even faster than anything Harry could have said would. Also Snape couldn't very well yell at Harry for not retaliating.
Of course Harry was fairly sure that the Dursleys wouldn't want him to come home for the holidays, but he didn't want to leave Hogwarts anyway so when McGonagall came around, making a list of all the students who planned to stay at Hogwarts for the holidays he'd signed up immediately.
On their way from the potions class that day Ron, Neville, Hermione and Harry had found the way blocked by a giant fir tree. They could tell from the huffing sounds that Hagrid was carrying it.
' Hey there, Hagrid.' Ron said, walking up to the tree. ' Need any help there?'
Ron and Hagrid had taken a great liking to each other, as they both seemed to really like animals in general.
' Nah, I got it, but thanks, Ron.'
' Would you mind getting out of the way?' a cool voiced asked, but managed to make it sound more like an order than a request.
' Malfoy!' Ron spat.
' Weasley!' Draco mocked in return. ' Hoping to be gamekeeper yourself someday? I suppose that Hagrid's hut must seem like a palace compared to-'
He didn't have a chance to finish before Ron launched himself at him.
Unfortunately Ron couldn't have timed it worse as Professor Snape came around the corner at just that moment and saw Ron tackle Malfoy to the floor.
' WEASLEY!' he snapped, and Ron's head snapped up.
Seeing who it was Ron jumped up off of Malfoy, albeit somewhat reluctantly.
' Twenty points from Gryffindor, Weasley; no fighting in the corridors. Now move along, the lot of you.'
Malfoy sneered and he, Crabbe and Goyle pushed roughly past the tree- or at least they tried to. As he was going by Hagrid suddenly "lost his grip" and he dropped the tree, the branches smacking Crabbe and Goyle in the face and the trunk landing heavily on Malfoy's toes.
Malfoy let out a rather girlish yelp, causing Harry to smirk and Ron to start laughing out loud, and neither made an attempt to hide their mirth.
' Whoops. Sorry 'bout that Malfoy.' Hagrid said, sounding quite sincere, but Harry caught him hiding his smile behind the branches of the tree as he lifted it easily off the Slytherins.
Snape looked furious and his eyebrow started to twitch, but after a moment he spun on his heel and continued on in the direction he was first headed.
Once the four were sure he was gone Hagrid chuckled in a satisfied manner and Hermione let out a giggle.
' That was bloody brilliant, Hagrid!' Ron said in between fits of laughter (he still hadn't finished laughing).
Hagrid attempted to look innocent and confused, but his eyes gave him away to Harry.
' I don't have any idea what you could be talking about, Ron.' He said. ' It's not like I dropped the tree on purpose.'
Harry smirked again at this and the other three had another round of chuckles.
' Why don't you three come on down to the Great Hall with me?' Hagrid suggested. ' This is the last of the trees and Flitwick and McGonagall have almost finished with the other decorations. Looks a treat, it does.'
The trio agreed and followed Hagrid to the great hall where they were greeted by a fantastic sight. Even Ron, who had grown up around magical decorations was stunned and the three friends stood in the doorway, jaws on the floor, for several minutes, just taking in the transformed great hall.
Hagrid chuckled at the reaction and moved into the hall setting up the tree he had been carrying in the far corner of the hall, the only place that lacked any decorations yet.
By the time he had it upright, Ron and Hermione had come to their senses and were smiling at Harry, who was still staring around at the decorations in awe.
Finally Hermione nudged Harry with her elbow.
' You'd think you'd never seen a Christmas tree before, Harry.' She teased him.
Instead of smiling as Hermione thought he would, Harry just sighed and looked down at his feet.
' Wait a minute.' Said Ron with a frown. ' You have seen a Christmas tree before - haven't you, Harry?'
' Well… no, but it's no big deal. Right?' Harry said softly as he looked up and smiled, but if Ron or Hermione could see his eyes behind his glasses they'd see that the smile didn't touch his eyes.
Both Ron and Hermione wore concerned looks now that said quite clearly that it was indeed a big deal.
' How could you have never seen a Christmas tree before, Harry? I mean, your aunt and uncle do celebrate Christmas, don't they?' Hermione asked her voice a little higher pitched than normal.
Harry let his smile drop in an instant.
' If you don't mind I'd rather not talk about my - relatives in public.' Harry said casually, but his clenched jaws made it clear that he wanted the conversation to stop right there.
' Sure, but we're talking about this later.' Said Ron firmly, but he let the subject go and the trio went over to chat with Hagrid.
Neither Ron nor Hermione knew much about Harry's life before Hogwarts other than what was in history books; that he lived with his aunt, uncle and cousin and that they were his only living relatives and they were muggles. Up until that day they hadn't really noticed the fact or they had let it go for some other time, but now both Ron and Hermione were both intrigued and suspicious of Harry's quick end to the subject.
A few months ago Harry probably would have believed that it wasn't a big deal to have never seen a Christmas tree before, but his time at Hogwarts was teaching him more than just magic. He was beginning to learn how most children were treated and how all children should be treated; and that was certainly not how the Dursleys treated him.
For all of his life Harry had learned from the Dursleys' example that special people (Dudley) were treated one way, and "freaks" (Harry) were treated another way. It was all Harry had ever known and so he had believed that it was natural and normal. It took a few months at Hogwarts, but when Harry had realized that the Dursleys had been treating him quite horribly all of his life he had made a vow never to treat anyone the same way himself. He would never let himself judge people and treat them according to what they were, only according to who they were. He couldn't change the Dursleys and he still needed them for a place to stay in the summer, but he swore to himself that he would never become like them.
The rest of the day was spent finishing homework and searching for some mention of Nicolas Flamel in the library. They had tried looking in all of the recent history books such as "Notable Magical Names of Our Time" and "Great Wizards of the Twentieth Century", but no mention was made of the elusive Nicolas. Ron and Hermione did have a good time laughing at an artist's representation of Harry's defeat of Voldemort in "A Study of Recent Developments in Wizardry" though.
Harry tried to set the book on fire, but Ron grabbed it and ran, as soon as Harry pulled out his wand, laughing all the while. Hermione just about had a fit as she cracked up over Ron and Harry's antics. They were almost kicked out of the library for, but the librarian liked Hermione and there weren't many students in the library so close to the holidays in any case so they were allowed to stay.
The days before the beginning of the holidays were the best days of Harry's life. He was able, for the most part, to forget that one of the professors might be trying to steal something from Hogwarts and that at the end of the year he would have to return to the Dursleys, and instead he focussed on the things that really mattered. Things like thinking up ways to humiliate Malfoy with Ron, and reading books with Hermione and just generally enjoying actually having friends and people around who cared about him.
He also forgot that Ron and Hermione had demanded that he sit down with them at some point to tell them about his life before Hogwarts. He had said that he couldn't because it would simply be too weird to have an entire conversation just about him, but Ron and Hermione had countered by saying that it was even weirder for them to have their best friend know just about everything about their lives and not know anything at all about his. In the end Harry hadn't had any choice in the matter, but he had managed to get them to put it off until later in the hopes that they would forget about it, as he really would have been quite embarrassed to talk about himself for so long (regardless of whether he lived with the Dursleys or not).
Unfortunately for Harry, neither Ron nor Hermione had forgotten that Harry had promised to finally tell them about what he did before he met them and they were only waiting for a time when he would have no more excuses to put it off until later.
That time came with the start of the winter break. Aside from Ron, Hermione and Harry no other Gryffindors were staying at Hogwarts for the holidays and only a few more students from the other houses were staying so the trio would have the entire Gryffindor tower to themselves and since it was the holidays Harry could claim to have a prior appointment. He would have no choice but to sit down and tell his friends about his life at the Dursleys.
¿ <'}}}><
' Alright, Harry, time to get up!' Ron shouted in Harry's as he pulled his friend from bed by his ankles.
The other students had left on the Hogwarts express the day before and Harry had planned to sleep in late to celebrate the first day of the holidays. Ron and Hermione seemed to have other plans though. It was actually quite a shock for Harry. He had thought that he would be the one pulling Ron from bed as Ron was usually the last one to get up. It had almost given Harry a heart attack when the alarm charm he always put on his bed had gone off and his eyes had snapped open to see a blur of red hair and freckles in front of his face.
' Have you gone bloody mad?!' Harry groaned into his pillow trying to kick Ron's hands off his ankles. ' What are you doing getting up at this time on a holiday?!'
If there was one thing that Harry did know about holidays, it was that people didn't get up until quite late in the day on them. The Dursleys had never gotten up before eleven o'clock on a holiday and judging by the sun in the window it was around eight o'clock in the morning.
Ron smirked and finally pulled Harry from his covers and onto the floor. It hadn't been easy, but Hermione had convinced Ron that they needed to make Harry talk to them when he least suspected it because otherwise he would probably find some way to either avoid telling them what they wanted to know (Harry had an odd ability to talk for hours at a time, yet when you thought back on it you realized that he actually hadn't told you much at all), or he would find some way to avoid talking to them about himself at all.
' Come on, Harry. Hermione's waiting in the common room; it's time we had that little talk.' Ron teased.
Harry froze where he was then shouted something into his pillow, which he'd dragged onto the floor with him.
' Oh, shablahmmggh!'
' Language, Harry! Language!' Ron said in a mockingly shocked voice.
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AN- Hey everyone! Did that suck? I think it did, but it'll get better (I hope). It was also too short.
Anywho, when Harry finally tells Ron and Hermione about his life with the Dursleys we too will learn more about Harry. Harry will get some of the sympathy he deserves, but he's not going to like it, and he'll also talk about some of the things that he did as a child that proved he was a wizard.
One question that will help me writing the next part: How powerful (or how weak) do you wonderful people want Harry to be?
That's all for now.
H/H FOREVER!
Bye!